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Huge rich-metal deposits on the ocean floor could transform the global commodities market but there are fears mining them could harm rare ecosystems

A scientific expedition has been launched from the UK to explore the mining of rich metal deposits on the deep ocean floor, which are the focus of a new gold rush around the world.

The UK research vessel, the RSS James Cook, left Southampton on Thursday, heading for the underwater ridge in the middle of the Atlantic where volcanic activity drives hot springs, also known as black smokers.

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The Bramble Cay Melomys is arguably the first mammal driven extinct by climate change, rather than direct human interaction. Ian Bell/EHP/State of Queensland, CC BY-SA

Australia recently gained an unenviable title: perhaps the first country to lose a mammal species to climate change. The Bramble Cay Melomys, a native rodent found on one tiny sand island in the remote northern regions of the Great Barrier Reef, reportedly became extinct after rising seas destroyed its habitat.

The melomys' likely extinction is a symptom of the massive changes taking place across the natural world. Faced with these changes, we cannot possibly save every species without increasing funding for conservation.

We should be trying to conserve everything we can, or at least minimising the number of plants, animals and ecosystems that are lost. The problem is that Australia’s conservation laws presume that we can preserve everything in its natural state. But in a changing world, we’ll have to be more flexible than that.

The new nature

Our conservation laws were drafted on the assumption that, if human intervention could be avoided or managed, plants and animals would survive in their natural, pristine environments.

We now know that that is not the case. Nature is dynamic. Humans have had a pervasive influence on the environment and recent research suggests that pristine environments no longer exist.

Climate change will rapidly accelerate environmental change. Shifting temperature and rainfall will shift the specific conditions that species depend on to survive. Everything will be on the move.

On top of these gradual climate shifts, more frequent and intense bushfires, storms and heatwaves will destroy some habitats and increase the threatened status of many species. In some cases, these extreme events may result in localised extinctions.

Climate change is creating new problems for biodiversity (such as new invasive species) and is making existing problems worse (such as by changing fire patterns).

What does conservation mean if we can’t save everything?

Far from making conservation law irrelevant, these challenges mean that conservation policy and laws are more important than ever.

Expanding land and marine reserves, restoring and connecting habitat with other areas, and reducing other threats such land clearing or feral animals are all important climate adaptation strategies.

But many Australian plants and animals will not be able to move fast enough to escape extreme events or to keep pace with their specific climate niches on their own. To conserve these species, we may need to engage in high‑intervention conservation strategies, such as assisted colonisation.

This involves moving an individual, population or species to a place where it has never been found before. This tactic is being investigated for the endangered Western Swamp Tortoise in Western Australia, as its wetland habitat begins to dry out.

Conservation laws in Australia were not designed to accommodate these kinds of dynamic and proactive approaches to conservation management.

Legal road blocks

Current conservation laws promote keeping or returning the environment to what it used to be, whether that is pristine or not.

In a recent paper, we looked at three ways laws may impede conservation in a changing world.

First, current laws emphasise maintaining the current status and location of ecosystems and their constituent parts, or returning them to an “undisturbed” state.

Second, they place high value on biodiversity that is rare, native and wild.

Finally, they emphasise reserves (especially on public land) as the sites for most conservation effort.

For example, national park laws typically require agencies to conserve national parks in their natural state. This is usually defined by the plants and animals that are already there or that have been found there in the past.

But some species might need to be moved into national parks, even if they have never been found there before, or out of national parks to somewhere more climatically suitable. Current laws do not let us do this.

Rather than an outdated idea of what is “natural”, we need new objectives that focus on diversity and ecosystem function and health. If introducing a plant or animal into a national park will increase its chance of surviving under climate change and will not undermine the health of the park’s ecosystems, the introduction should not be excluded just because the species is not “native” to that specific park. This approach would help species adapt through movement across boundaries.

Letting species go

Another example of a potential legal roadblock is the emphasis on individual threatened species in both legal protection and funding. For instance, the Coalition government has pledged AU$5 million for specific actions to protect some of the most endangered of Australia’s listed threatened species.

But this is an example of assuming that we can save everything. The contracting ranges and already precarious status of many listed species make it unlikely that we will be able to conserve them all, and impossible to do so in their historic locations.

Choices based on what species we fund are rarely transparent and the public is rarely consulted about what we value the most. We need to have a conversation about how we value species and ecosystems in a changing world. If more people realised that we cannot save everything, perhaps more people would demand that appropriate funding is allocated to saving as much as possible.

While funding remains limited, we need objectives that reflect the certainty of some loss of species in the wild and that clearly define the criteria we are using for targeting some species for protection while letting others go.

Our conservation laws direct how we will act to save species and ecosystems under climate change, and whether we will succeed. But climate change makes our current objectives unachievable.

We must not give up on conserving as much as we can as the climate changes. Laws can be used to help us achieve this goal. But we urgently need a national conversation about what reform is needed to ensure the best possible conservation results for Australia’s precious wildlife, plants and ecosystems.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

The world’s largest coal mining company, Coal India Limited, has announced a major step towards implementation of its ambitious solar power goals.

Glen Torridon, Liathach, Highlands The path that worms up alongside the waterfalls is invisible until we’re on it

From Glen Torridon, Liathach looks impregnable, with little sign of a way upwards; the path that worms up alongside the waterfalls of the Allt an Doire Ghairbh is invisible until we’re on it. The vast bulwarks and bastions of rock rise into a ceiling of white cloud, their full extent obscured.

We climb unhurriedly, content to wait for the forecasted “cloud free Munros” to materialise.

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Another major generator penalised for illegal bidding practices in wholesale electricity market as regulator continues to crack down on activities that have inflated prices.

The US space agency will try to put a satellite in orbit around Jupiter to sense what lies beneath the giant planet's obscuring clouds.

How a Jumping Jack ant it finds it way back to the nest whilst walking backwards and carrying something large could have implications for driverless cars and other technology.

Australian CleanTech Index significantly outperformed wider market in FY 2015-16, capping off a “stellar three years” with returns of nearly 70 per cent for investors that have held the course.

2016 election sees one bunch of climate deniers turfed out, only to be replaced by another. But will the diminished Malcolm Turnbull still be beholden to his party's right-wing, Abbott-era climate and clean energy policies, or can he follow the UK's lead and find middle ground?

China has fitted the final piece on what is set to be the world's largest radio telescope, the size of 30 football fields and worth $180m (£135m).

Gas prices surge, and spot electricity prices remain high - undermining arguments that coal generators need to close before new renewables can be built.

Market Forces finds only two financing deals closed in first half of 2016 despite banks’ purported support for sector

Australia’s big four banks’ lending for Australian renewable energy projects has tumbled in the first half of 2016, despite all of them spruiking their continuing support for the sector.

Based on public announcements from the banks and their customers, the activist group Market Forces has found only two financing deals were closed this year in the Australian renewables sector.

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France greenlights raft of new tenders for solar energy, including a three-fold increase in installed PV capacity, eyeing 20GW by 2023.

Solar PV has trickled across the 40 GW threshold in Germany, while the UK now has 10 GW. But both markets are slowing down.

FSA identifies myths preventing people from freezing food, as households throw away 7 million tonnes of food a year

Consumer ignorance about how to freeze food safely is helping to fuel the annual 7-million-tonne household food waste mountain in the UK, the government’s food watchdog has said.

The Food Standards Agency, working with the government department Defra, is to launch an urgent review of current guidance given to the food industry on date marking for food, which could include giving consumers more detailed and easy-to-understand advice on freezing and food storage.

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Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 July 1916

Surrey
Sun and rain, coming almost together, have extended the branches and enlarged the leaves in the great woods that spread over many acres beyond our commons. You are housed now in their recesses under dark green roofs through which the eye cannot penetrate; there is a mysterious shaking and rustling by the wind overhead, and this helps to strengthen or inspire the fantasies which in these dim solitudes are created by the mind. Big toadstools which were not there two days ago cluster round the trunk of a decaying beech; the long spindle legs of an insect crawling over the table-like top of one of them are as if they belonged to some new lesser inhabitant of the world, and when the gauze of his wings spreads out and they tremble ever so lightly, a curious process fills this cool enclosure with all kinds of living things.

The verge of the wood brings realities again. A pair of pigeons start up from near the orchard on the far side flying not angularly, like the rooks, but straight and true, going high over the taller elms, showing white and grey and pale purple, now distinct in each part, then all mingled as it were together; there is nothing else quite so beautiful under the sun as the plumage of the larger kind of birds when they are on the wing. In the corner of a near field, which is half of turnips and half of mangold in their now juicy leafage, a group of young birds, scuttering rather than flying, scramble toward the hedge – it is a covey of young partridges. Presently a cock pheasant comes out of the ditch chuckling; and above where he was whole bodies of small gnats play in the shade. They seem to mix, whole parties of hundreds of them, in confusion, and yet as you watch, all appear to assort together in their own groups again.

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Coal’s impact on the Great Barrier Reef by causing climate change is one of the reasons why environmentalists oppose the development of coal fields and exports in Queensland. But fossil fuels could have a more direct impact on the reef and the waters around it, through chemicals produced during their production and distribution.

When coal dust is released in the marine environment it can damage marine ecosystems. Coal contains a number of different chemicals, but it is polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are known carcinogens, that are of most concern.

Some components of coal PAHs cause biochemical changes in fish and can lead to cancer. The coal dust has a very slow degradation rate and will build up in the ecosystem from the continuous input.

Coal dust also absorbs chemicals in the coastal zone and transports things like pesticides and herbicides offshore. Oil spills are another source of PAHs in the marine environment.

It is currently impossible for Australia to assess the impact of these chemicals in marine sediments, because our sediment guidelines are out of date. They need to be updated to match the standards used elsewhere, such as in the United States.

Coal dust and Great Barrier Reef marine life

I have previously looked at how far these chemicals can travel from coal ports. I found they can be detected in suspended sediments all the way to the shelf break 200km offshore. (I also published a corrigendum to this paper to correct data errors and to explain how sediment guidelines need to be updated.)

I used the Australian and the US Environment Protection Authority (EPA) sediment quality guidelines to assess the concentration of PAHs in the sediments and suspended sediments on the Great Barrier Reef. The guidelines are meant to indicate “trigger values” for the concentration of possible toxins. If trigger values are reached then sources should be curtailed.

My study showed the concentrations were below toxic levels as then defined by the US guidelines. But it is impossible to know based on the Australian guidelines because these guidelines don’t target the PAHs contained in coal or oil. To explain why, we have to go into a bit of chemistry.

The composition of the PAHs can indicate the source from coal, oil or combustion processes.

The US guidelines use 34 key PAH groups (a total of about 290 individual compounds) and are currently the best available for assessing oil pollution incidents.

The Australian guidelines do not assess the PAHs that are the major contributor to PAHs in coal and oil. The Australian guidelines specify only 20 “parent” PAHs. These guidelines are more relevant to combustion products.

When is it toxic?

The Australian guidelines consider PAHs reach toxic levels at 10-50 milligrams per kilogram of sediment. But research suggests this is way too high.

Modern assessments of oil spills now rely on the PAH content of oils in addition to the total oil content.

PAHs make up about 1% of total oil content. If you applied these guidelines to an oil spill, the toxic level of 10mg PAH per kg of sediment would equal 1,000mg of oil per kg. This oil content would kill everything in marine sediments.

For example, I and a colleague published a detailed study of fiddler crabs after the West Falmouth oil spill. We determined that total oil concentrations of 100-200mg oil per kg of sediment were toxic to juvenile crabs. Concentrations of 1,000mg per kg were toxic to adults and/or caused a number of impacts before the crabs died.

As PAHs make up around 1% of most oils, this means that the trigger values should be 1mg PAH per kg (with a maximum of 5mg per kg). And this assessment must include the PAHs that are commonly found in oil and coal.

Commercial Australian labs don’t assess all these PAHs yet, but neither did the American labs until it became necessary for assessing major oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We should not wait for the next disaster to upgrade our capability.

Cleaning up coal ports

We also need the ports to reduce their inputs. Townsville port has reduced the dust emission from its powdered zinc and lead loadings.

The train cars are covered and one at a time enter a shed which is under negative pressure. The powder is dumped in a hopper, transported to the conveyors and loaded onto the ships with no or little dust escaping the process.

The cars are then rinsed before leaving the shed. Water is retained and filtered so no dust leaves the area.

Why can’t coal be handled the same way? Improvement in loading metal powders was brought on by public objections to the previous operations.

This would eliminate coal piles in the coastal zone which blow dust all over nearby cities such as Gladstone and leach into coastal creeks. We also need the Australian sediment quality guidelines for PAHs brought up to 21st-century standard.

Do we have to wait until we have another incident like the Montara platform explosion in the Timor Sea in 2010 before we update our guidelines and response times?

Kathryn Burns received funding from the Australian Institute of Marine Science for chemistry studies in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon 2008-2010, and retired in 2011.

A couple who have cared for woodland on their Devon farm for five years face a costly legal battle with national park planners. Here they explain why the country’s heritage is at stake

It is an idyllic spot. Sylvan slopes dip down to a babbling river fringed by alder and willow that winds through organic pasture where hens peck, sheep graze and bees hum.

The ethos is sound – to restore the woods to their ancient glory, to create a small, sustainable business producing timber and firewood, and to teach vanishing forestry skills to anyone keen to learn. They also try to have fun here at the Hillyfield woodland farm, near the village of Harbourneford in Devon, holding a “Woodland Olympics” with axe-hurling, wood-chopping relay races and logging with a horse rather than modern machinery.

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It’s the future: EVs are making a greener dream come true

“You lot [earth lovers] won’t be happy till there’s rose petals coming out the exhaust,” a car industry insider complained to me.

I’d settle for an electric vehicle. Not emission free (you have to factor in the source of the electricity), but a technology that can make a real dent in climate-change emissions. My next car needs to be an EV – and so does yours.

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The BBC's defence correspondent Jonathan Beale finds out more about the development of new military technology, including whether a drone can be chemically "grown".