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Anti-whaling campaign group alleges it photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuary

Anti-whaling campaign group Sea Shepherd says it has photographed Japanese whalers carrying out a slaughter inside Australia’s Antarctic whale sanctuary, the same day the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was in Australia on a state visit.

In the first documented killing since the international court of justice ruled Japan’s Antarctic whaling illegal in 2014, Sea Shepherd released photographs of what it says is a dead minke on the deck of the whaler Nisshin Maru at 11.34am on Sunday.

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America’s national parks are facing multiple threats, despite being central to the frontier nation’s sense of itself

Autumn in the North Cascades National Park and soggy clouds cling to the peaks of the mountains that inspired the musings of Beat poets such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg 60 years ago. Sitting on a carpet of pine needles in the forest below, protected from the rain by a canopy of vine maple leaves, is a group of 10-year-olds listening to a naturalist hoping to spark a similar love of the outdoors in a new generation.

This is one of 59 national parks which range across the United States, from the depths of the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the turrets of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. All – plus hundreds of monuments and historic sites – are run by the National Park Service (NPS), which celebrated its centenary last year. The parks were created so that America’s natural wonders would be accessible to everyone, rather than sold off to the highest bidder. Writer Wallace Stegner called them America’s best idea: “Absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”

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The go-ahead for the Swansea Bay project could help end fossil fuel reliance. But ministers have pulled the plug on other inventive schemes

Britain’s west coast is facing a revolutionary change. If renewable energy advocates get their way, swaths of shoreline will soon be peppered with giant barrages designed to turn the power of the sea into electricity for our homes and factories. These tidal lagoons could supply more than 10% of the nation’s electricity, it is claimed.

Last week former energy minister Charles Hendry published a review that strongly backed the construction of a £1.3 billion prototype lagoon in Swansea Bay. The trial project was a “no regrets option”, Hendry concluded.

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Seed banks around the world aim to preserve the genetic basis of plant life in order to help humans adapt to future global climate change. We talk with several people involved in such endeavours, and we also meet American David Milarch who gives us a lesson in how to clone a giant Californian Redwood.

Seed banks around the world aim to preserve the genetic basis of plant life in order to help humans adapt to future global climate change. We talk with several people involved in such endeavours, and we also meet American David Milarch who gives us a lesson in how to clone a giant Californian Redwood.

East coast residents have derided the severe storm warnings as ‘a load of rubbish’

Police and Environment Agency officials today defended their decision to warn tens of thousands of people living near the east coast of England to leave their homes because they were at risk of flooding.

Thousands were evacuated on Friday after the Environment Agency issued 17 severe weather warnings – which warn of danger to life – with people living in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex told they were most at risk.

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SpaceX successfully launches a rocket, its first mission since an explosion in September.

With former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson poised to lead US foreign policy, activists like Peter Willcox, skipper of the Rainbow Warrior, are needed more than ever. But are they losing their nerve?

Dawn was breaking when the campaigners used slingshots to fire ropes on to the rig. But as they began to scale the Prirazlomnaya, aiming to unfurl a banner denouncing Russia’s attempts to drill for oil in the Arctic, their hopes of another successful Greenpeace “action” swiftly faded. They had been anticipating high-pressure hoses that sprayed freezing seawater at intruders. They weren’t prepared for balaclava-wearing soldiers shooting at their inflatable boats.

One soldier grabbed the rope used by one of the climbers, slamming her body repeatedly against the rig. They captured two other activists. Then the Russians demanded to board the Greenpeace ship. But the Arctic Sunrise’s captain, Peter Willcox, fearing his boat would be seized, resisted.

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Airedale, West Yorkshire A book from a century ago tells me when I might hear the ‘spring’ songs of each common songbird

The robin has uncorked its spring song. This one – a male, I suspect, giving it some welly in the upper reaches of a bare horse chestnut – is the loudest, the fullest, I’ve heard so far.

David Lack, the author of the landmark 1943 study The Life of the Robin, wrote that its autumn song was “thinner and less rich” than its spring reprise. In autumn, robins are more likely to mutter, to essay half-hearted impersonations of other birds, to engage in circling, absent-minded vocalisations known as sub-song, like a man whistling idly to himself as he walks in the woods.

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The US SpaceX rocket company hopes to resume operations after a launch pad explosion in September.

On the shorelines of the Yellow Sea, eight million shorebirds are probing the sediment for food, but their bellies are empty. Could their epic migration end here on this barren mudflat?

As the protest against the Carmichael project – Australia’s largest proposed coalmine – moves beyond the courts and into the realm of civil disobedience, activists have a clear warning: ‘If you’re in bed with Adani, you’re a target’

Across Australia a secretive network of activists are laying the groundwork for what they expect will be the biggest environmental protest movement in the country’s history.

Of course this won’t materialise if Adani and the rest of the miners proposing to open up one of the world’s biggest coalfields walk away from Queensland’s Galilee basin first.

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A former sugar cane farm in the Daintree region in far north Queensland is being returned to the forest. A 15-hectare site is being replanted with rainforest trees. Further north in Torres Strait islanders are being encouraged to embrace a healthier lifestyle.

Afghan refugees are happy to call Shepparton home; training up the next generation of jackeroos and jillaroos; we cruise Wilson Inlet with fisherman George Ebbett; and give baby crocs a helping hand into the world.

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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Fighting meerkats, a posing leopard and rescued turtles are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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The trade in caged birds poses a risk to native species if birds manage to escape, research suggests.

Langstone, Hampshire As the sparrowhawk swoops, corvids explode into the air like a firework starburst

It is the hour before sunset and the paddock is bathed in liquid gold light. Heavy rain and frost melt have saturated the soil and the turf is pockmarked with hoofprint craters. The horses’ coats and feathered fetlocks are caked with mud the colour of wet concrete. Huddling round an old tractor tyre stuffed with hay, they jostle each other for the best stalks.

Related: Birdwatch: Sparrowhawk

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The Australian Petroleum Statistics provide statistics on petroleum production, refinery inputs and outputs, sales and stocks of petroleum products, and prices.

Nominations are invited for species, ecological communities or key threatening processes to be considered for listing under national environment law during the assessment period starting 1 October 2017. ...