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You can forget the advice on disguises, secret codes and spreading propaganda by dropping leaflets in train carriages. But there is something for us all here about the need for action

The SOE Syllabus was a series of lectures given to prospective secret agents in Britain during the second world war. These “lessons in ungentlemanly warfare” were released from the top secret bit of the Public Record Office (now known as the National Archive) and published as a historical curio in 2001, when my esteemed colleague John Crace picked out the sillier bits in one of his Digested Read reviews. There was a whole lecture about how to craft a disguise, in which people with sticky-out ears were advised to use glue to pin them back.

But now, 24 years later, I have picked up the book with a graver purpose – just on the off-chance that if we end up having to resist a fascist state, the past might have something to offer. They won’t know everything, these ungentlemanly gentlemen, being as they didn’t have the internet. But they can’t have known nothing.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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Unsustainable logging is one of the global north’s best-kept secrets. We’re running out of time to stop it

The world is running out of time to halt deforestation and forest degradation. Yet instead of stepping up, the United States is dismantling forest protections and undermining global progress – highlighting the dangers of global forest policy that fails to hold the wealthiest, most powerful countries accountable.

Unsustainable logging is one of the global north’s best-kept secrets. Each year, millions of acres of old-growth and primary forests across North America, Europe, and Australia are clearcut under the guise of “sustainable forest management”. International policy, by design, looks the other way, focusing attention instead on deforestation in the tropics. This double standard allows the world’s wealthiest nations to evade accountability for industrial logging’s catastrophic consequences.

Jennifer Skene is director of global northern forests policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council

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In the dusty Queensland channel country, those old enough to remember still talk about the 1974 outback floods. For more than 50 years that has been the ultimate measuring stick for every downpour or trickle to flow through the central desert towards Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre.

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Detail not yet clear about new nature watchdog plan, which comes after previous attempt drew backlash from Western Australia

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