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Michael Gove announces withdrawal from London fisheries convention, but experts say sustainable fishing is ‘much more than which country fishes where’

The government has announced its withdrawal from an arrangement that allows foreign countries to fish in British waters, with environment secretary Michael Gove claiming that the UK was “taking back control”.

On Monday ministers will trigger withdrawal from the London fisheries convention, signed in 1964 before the UK joined the European Union, to start the two-year process to leave the agreement. The convention allows vessels from the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands to fish within six and 12 nautical miles of each other’s coast lines.

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When the Soviet Union collapsed a vast store of spent nuclear fuel was abandoned in the Russian Arctic – an environmental disaster waiting to happen. Decades later an international clean-up has finally begun

As the Rossita pulled away from the pier at Andreyeva Bay, sounding a long boom of its horn, a military band struck up a jaunty march. On board the ship were nine sealed metal casks, each four metres high and weighing 45 tonnes, containing canisters of spent nuclear fuel. Dozens of Russian and foreign nuclear specialists looked on applauding, as the chilly rain of a northern summer fell on the bay deep inside the Russian Arctic.

The ceremony, held on Tuesday afternoon, marks the culmination of a long international project to begin removing nuclear fuel from the site, formerly a top-secret Soviet installation. Nuclear specialists say Andreyeva Bay contains the largest reserves of spent nuclear fuel in the world, in fragile conditions that have disturbed the international community for years.

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Taking possessions to be repaired – bicycles, clothes, shoes, anything – instead of throwing them out and replacing them is green gold

An unassuming repair shop might not look like a major disruptive force. But extending the lifespan of your possessions by getting them fixed is one of the most effective green direct actions available.

The cycling community is at the forefront of the repair economy

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Ministers argue ending the arrangement will help the UK take back control of access to its waters.

Japanese underwater photographer Ryo Minemizu has photographed the plentiful but often ignored residents of the ocean.

Conservationists admit the word is divisive, particularly among farmers

Just down the road from Gatwick, the neatly hedged English countryside gives way to an exuberant, utterly alien-looking landscape. Arable fields are obliterated by dense thickets of sallow. Eight metre-wide blackthorn hedges spill into flowery meadows. Wild pigs and red deer run rampant through ragwort, thistles and other weeds. The air is alive with birdsong rarely heard in Britain today – spectacular bursts of nightingale and the purring of turtle doves.

In barely a decade, rewilded nature has conquered Knepp Castle in West Sussex. Rewilding appears to be conquering conservation too. As Brexit and the savaging of agricultural subsidies loom, farming may also be engulfed by this new wild. But as rewilding blossoms, so do controversies. Scientists recently warned that wild boar illegally released into Scotland could carry the CC398 strain of the MRSA superbug that is resistant to antibiotics.

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A four-year research project has found the flocks are a major threat to British birds, farms and vineyards

It is not what you would expect to hear in the Conservative suburban heartlands of Beckenham, Bromley and Boreham Wood in south-east England – homeowners voicing their approval for a wave of immigrants from Asia.

As one of the senior researchers studying the flocks of Afro-Asians said: “Many people say they bring an enormous sense of wellbeing. They say they are charismatic, beautiful, exotic. They absolutely love having them around.”

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The fourth annual BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition aims to celebrate the diversity of life on Earth, and encourages people to protect and conserve it. Thousands of entries were received for the competition held by the California Academy of Sciences, and here are the winners

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The Mexican government is to use US Navy-trained dolphins to locate and herd endangered vaquitas.

Cardigan, Wales I saw the cob and pen paddling in golden light, between them a single, black-billed ball of grey down

The bell-beat of mute swans’ wings came with a grey dawn in early March. A pair of swans touched down in the river Teifi’s tidal reaches upstream of Cardigan town bridge. On wind-ruffled waters they kept proximity, gliding around in search of food, accompanied at respectful distance by small flocks of teal and unruly gangs of mallard drakes.

The old shipwright from the small boatyard most days ventured out of his workshop to sit on the slipway, talk to the swans, feed them by hand. They would respond with sonorous high grunts that belied their name. Occasionally the huge cob, neck outstretched, tore off downriver, wings flailing, to warn off some presumptuous intruder. This was his territory and no other’s.

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To avoid global warming becoming an unstoppable runaway process, Australia needs to be carbon neutral from mid-century. There’s just over thirty years for our electricity generation to be reconfigured away from fossil fuels and towards clean renewable sources.

To avoid global warming becoming an unstoppable runaway process, Australia needs to be carbon neutral from mid-century. There’s just over thirty years for our electricity generation to be reconfigured away from fossil fuels and towards clean renewable sources.

With farmland, industry, backyards and hobby farms as well as a city nearby, where do foxes choose to go? And will they choose to take a bait?

How toxic is the modern Australian city?

The National Geographic Photo Ark is a travelling exhibition of photographer Joel Sartore’s quest to create a photo archive of biodiversity around the world. So far, Sartore has captured studio portraits of more than 6,000 species – a number that he hopes to double.

On 1 July, the ark will open at Melbourne zoo – the first time it has been exhibited in the southern hemisphere. More than 50 portraits will be on display, including many of Australian endangered animals being protected by programs at the zoo itself. These captions have been edited from text supplied by Melbourne zoo.

• The National Geographic Photo Ark exhibition is open at Melbourne Zoo from 1 July until 1 October

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India is touted as a rapid adopter of renewable energy, but its energy challenges are complex.

Yellow-footed rock wallabies bounce back in South Australia's northern pastoral region; we're cooking sausages in Cloncurry; making lunch at Helen Springs Station; and whipping up a duck-egg pavlova.

Green co-leader Caroline Lucas says she hopes to build a cross-party coalition to stop bottle wastage, while other correspondents offer their thoughts on protecting the environment

The Guardian’s coverage of the global plastic bottle crisis (Surge in plastic bottle use sparks global alert, 29 June) has been powerful and compelling. Like so many of the environmental challenges we face, this issue has been largely ignored in the mainstream, which has led us to the extraordinary situation where we have one million bottles being bought every minute globally. Britain’s contribution to this problem is significant. We use a staggering 38.5m plastic bottles each day, accounting for roughly 40% of the litter found in our environment along with cans. We’ve all read in horror the stories of whales’ stomachs filled with plastic waste, and we’ve all seen bottles littering our local communities.

The government must take responsibility for this growing crisis. One easy step forward would be to introduce a bottle deposit scheme. Such systems were commonplace in the UK until the 1980s, and are used in 11 other European countries. The concept is simple: you pay a small deposit on bottles and take them back to the shop you bought them from after use for recycling. The Scottish government has taken a major step towards introducing such a scheme – now the Tories must follow suit. We should also be ensuring that it’s easier for people to refill water bottles in shops and other businesses. This week has shown that the government is far more pliant towards the will of parliament than previously, and I’m hoping to build a cross-party coalition on this issue in the coming weeks so that Britain becomes a world leader in tackling plastic bottle pollution.
Caroline Lucas MP
Co-leader, Green party of England and Wales

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Europe’s consumption of products such as beef, soy and palm oil could increase its contribution to global deforestation by more than a quarter by 2030, analysis shows

Europe’s contribution to global deforestation may rise by more than a quarter by 2030, despite a pledge to halt such practices by the end of this decade, according to a leaked draft EU analysis.

An estimated 13m hectares (Mha) of the world’s forestland is lost each year, a figure projected to spiral in the next 30 years with the Amazon, Greater Mekong and Borneo bearing the brunt of tree clearances.

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Administration moves to ‘unleash’ US fossil fuels by rewriting Obama-era plan that banned drilling along Atlantic seaboard and large parts of the Arctic Ocean

Environmentalists have condemned Donald Trump as a “threat to every ocean and coastline in the country”, after the president pushed forward plans to expand oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans as part of what he called a new era of “American energy dominance”.

The Trump administration has taken the first steps to rewrite a five-year plan, put in place under Barack Obama, that banned drilling along the Atlantic seaboard and in large swaths of the Arctic. The interior department is opening a 45-day public comment period for a new plan that it says will help grow the economy.

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