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Thanks to new legislation, NOAA will be able to boost its ability to predict major weather-related events, such as hurricanes, droughts, floods and wildfires – and improved forecasts could have significant business impacts

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Volunteer rescuers have been learning how to save marine creatures when they wash up on the beach.

Sainsbury’s has launched a new ‘Fairly Traded’ tea range. Well and good, but the fear is they may seek to swerve Fairtrade’s tough regulations

We know the drill. An appealing product gets listed by a major retailer, becomes well loved by consumers only for that retailer to replace it with an own-brand version.

Sainsbury’s says its new system is up to date, focusing more on climate change

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Science reporter Victoria Gill joins researchers in Arizona to find out how President Trump's wall could affect endangered desert wildlife.

Nasa chief engineer Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu on the robots that are changing the world.

How President Trump's "great wall" on US-Mexico border could affect endangered desert wildlife.

New Forest South Only on private land can we experience a sense of remoteness that was once commonplace here

Small heath butterflies flirt among the delicate pink flowers of sea-spurrey. A solitary meadow brown flashes past, wind-driven and quickly lost against the muddy crust of dried-out estuarine pools.

There’s bright blue sky overhead, but the spinnaker-ballooning yachts out in the Solent lean over on a choppy white-tipped sea. Oystercatchers hunker down in the gulleys above which three forest ponies graze. Their movement disturbs a group of shelduck sheltering in a dip that bob fleetingly into sight.

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What does a five gram microbat have in common with a four metre, dead, dense beaked whale? More than you might think.

In Australia an estimated 85 per cent of our clothes end up in landfill and with the rise of fast fashion that figure growing fast.

Wildlife photographer Joel Sartore has photographed more than 6,000 contained species so far. He explains why.

Museum Victoria collects gelatinous fish, spiny crabs, scarlet sea-spiders, nightmarish cookie cutter sharks and plenty of rubbish

• Gallery: Deep sea discoveries: sea pigs, a dumbo octopus and glow-in-the-dark sharks

There’s no sunlight four kilometres below the waves but there is light.

It comes from a sea cucumber that emits a faint glow from its sticky skin, attracting fish and crabs that try to take bites out of its side. The skin is both a lure and a trap, marking incautious predators with a sticky glowing dot, an “eat me” sign to any passing larger predators.

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Images of bizarre deep sea creatures found in May and June by the research ship Investigator as it travelled along the Australian coastline to the Coral Sea. The scientists aboard the ship mapped the sea floor to a depth of 4,000 metres and collected more than 1,000 different marine species, about a third of which were new to science and half of which showed some kind of bioluminescent quality

• Voyage to the sea floor: expedition returns with fascinating finds

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We take a measure of China's commitment to decarbonisation

Sir John Sulston is elevated to the Companion of Honour in the Queen’s birthday list.

Interview with anthropologist José Proaño on dangers to indigenous peoples in “isolation” posed by timber trade

Three NGOs in Ecuador marked the UN’s World Environment Day last week by releasing a report alleging that illegal loggers are operating in the famous Yasuní National Park in the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse places in the world. The loggers are crossing the border from Peru and mainly extracting cedar from territories used by indigenous peoples living in “isolation”, according to the NGOs.

The report focuses on a reconnaissance trip made in May which documented illegal logging in the park, as well as “massive” commercial hunting and the abandonment of premises supposedly run by the Environment Ministry and military. The trip was made, the report states, after several government visits to the region in recent years which confirmed that illegal loggers and hunters were operating, but led to almost no action being taken to stop them. On one occasion illegal wood was confiscated, but it was recovered by Peruvian loggers, it is claimed, in a “possible violent attack against [an Ecuadorian] military post.”

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Volunteers help unearth Aboriginal rock art in the Blue Mountains; English-born chef Tim Burn calls the outback town of Tibooburra home; and 'chicken couture' for a brood of featherless chooks.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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A great white pelican, a slow loris and wildebeest on migration in the Masai Mara are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Beaches in the remote Arctic islands were found to be more polluted than European ones due to plastic carried from much further south

Beaches on remote Arctic islands are heavily polluted with plastic, a new expedition has found, demonstrating that the region is the dumping ground for waste carried northwards on the Gulf Stream.

The shorelines of islands in the Svalbard archipelago and of Jan Mayen island were found to be littered with much more plastic waste than on European beaches, despite tiny local populations.

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Human activity is worsening the problem in an already rainy area, and there could be damage worthy of a disaster movie if a storm hits the industrial section

Sam Brody is not a real estate agent, but when his friends want to move home they get in touch to ask for advice. He is a flood impact expert in Houston – and he has plenty of work to keep him busy.

The Texas metropolis has more casualties and property loss from floods than any other locality in the US, according to data stretching back to 1960 that Brody researched with colleagues. And, he said, “Where the built environment is a main force exacerbating the impacts of urban flooding, Houston is number one and it’s not even close.”

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