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The nation is losing the political will to protect our pristine places – and biodiversity is suffering

What if the Franklin river hadn’t been saved?

Stopping the Gordon-below-Franklin dam was one of the Australian environment movement’s great victories: in the late 1970s, the state-owned Hydro-Electric Commission wanted to flood one of three last temperate rainforests in the southern hemisphere to create a power station.

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February is the riskiest time of the year for blackouts, as the nation returns to work and school and soaring temperatures put pressure on the system. Hugh Saddler, Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Maggie Sutton calls on all sellers of loose fruit and veg to supply only paper bags, and Kate Lammin says Waitrose and Prince Charles’s Duchy brand aren’t helping, while Melanie Wood looks to the Guardian to set an example

I do so agree with Joleah Lamb (‘It’s like gangrene’: disease soars as plastic fouls reef, 26 January) about the need for people to take direct action against plastic. I would love to do so and so would thousands like me, but the question is how when manufacturers and supermarkets are calling the shots? I will buy only loose fruit and vegetables to avoid packaging, but all supermarkets and some market stalls offer only plastic bags to wrap them. A very simple and immediate change that could be made, long before the introduction of biodegradable packaging becomes available, would for all sellers of loose fruit and vegetables to supply only paper bags from now. I for one will be buying my greengrocery at the first supermarket and market stall that does that, and I expect many feel the same way.
Maggie Sutton
Wells, Somerset

• It is infuriating to find my local Waitrose wrapping more and more vegetables in plastic. Since the supermarket teamed up with Prince Charles’s Duchy brand, it has been almost impossible to buy less than six of most fruit, and every green vegetable is plastic-wrapped. Duchy is meant to be organic and interested in saving the planet; a pity Harry didn’t question Pa about that, but then of course, they don’t shop! I have emailed both Waitrose and Duchy, to no avail. Good for Iceland taking the lead: I now only buy fresh veg and fruit at my local greengrocer, who uses time-honoured brown paper bags.
Kate Lammin
Twickenham

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Reading human DNA used to take laboratories, a pile of cash and a long time.

A new species of dinosaur unearthed in the Egyptian desert sheds light on Africa's Age of the Dinosaurs.

We Americans can do better in the fight to protect our threatened heritage, writes Theodore Roosevelt IV, a descendant of the ‘conservation president’

A truly noble idea – one deeply democratic in its inspiration and one that honors the human need to be in relationship to awe and majesty.

America’s public lands.

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Today, we're asking why some of the most disadvantaged parts of our cities cop the worst of a heatwave and how you -- yes, you! -- can do your bit to reduce the risk of a summer time blackout. Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Amid dangers from the Trump administration and climate change, sites including the Grand Canyon and Zion national park are facing yet another threat: ‘massive disrepair’

• As threat to America’s public land increases so does our coverage

At Zion national park, a popular trail has been closed since 2010. At the Grand Canyon, a rusting pipeline that supplies drinking water to the busiest part of the park breaks at least a half-dozen times a year. At Voyageurs, a historic cabin collapsed.

The National Park Service is the protector of some of America’s greatest environmental and cultural treasures. Yet a huge funding shortfall means that the strain of America’s passion for its parks is showing. Trails are crumbling and buildings are rotting. In all there is an $11bn backlog of maintenance work that repair crews have been unable to perform, a number that has mostly increased every year in the past decade.

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To avoid dangerous climate change, we can’t rely on natural gas replacing coal

Over the past decade, coal has been increasingly replaced by cheaper, cleaner energy sources. US coal power production has dropped by 44% (866 terawatt-hours [TWh]). It’s been replaced by natural gas (up 45%, or 400 TWh), renewables (up 260%, or 200 TWh), and increased efficiency (the US uses 9%, or 371 TWh less electricity than a decade ago).

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This Land Is Your Land is our series on an American birthright at risk amid privatization, energy extraction and climate change

Public lands are an American birthright like no other. Managed by the government and held in trust for the people, they range from celebrated national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Everglades to vast western forests and deserts, Pacific coral reefs and Atlantic seamounts. Yet now their future hangs in the balance.

This is why we are delighted to announce a major expansion of our series This Land is Your Land, which will provide coverage of these unique and threatened places.

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In 2008 an archaeologist discovered crocodiles living in remote caves in Gabon. Now, genetics hint that these weird cave crocodilians may be in the process of evolving into a new species.

It sounds like something out of a children’s book: it’s orange, it dwells in a cave and it lives on bats and crickets. But this isn’t some fairy story about a lonely troll – it’s the much weirder tale of a group of African dwarf crocodiles that are adapting to life in pitch-darkness.

“We could say that we have a mutating species, because [the cave crocodile] already has a different [genetic] haplotype,” said Richard Oslisly, who first discovered the cave crocs in 2008. “Its diet is different and it is a species that has adapted to the underground world.”

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We take a look at what's making news in regional Australia on the Country Drive.

Get monthly email updates from our series covering the threat to America’s public lands

America’s public lands are under threat. Sign up for monthly updates from our two-year series, This Land is Your Land, as we cover the challenges facing national parks, forests, deserts, coral reefs and seamounts. We’ll send you the latest stories from the Guardian and our partner publications.

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Anger is often the first response to a near miss on the road but there are better ways to hold drivers to account

Not long ago, while riding down Archway Road in north London, I confronted a truck driver who pulled out without warning. The road is a long steep hill where bikes and cars gather decent speed if traffic is minimal. I was riding at just over 20mph, but flowing with traffic in my lane and within the speed limit. When the truck pulled out only metres ahead, I only just had time to brake, narrowly avoiding a collision and fortunate that the cars behind had not piled into me.

Adrenaline and anger flooded my system. I asked the driver why he made this dangerous move. He contemptuously said he did not see me and that I was going too fast anyway. This suggested a rational discussion was unlikely, and my anger rose. I swore at the driver, who responded by challenging me to fight in the middle of the road. I turned down his invitation; the prospect of carefully placing my bike to one side and trading blows in the middle of the street while cars behind beeped wasn’t tempting.

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Borth, Ceredigion: Arrow-straight as a result of canalisation in the early 19th century, the river once had a meandering path into the open sea

As soon as I reached the top of the sea wall, I realised that I had badly misjudged the state of the tide. Instead of miles of firm sand, recently exposed by the retreating sea, I was faced with a jumble of storm waves breaking against the bank of stone cobbles at the back of the beach. My objective, the dunes of Ynyslas a couple of miles to the north, was temptingly visible through a shroud of misty salt spray – but, stumbling across the shifting, irregular stones, I made only slow progress. Cursing my cursory examination of the tide tables, I realised I had read the time for high water, rather than low.

After I had walked for half an hour, the dunes looked as far away as ever and I began to consider alternatives. Looking east, beyond the ridge of stones and the Afon Leri, I could see the great flat expanse of Cors Fochno – a rare survival of raised peat bog, which forms a key part of the Unesco-recognised Dyfi biosphere. With a backdrop of steep, open hills, this diverse wild landscape is an important ecological resource, protected both by statute and its sheer inaccessibility.

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Victoria's blackouts on Sunday had nothing to do with any crisis of energy supply – coal, renewable or otherwise. But why let the truth get in the way of a good smear campaign?

Tender by major US utility puts the cost of wind plus battery storage and solar plus battery storage below the cost of existing coal plants. It indicates that the cost of large-scale battery storage have fallen by more than half in the past year.

Queensland's Fraser Coast Council has approved plans by REST to develop the 120MW Munna Creek solar farm.

Tesla big battery highlights opportunities for utility scale batteries, and more wind and solar farms are looking hard at the technology.

Fill a tank with water, sugar, and old mobile phones. Add bacteria and stir. Result? Rare earth metals. This is biomining, and it's the way of the future. Marcos Voutsinos, PhD Candidate, Geomicrobiology, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.