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A little known species driven to the edge of extinction by poaching, has gained extra protection at the Cites meeting in South Africa.

Ocean storms, California fires and an ice-free North-west Passage were among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last month

Composite image of an active Pacific and Atlantic storm season on 30 August 2016, with three hurricanes, two tropical depressions and a former typhoon visible from the ring of geostationary satellites in orbit high above above the Earth.

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Projected climate change is set to happen too quickly for grass species, including major food crops, to adapt to the new conditions, a study suggests.

The report found that California, despite its green reputation, is refining the majority of crude oil – with one facility accounting for 24% of the US total

US imports of crude oil from the Amazon are driving the destruction of some of the rainforest ecosystem’s most pristine areas and releasing copious amounts of greenhouse gases, according to a new report.

The study, conducted by environmental group Amazon Watch, found that American refineries processed 230,293 barrels of Amazon crude oil a day last year.

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In this Peruvian shanty town endangered wildlife is sold daily at market, live or freshly cooked in gory detail by traders flouting lax enforcement. Stopping this growing illegal trade will be key to discussions at Cites this week

Where a confluence of rivers meet the Peruvian city of Iquitos, the world’s largest city to be inaccessible by road, lies Belén, a partially floating shanty town and market where endangered monkeys change hands for a few dollars and wildlife traffickers take orders to stock informal zoos or private collections with the abundant fauna from the world’s largest rainforest.

Wildlife is part of the town’s daily trade. A ban on selling bushmeat is openly ignored in Belén’s market. Deep-auburn slabs of the smoked meat of the endangered South America tapir (Tapirus terrestris) are stacked high on trestle tables. The protruding hoof of a peccary or the paw of an agouti betray the fact that there is hunted game on sale.

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In the US today, the most affordable and climate-friendly cars are electric

In a new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, with an accompanying app for the public, scientists at MIT compare the carbon pollution from today’s cars to the international 2°C climate target. In order to meet that target, overall emissions need to decline dramatically over the coming decades.

The MIT team compared emissions from 125 electric, hybrid, and gasoline cars to the levels we need to achieve from the transportation sector in 2030, 2040, and 2050 to stay below 2°C global warming. They also looked at the cost efficiency of each car, including vehicle, fuel, and maintenance costs. The bottom line:

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We are now living in a 400ppm world with levels unlikely to drop below the symbolic milestone in our lifetimes, say scientists. Climate Central reports

In the centuries to come, history books will likely look back on September 2016 as a major milestone for the world’s climate. At a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide is usually at its minimum, the monthly value failed to drop below 400 parts per million (ppm).

That all but ensures that 2016 will be the year that carbon dioxide officially passed the symbolic 400 ppm mark, never to return below it in our lifetimes, according to scientists.

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The latest World Health Organisation report on air quality finds one in nine people are at risk from pollution.

Have you heard of wave power? This is a form of clean energy that is generated using the power of waves that move across the surface of bodies of water.

Europe's only non-human primate, the Barbary Macaque is likely to gain the highest level of protection at the Cites meeting in South Africa.

Helmeted hornbills’ solid red beak sells for several times the price of elephant ivory due to soaring demand on the Chinese black market

A virtually unknown ivory poaching crisis is rapidly driving one of the world’s most spectacular birds to extinction, a global wildlife summit has heard.

The helmeted hornbill, found mainly in Indonesia, Borneo and Thailand, has a solid red beak which sells as a “red ivory” on the black market, for several times the price of elephant ivory. The huge birds have been caught for centuries for their tail feathers, prized by local communities, but since 2011 poaching has soared to feed Chinese demand for carving ivory, even though the trade is illegal, sending the hornbill into a death spiral.

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Frydenberg continues attack on state-based renewable energy targets, citing Grattan report that claims they are inefficient and too costly. But in the absence of any federal initiative, what choice do the states have?

Suburban homeowners stocking their garden ponds with frogs, fish or spawn from other ponds or aquatic centres are helping the ranavirus move around

British suburban gardeners may be unknowingly driving the spread of a lethal frog disease by stocking their ponds with exotic or wild aquatic species, research shows.

Scientists from ZSL and Queen Mary University of London say their findings could explain the rapid spread of ranavirus across UK amphibian populations in recent decades.

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Carnegie gets grant and funding through convertible notes to put together the world's first micro-grid that combines wave energy, solar and battery storage.

Bill Mollison in 2008. Nicolás Boullosa/Flickr, CC BY

It is with great sadness that I acknowledge the passing of Bill Mollison on Saturday, September 24 (1928-2016). He was one of the true pioneers of the modern environmental movement, not just in Australia but globally.

Best known as co-originator of the “permaculture” concept with David Holmgren, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award in 1981, Mollison helped develop a holistic body of environmental theory and practice which is widely recognised as one of Australia’s finest and most original contributions to the global sustainability challenge.

A brief history of permaculture

Mollison grew up in Stanley, Tasmania. After leaving school at 15 he moved through a range of occupations before joining the CSIRO in the Wildlife Survey Section in 1954, where he developed his research experience and understanding of ecological systems.

He was later appointed to the University of Tasmania, which is where, in 1974, he met the brilliant and radical young research student, David Holmgren

The collaboration between Mollison and Holmgren resulted in the permaculture concept, culminating in the publication of their seminal work, Permaculture One in 1978, which sparked the global movement.

What is permaculture?

Permaculture defies simple definition and understanding. The term began as a fusion of “permanent” and “agriculture”. Even back in the 1970s, Mollison and Holmgren could see how destructive industrial agriculture was to natural habitats and topsoils, and how dependent it was on finite fossil fuels.

It was clear that these systems were unsustainable, a position ratified by scientific reports today which expose the alarming effects industrial agriculture has on biodiversity and climate stability. The two pioneering ecologists began to wonder what a “permanent agriculture” would look like. Thus permaculture was born.

In the broadest terms, permaculture is a design system that seeks to work with the laws of nature rather than against them. It aims to efficiently meet human needs without degrading the ecosystems we all rely on to flourish.

Put otherwise, permaculture is an attempt to design human systems and practices in ways that mimic the cycles of nature to eliminate waste, increase resilience and allow for the just and harmonious co-existence of human beings with other species.

A wide range of design principles were developed to help put these broad ideas and values into practice. This practical application and experimentation is what really defines permaculture. Before all else, participants in the movement get their hands in the soil and seek to walk the talk.

There is now a vast array of excellent books detailing the practice of permaculture, as well as outstanding websites such as the Permaculture Research Institute for those wanting to learn, share, explore and connect.

Although permaculture was initially focused on sustainable methods of organic food production, the concept soon evolved to embrace the broader design challenges of sustainable living – not just “permanent agriculture”, but “permanent culture”.

Today we face profound environmental and social challenges: ecological overshoot, climate instability, looming resource scarcity, and inequitable concentrations of wealth. In such a world the permaculture ethics of “care of people, care of planet, and fair share” imply radical changes to the way we live with each other and on the planet.

As well as transitioning away from fossil-fuel-dependent agriculture toward local organic production, permaculture implies the embrace of renewable energy systems, “simple living” lifestyles of modest consumption, as well as retrofitting the suburbs for sustainability and energy efficiency.

From a grassroots or community perspective, the transition towns and ecovillage movements acknowledge their profound debts to permaculture.

From a macroeconomic perspective, permaculture implies a degrowth transition to a steady-state economy that operates within the sustainable limits of the planet. Permaculture even has implications for what alternative forms of global development might look like.

So, in answer to the complex question “what is permaculture?”, perhaps the most concise response is to say with others that “permaculture is a revolution disguised as organic gardening”.

Bill Mollison’s legacy: a challenge to us all

Despite developing into a thriving global movement, permaculture still has not received the full attention it deserves. As the world continues to degrade ecosystems through the poor design of social and economic systems, it has never been clearer that permaculture is a way of life whose time has come.

Nevertheless, permaculture is not a panacea that can answer all challenges. Permaculture is not without its critics (see, for example, here and here). But I would argue that the lens of permaculture can certainly illuminate the path to a more sustainable and flourishing way of life, such that we ignore its insights at our own peril.

Thank you, Bill Mollison, for the inspiration and insight – and the challenge you have left us with to design a civilisation that regenerates rather than degrades our one and only planet. May humanity learn the lessons of permaculture sooner rather than later.

Only then, I suspect, will “Uncle Bill” rest in peace.

Samuel Alexander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire The season might just have tipped over the balance of the autumn equinox but the woods were still green

When I heard the robin’s call, I stopped on the path and peered into the woods. The call had all the qualities of alarm that we recognise: an annoying insistence, a way of filling space with inescapable sound, an instinctive understanding that something was wrong. Like heart-monitoring machines in A&E, a reversing vehicle or a broken-into car, it was a warning but, unlike mechanised alarms, it was made from a narrative – a collection of rapid phrases, sharp as rattling a box of knives.

The season might have just tipped over the balance of the autumn equinox but the woods were still green. Infinite greens – leaves, stems, trunks, brambles, ferns, shadows – merged together to form a vanishing green in which everything disappeared. Something stirred in the crab apples and the alarm flashed red-for-danger as the robin turned to face me.

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Queensland’s environment minister says Liberal National party’s refusal to pass laws puts reef in danger of being listed by Unesco as ‘in danger’

The failure of tree clearing reforms in Queensland is the only significant delay in Australia’s conservation plan for the Great Barrier Reef, says a progress report by the state and federal governments.

But the Queensland environment minister, Steven Miles, has declared the roadblock on a “huge” reform for the reef – coupled with a historic bleaching event that killed nearly a quarter of its coral – may lead Unesco to reconsider an “in danger” listing.

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The aviation industry is backing a proposal for a single worldwide standard to offset emissions from international flights.

Team arrow evaluating level of interest in its prototype ‘commercial’ solar car that it plans to road register by second half of 2017.

Eastern quolls – small, fleet-footed and ferocious – are one of Australia’s few surviving marsupial predators. They were once so common in southeast Australia that when Europeans arrived the quolls were reportedly hyperabundant.

But by the 1960s they were extinct on the mainland, driven down by a combination of disease, poisoning, persecution and predation.

Despite their mainland demise, eastern quolls continued to thrive in Tasmania – until recently. Across Tasmania, quoll numbers declined by more than 50% in the 10 years to 2009 and show no sign of recovery.

Recognising this worrying decline, the quolls have recently been listed as endangered internationally and in Australia. This is a stark reminder of how quickly a common species can plunge towards extinction.

But the quolls can still recover, as long as we act now while we still have an opportunity. In research published in Wildlife Research, I looked at what caused the decline, and how we can help.

Change in the weather

Several factors coincided with the decline, but after five years of investigation I found that a period of unfavourable weather was the most likely explanation.

Eastern quolls prefer areas with low rainfall and cold winters. But an 18-month period of warm winters and higher seasonal rainfall during 2002-03 resulted in most of Tasmania becoming unsuitable for eastern quolls. This rapidly drove their numbers down. In fact, the amount of environmentally suitable habitat in this period was lower than at any other time during the previous 60 years.

With the frequency of extreme weather events predicted to increase over coming decades, the future for eastern quolls looks uncertain.

Eastern quoll numbers declined as unfavourable weather conditions reduced the amount of environmentally suitable habitat across Tasmania (grey shading). Fancourt et al (2015) The predator pit

Interestingly, while weather conditions have since improved, eastern quolls have not recovered. With their numbers pushed so low, the remaining small populations can no longer breed faster than other threats kill them off. Historically, when quoll numbers were higher, they could cope with these threats.

Quolls are now trapped in what ecologists call a “predator pit”. Predators, cars, poison and a range of other threats are killing quolls as quickly as they can reproduce.

So population growth is in limbo – not because any threats have increased, but because small populations don’t have the capacity to outpace those same threats anymore.

Contrary to earlier predictions, feral cat numbers in Tasmania have not increased following declines in the Tasmanian devil population. Quoll populations could previously cope with the loss of a few quolls (mainly juveniles) to cats. However, that same number of quolls killed by cats is now potentially enough to wipe out any population growth, preventing the species’ recovery.

While feral cat numbers have not increased in Tasmania, cat predation of juvenile quolls could still be preventing their population from recovering. Bronwyn Fancourt Numbers game

The key factor preventing quoll recovery is their current small population. Quoll numbers need a boost, increasing reproductive capacity so that they can once again outpace the threats they are facing. This could be done by supplementing small, surviving populations in Tasmanian with quolls from captive-breeding colonies, insurance populations or the wild population on Bruny Island (which is doing better than mainland Tasmania).

Reducing feral cat numbers at key sites in early summer could also help reduce predation as juvenile quolls enter the population. That would potentially increase juvenile survival and allow quoll populations to grow and recover.

Increasing survival rates of juvenile quolls in the wild is key to helping the species recover. Bronwyn Fancourt Should quolls be reintroduced to the mainland?

Since word of the eastern quolls’ plight has spread, there has been increasing talk of reintroducing them to Australia’s mainland, where they disappeared more than 50 years ago. Such proposals are often well-intentioned and could potentially help restore some mainland ecosystems.

However, this could actually serve to drive wild populations in Tasmania closer to extinction, making the species’ recovery more difficult.

With only small populations persisting in the wild, removing only one or two individuals from a population could be enough to render that population functionally extinct – and once a population is functionally extinct it is on the path to total extinction.

Similarly, using quolls from captive colonies and insurance populations for mainland reintroductions further removes valuable quolls that could be used to repopulate and recover wild populations in Tasmania.

The eastern quoll’s persistence in Tasmania decades after it disappeared from the mainland suggests Tasmania is a far safer place for eastern quolls and offers them the best chance to recover. Removing them from a relatively safe place and reintroducing them to high-risk mainland sites filled with dingoes, foxes and toxic fox baits could actually hinder, not help, their recovery. For example, while baiting foxes may reduce the threat from foxes, it takes less than half of one fox bait to kill an adult female eastern quoll.

Mainland reintroductions should definitely be a goal in the longer term. But given the dangerously low numbers in Tasmania, we shouldn’t take Tasmanian quolls for high-risk mainland reintroductions until the Tasmanian population is safe. Once numbers in the wild have recovered, wild-sourced Tasmanian quolls could be reintroduced to mainland sites without putting wild populations at risk.

It’s time to act

Australia’s declining species face a slippery slope towards extinction. The key to recovery is understanding why the species declined, then acting while there is still time.

Australia’s history is littered with examples where delays and inaction prevented small populations from recovering, with some species now lost forever. The eastern quolls’ fate is not yet sealed. But we have to act now.

Bronwyn Fancourt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.