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On 5 January 1993 an oil tanker ran aground off Shetland spilling 85,000 tonnes of crude oil.

After 10 years, a team at Cardiff University helps identify a process to speed up drug development.

In UK 2.5bn disposable cups are thrown away each year, of which less than 0.25% are recycled, according to environmental audit committee report

MPs are calling for a 25p charge on takeaway coffee in a move that could see disposable cups banned in five years time.

In the UK 2.5bn takeaway coffee cups are used and thrown away each year – enough to stretch around the world five-and-a-half-times. The UK produces 30,000 tonnes of coffee cup waste each year, according to a report published by MPs on the environmental audit committee on Friday.

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The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder today announced the sale of 5 GL of allocation water from the Gwydir.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder today announced the sale of 5 GL of allocation water from the Gwydir.

The UK throws away 2.5 billion non-recyclable coffee cups every year, MPs say.

• Ryan Zinke unveils plan to offer leases in Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic
• Environmental groups and some Republicans lead outcry

The Trump administration has unveiled a plan that would open almost all US offshore territory to oil and gas drilling, including previously protected areas of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans.

Related: Trump plan to shrink ocean monuments threatens vital ecosystems, experts warn

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For years, a booming long-nosed fur seal population has been devastating fishing businesses in the Coorong. But could the tables be about to turn?

Simon and Jasmine Dale spent six years building their home, which is now the subject of a crowdfunding appeal

An eco-home labelled the “cheapest house ever built in the western hemisphere” on the Channel 4 programme Grand Designs, has been destroyed by a fire.

The three-bedroomed house, which is based in the sustainable community of Lammas in rural Pembrokeshire, was featured on the TV programme in 2016 after its owners, Simon and Jasmine Dale, spent just £27,000 building it.

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Repeat bouts of warmer seawater are posing a significant challenge to the world's tropical corals.

Trying to keep cool this summer while not blowing the power bill? A new mobile game aims to encourage energy efficiency - and research shows it can be more effective than simple advertising campaigns. Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Social Marketing Professor, School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology Rory Mulcahy, Lecturer of Marketing, University of the Sunshine Coast Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The average time between bleaching events at the same reef has shrunk from an average of once every 25 to 30 years in the 1980s to once every six years since 2010.

Areas starved of oxygen in open ocean and by coasts have soared in recent decades, risking dire consequences for marine life and humanity

Ocean dead zones with zero oxygen have quadrupled in size since 1950, scientists have warned, while the number of very low oxygen sites near coasts have multiplied tenfold. Most sea creatures cannot survive in these zones and current trends would lead to mass extinction in the long run, risking dire consequences for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on the sea.

Climate change caused by fossil fuel burning is the cause of the large-scale deoxygenation, as warmer waters hold less oxygen. The coastal dead zones result from fertiliser and sewage running off the land and into the seas.

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Study of 100 tropical reef locations finds time between bleaching events has shrunk and is too short for full recovery

Repeated large-scale coral bleaching events are the new normal thanks to global warming, a team of international scientists has found.

In a study published in the journal Science, the researchers revealed a “dramatic shortening” of the time between bleaching events was “threatening the future existence of these iconic ecosystems and the livelihoods of many millions of people”.

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Hydropower policy to be rethought in face of environmental concerns, indigenous sensitivities and public unease, says surprise government statement

After swathes of forest clearance, millions of tonnes of concrete and decades of hydro-expansion, Brazil has raised hopes that it may finally step back from the construction of new mega-dams.

In a surprise statement, a senior government official said hydropower policy needed to be rethought in the face of environmental concerns, indigenous sensitivities and public unease.

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Quality and provenance must be the future of the British food industry, rather than lowering regulation or welfare standards, says environment secretary

The future of the British food industry after Brexit must focus on quality and provenance rather than weakened regulation, environment secretary Michael Gove has said.

“The future for British food is in quality and provenance and traceability and competing at the top of the value chain,” Gove told a packed auditorium at the Oxford Real Farming Conference. “And if we sign trade deals or lower our regulation or welfare standards in a way that means we’re no longer at the top of the value chain, then we undermine the growing strength of the very best of British food production.”

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José Napoleón Tarrillo Astonitas murdered for opposing land traffickers seeking to clear land in the Chaparrí Ecological Reserve, say local witnesses

A criminal gang involved in land trafficking has tortured and murdered a community leader in northern Peru, according to his wife and local villagers who witnessed the killing.

José Napoleón Tarrillo Astonitas, 50, was attacked by four men in his home on Saturday night. His wife, Flor Vallejos, told police he was bound by his hands and feet, beaten with a stick and strangled with an electric cable.

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A payment plan post-Brexit to reward planting wildflower meadows and woodland is to be delayed.

Claxton, Norfolk The front lawn has been contested territory between the humans who assume they own it and the tiny creature that truthfully has possession

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Gove will tell farmers that the current subsidy regime, which rewards land ownership, will be replaced by a scheme focused on supporting the environment

Farmers will get subsidies for turning fields back into wildflower meadows after Brexit, according to environment secretary Michael Gove.

More than 97% of the UK’s wildflower meadows have been destroyed since the second world war and their loss has played a significant role in the falling numbers of bees, birds and other wildlife.

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