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Photographs show only localised bleaching but there is concern it has come so early in the season

Warm water has already begun bleaching coral on the Great Barrier Reef, weeks ahead of the period with highest forecast risk. Satellite data suggest widespread bleaching is possible by March.

Selina Ward, a coral reef biologist from the University of Queensland, has photographed the bleaching, which she said appeared to be very localised so far, but was concerning because of how early in the season it was.

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It's Australia's third longest river system, stretching more than 1400km in outback New South Wales. We go paddling the Darling River with Brisbane-based Tony Pritchard.

Last year the ABC launched its War on Waste series. It was a campaign to make us stop and think about how we live, look at how we could re-use and recycle items in our homes, and cut down on unnecessary waste. Today in the last in our summer series we meet a young fashion student who wants us all to take stock of what's hanging in our wardrobes.

We're off on a fossil dig in north-west Queensland; we go in search of yellow footed rock wallabies in South Australia's northern pastoral region; and check out the latest in chicken couture.

Among others, one is more likely to die from a bicycle accident, lightning strike, mauling by alligator or bear, than by a shark attack

The president of the United States does not like sharks.

Related: Stormy Daniels on Trump: pajamas, unprotected sex and … scary sharks

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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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Fernando Trujillo works in dangerous areas of the Amazon to save the rare species.

Icelandic horses, an endangered hawksbill sea turtle and snow leopards are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Cross-party group of 200 MPs have written to the major supermarkets, as pressure grows over the huge amounts of plastic waste they generate

Two hundred cross-party MPs are calling on heads of the major supermarkets to eliminate plastic packaging from their products by 2023.

The MPs, who are from seven political parties, have written to Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda, Waitrose, Aldi, Lidl, Budgens and Marks & Spencer urging them to scrap plastic packaging.

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Jeanette Epps would have been the first African-American astronaut on the space station crew.

Defra prioritises post-Brexit fisheries plan and protection of UK’s coldwater reefs, promising data will be made publicly available online

An assessment of the seas around the UK will carried out by the government and made available online, the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has promised, with a view to cleaning up and improving the inshore environment.

Thérèse Coffey, a Defra minister, said that by the end of this year “a major assessment of how our seas have moved towards good environmental status” would be completed. This assessment, which would be accompanied by an online tool that the general public could use to examine progress on the marine environment and the pressures it is under, is expected to inform future marine policy.

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Last-minute opposition by Westminster city council to park gate closures could leave the new superhighway ‘dead’, says former London cycling commissioner

Plans to close the outer circle of Regent’s Park to rat-running motor traffic are being “significantly watered down” to shutting just two gates – down from four – and to shorter periods, in only the morning and evening peak, it has been revealed.

Although still in discussion, plans for the road, which will form part of cycle superhighway 11 (CS11), have reportedly been under pressure from Westminster city council since they gained 60% approval in a public consultation in August 2016. Those close to discussions say weakened changes are now being blocked by the body that runs the park’s roads on the grounds they could be more dangerous than the status quo.

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The killing of two rangers in Catalonia, a year ago this week, marked a chilling turning point for colleagues facing up to increasing violence towards Europe’s wildlife defenders

On a hill above the olive trees and dun scrublands of western Catalonia, two rusty iron silhouettes maintain a still and silent vigil. One peers out over the land through a pair of binoculars; the other kneels and holds a bird forever on the cusp of release.

At their feet is a simple plaque: “In memory and recognition of Xavier Ribes Villas and David Iglesias Díez, wildlife rangers whose lives were taken in the line of duty on 21 January 2017.”

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EU criticised for its ‘poor response’ after an indigenous herder is killed during a forced eviction for a water conservation project it funds

The European Union has been accused of a fatally slow response to human rights warnings after the killing of an indigenous man at one of the projects it funds in Kenya.

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Erik Solheim cites ‘huge decline’ in world’s reefs but says shift from coal and new awareness of plastic pollution are good news

The battle to save the world’s coral reefs is at “make or break point”, and countries that host them have a special responsibility to take a leadership role by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, plastic pollution and impacts from agriculture, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has said.

Speaking to the Guardian after the launch of International Coral Reef Initiative’s international year of the reef, Erik Solheim said he expected governments to take their efforts on reef protection in 2018 beyond symbolic designation.

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Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Conservationists are using hidden cameras, DNA testing and a sense of smell, to follow the lives of the city’s otter population

A dank winter’s day in the Steel City did not hold obvious promise of the transformative power of nature. But not far from where a gaggle of office workers were enjoying a fag break, a friendly conservation volunteer called Paul ushered me down a ladder to an otherwise inaccessible spot on the banks of the river Don. I found myself, like Alice down the rabbit-hole, in a new sort of country, a lush carpet of floating weeds and a swift-moving ribbon of clear water at my feet muffling the sound of traffic and freshening the air.

Paul and his colleague Karon were checking hidden cameras for a lottery-funded survey of Sheffield’s small otter population, called Otterly Amazing! The motion-sensitive cameras have captured these shy creatures, hunting successfully in a river so polluted when I was a boy in the 1970s that it would literally catch fire.

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Simble’s smart energy management solution to help enterprises and SMEs save money on their power bills.

The World Bank, which provides developing countries about US$60 billion a year in financial assistance, is officially phasing out its support for the oil and gas industries.

New research has challenged the view that wood bioenergy is carbon neutral, and shows wood pellets actually emit more CO2/kWhr than coal. 

A community investment plan at Sapphire Wind Farm could be the turning point the wind industry has needed for years.