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Britain’s seabird colonies face catastrophe as warming waters disrupt their food supply
Populations of gannets, puffins and other marine birds are in freefall, but a crucial scientific study to pinpoint the causes is being blocked, say experts
Bempton Cliffs bird reserve was in fine fettle last week. The last of its population of puffins had departed for the winter a few weeks earlier, while its thousands of young gannets were still being cared for by their parents on the chalk cliffs of the East Yorkshire nature site. For good measure, kittiwakes, cormorants and fulmars were also bathing in the sunshine.
Related: We must stop seabird numbers falling off a cliff. After all, we’re to blame | Adam Nicolson
Continue reading...Magic mushrooms: art foraged from nature – in pictures
The mysterious islands of the Salish Sea, between British Columbia and Washington State, are home to the ecological artist Jill Bliss, who since 2012 has devoted herself to exploring the isolated region, artistically and literally. The archipelago has its own unique ecosystem, and Bliss’s medleys of mushrooms and other arcane plants, which she calls her “living sculptures”, are gathered during a “daily treasure hunt”, hiking through woods and staying in isolated cabins. “This particular medley was made while lost deep in the woods of Cortes Island,” she says of one of her favourite works (see first image, below). “I first spotted the amanita [toadstool] glowing under the shadows of a downed tree.”
Continue reading...'They're like the mafia': the super gangs behind Africa's poaching crisis
Pressure is mounting against multi-faceted smugglers but the legal case, though strong, is enormously complex
Late on 6 June 2014 Kenyan police, acting on a tip-off, raided a used car lot in Mombasa’s industrial area. Inside Fuji Motors East Africa Ltd, in one of the lock-ups, they found two tonnes of ivory.
Days earlier a white Mitsubishi truck, its paperwork claiming “household equipment” but in fact carrying more than 300 elephant tusks secreted beneath a tarpaulin, had pulled into the yard on Mombasa Island’s dirty northern fringe, far from the tourist hotels and beaches for which the city is famous.
Continue reading...Late summer flowers make crucial refuelling stops for the insects
New Forest, Hampshire Marsh flowers provide nectar for a long list of species, from marmalade hoverflies to silver-washed fritillaries
The New Forest rides, named long before many were gravelled to allow cyclists and others ease of access, cut through the inclosures and plantations, serving as motorways for the many small creatures that abound in these woodlands.
Much of the colour here in earlier months has gone. The golden yellow rays of marsh ragwort, Jacobaea aquatica, a plant quickly distinguished from its prolific commoner relative J vulgaris by its broader florets and leaves with a spade-like end, stand out more radiantly because there is so little competition.
Continue reading...Scotland’s first female gamekeeper
A Big Country
Tanzanian police believe wildlife activist may have been tracked by his killer
A police insider has told the Guardian that the killers of Wayne Lotter may have been following him
Police believe Wayne Lotter’s killer may have followed and targeted the conservationist when he was shot on Wednesday, according to inside sources.
Lotter was stopped and then fatally shot while travelling by taxi from Dar es Salaam airport to a hotel. He had been working in Tanzania for many years, exposing and jailing wildlife poachers and traffickers, and he had received a number of death threats. Tanzania’s director for criminal investigation, Robert Boaz, said a murder investigation was underway.
The week in wildlife – in pictures
Brown bears fishing, a rare white moose, and a puma found in a São Paulo office block are among our images from the natural world this week
Continue reading...Silver linings: the climate scientist who records cloud behaviour
Clouds cool the planet by reflecting solar energy back to space and also trap heat and radiate it back to Earth. In a Yale Environment 360 interview, physicist Kate Marvel discusses the double-edged effect clouds have on rising temperatures
Clouds perform an important function in cooling the planet as they reflect solar energy back into space. Yet clouds also intensify warming by trapping the planet’s heat and radiating it back to Earth. As fossil fuel emissions continue to warm the planet, how will this dual role played by clouds change, and will clouds ultimately exacerbate or moderate global warming?
Kate Marvel, a physicist at Columbia University and a researcher at Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is investigating the mysteries of clouds and climate change. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, she discusses what is known about the behaviour of clouds in a warming world (they are migrating more toward the poles), why strict controls need to be imposed on geoengineering experiments with clouds, and why she is confident that science and human ingenuity will ultimately overcome the challenge of climate change.
Continue reading...Government faces fresh criticism over Green Investment Bank sell-off
Lib Dem leader Vince Cable questions UK’s commitment to environmental projects after GIB sale to Australian bank Macquarie
The government is facing renewed criticism after pushing through the “disastrous” sale of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) to the Australian bank Macquarie, as fresh concerns are raised over its commitment to environmental projects.
A consortium led by Macquarie agreed to buy the GIB, which was established in 2012 by the coalition government to fund green infrastructure projects such as windfarms and a waste and bioenergy power plant. The consortium also includes Macquarie’s in-house infrastructure fund and the Universities Superannuation Scheme, a pension fund for British higher education institutions.
Continue reading...Rained-out festival has left the fields in chaos
Minninglow, Derbyshire The Y Not festival site is still a mess, but a walk along the High Peak Trail underlines the resilience of nature
At the top of Gratton Dale, turning into Mouldridge Lane, the familiar white-walled pasture had been transformed. Diggers and tractors swarmed across the fields, beeping frantically. Grass had been churned up everywhere, and serried ranks of portable loos leaned like wearied soldiers. I was baffled. Was this some sort of war re-enactment?
Then I saw the word TONY spelled out in giant letters in the middle of the busiest field, only the Y was drooping and the N was the wrong way round.
Continue reading...Genex solar + pumped hydro project clears another hurdle
BMC Ecology Image Competition 2017 – in pictures
From elephant shrew to Tibetan antelope and the two towers of Antarctica, here are the best wildlife and nature photographs from this year’s competition
Continue reading...Researchers one step closer to efficient, colorful solar panels
Graph of the Day: Higher SA wind output, lower wholesale power prices
Pic of the Day: Old meets new at solar-powered antique shop
Windlab’s 1200MW Kennedy Energy Park set for construction, after IPO windfall
Australian wind delivers more record low prices, as private sector piles in
Redflow chooses Thailand for battery factory
Queensland conservationists call for river-mining ban to protect Great Barrier Reef
State mines minister rejects two applications at reserves west of Cape Tribulation which campaigners say should set a precedent
The “archaic” practice of mining rivers in north Queensland is making a mockery of Australia’s key policy to protect the Great Barrier Reef, wasting multimillion-dollar efforts to cut runoff pollution, its opponents say.
“Instream” mining in Queensland, the only state still allowing the excavation of rivers for gold, tin and silver, is unleashing torrents of fine sediment in one of the reef’s largest catchments.
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