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Waltham Brooks, West Sussex Now breeding has finished, the numbers of starlings gathering together are building up again, and will rise into the thousands in the coming months

The river Arun has slowed almost to a stop, the bare strip of dried earth along the bank betraying the low water level. Large bunches of dark green weed are exposed. Along the grassy footpath, there are a still a few thistles in bloom, glowing purple in the evening sunshine, but many other thistle heads have now exploded, trailing their down of sticky, spindly white seeds. It’s warm and close, but the breeze is slowly bringing a band of black cloud from the west.

Related: Country diary: South Downs, near Arundel: Grey partridges have become a rare sight on the Downs, except here

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Climate Council report says renewable energy major driver of economic growth, jobs in rural Australia.

"Energy poverty" is a bigger issue in north America and other European countries than it is in Germany.

JinkoSolar has announced that it has provided 16.9kW of PV modules for the construction of the Miami Science Barge.

Scientist and Nobel prize-winner Peter Doherty says new One Nation senator ‘has no understanding of how science works’

Across Australia, climate science denialists are beside themselves with glee at the voting into office of one of their own.

Late last week, the Australian Electoral Commission confirmed that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party had snagged Queensland’s final 12th Senate spot. Her candidate, Malcolm Roberts, is now a senator.

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A single drug can treat three deadly and neglected infections - Chagas disease, leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness - animal studies show..

Scientists in Queensland develop an environmental DNA test to help make habitats easier to identify

Australian scientists have developed a cutting-edge test that could give the endangered largetooth sawfish a better chance of survival.

Researchers working from James Cook University in Queensland, have found a way to reliably test large bodies of water for the DNA of the prehistoric-looking fish and help make habitats easier to identify.

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Australia is one of the world’s largest diesel consumers per capita but a cleaner option called dimethyl ether could change all that

As one of the world’s largest consumers of diesel per capita, Australia could soon benefit from the onshore production of a cleaner-burning alternative.

Dimethyl ether (DME) is a colourless gas used as an aerosol propellant for things such as hairspray, but engine manufacturers and other companies have been exploring its potential as an alternative transport fuel.

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Land-clearing laws are being fiercely debated in both Queensland and New South Wales. These two states are responsible for the majority of cleared land in Australia’s recent history.

The latest assessment from Queensland shows that 296,000 hectares of vegetation was cleared in 2014-15. More than a third of this is remnant vegetation that has never been cleared before.

To put this in perspective, around 580,000ha of forest was cleared in Brazil over the same time. While this is twice the area recently cleared in Queensland, it’s worth remembering that the rate of clearing has been much higher in the past, before legislation first came into effect more than a decade ago.

Land-clearing rates were higher before laws were introduced. Queensland government, Land cover change in Queensland 2014–15, CC BY

In NSW, around 23,000ha of vegetation has been cleared for cropping and pasture since 2010 and 59% of this is “unexplained”: clearing of regrowth vegetation, for routine agricultural management, exempt from legislation, or illegal.

The science is clear about the detrimental effects of land clearing on the climate, native wildlife and soil health. More than 400 international and Australian scientists recently signed a declaration highlighting their concern about the rate of forest loss in Australia. Such a degree of coordination between scientists hasn’t been seen since the original Brigalow Declaration in 2003.
How to address effectively the issue of land clearing remains fiendishly complex. Land clearing is such a political issue in Australia, as any policy changes affect many people in the community.

Recently proposed policy changes in both NSW and Queensland have proved to be contentious. Farmers and environmental groups in NSW have highlighted concerns with Premier Mike Baird’s proposed Biodiversity Bill. Last week, Queensland farmers unhappy with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s proposal to re-strengthen land-clearing laws marched on Parliament House to protest the changes.

Australia has the ability and resources to reduce land clearing, if it chooses. How might we do it?

1. Stop the policy flip-flop

Since the 1970s, state and federal governments have introduced at least 40 regulations, incentive schemes and policy frameworks related to vegetation management. One of the key concerns reported by farmers is the “policy flip-flop”, in which successive governments introduce land-clearing laws that are strong, then relaxed, then strong again.

These frequent policy changes create huge uncertainties for farmers who want to make long-term business decisions. It also means that government resources are almost constantly devoted to designing new policies, rather than ensuring that existing policies are effective.

For land clearing to be controlled over the long term, more resources need to be allocated to encouraging, supporting and enforcing compliance with vegetation laws.

2. We do need regulation

Strict controls on vegetation clearing are often deeply unpopular with landholders. Relying too heavily on regulation can also lead to poor compliance and unnecessary costs. However, the reality is that some form of “top-down” regulation will always be needed to protect native vegetation in the long term. History has shown this to be the case.

Before it introduced land-clearing controls in the 1980s, the South Australian government provided landholders with financial incentives to conserve native vegetation. Unfortunately, clearing did not decline, as the scheme attracted only landholders who had already planned not to clear their vegetation.

A combination of regulation and long-term financial incentives is needed. Unfortunately, most incentive schemes are small compared to the value of farming, and are usually short-term – such as the five-year package announced as part of the NSW Biodiversity Bill.

3. Put a price on carbon

Encouraging long-term protection of native vegetation requires a market signal, and a carbon price would do this. The federal government’s Emissions Reduction Fund doesn’t provide bang for buck, and there’s evidence it is being used to conserve vegetation that would never have been cleared anyway.

Increased clearing in Queensland may have effectively cancelled out the carbon emissions saved under the Direct Action plan.

We know it is possible for carbon farming to be a win-win for the climate and wildlife. Many parts of Australia need only a moderate carbon price to make restoring and conserving native vegetation a profitable business enterprise. Long-term policy certainty and a consistent message from federal and state governments are needed.

4. Self-regulation where appropriate

Over the past decade, there has been trend towards self-regulation of vegetation management. For low-risk activities, it makes sense for landholders to be able to manage vegetation by simply notifying the government, rather than applying for a permit. This reduces costs for the landholder, and frees up government resources to monitor for compliance and regulate high-risk clearing (where the proposed area to be cleared is large, or may impact threatened species habitat).

Self-assessable vegetation clearing codes been introduced in New South Wales and Queensland, but have been criticised for enabling broad-scale clearing. Clearly, more work is needed here to get the balance right between managing environmental risks and minimising regulation costs.

5. Rebuilding trust

The debate over land clearing in Australia is so heated and highly polarised that it can be difficult to see a path forward. There appears to be very little trust between some landholders and state governments, leading in some cases to tragic consequences.

Providing some long-term policy certainty and consistency between federal and state government messages will go a long way in helping to rebuild mutual trust. A price on carbon would allow landholders to generate income from sequestering carbon alongside farm businesses.

Reducing regulation in circumstances where the environmental risks are low while ensuring resources are devoted to supporting compliance can reduce costs for both landholders and governments without jeopardising the environment.

Australia needs to get land-clearing policy right, and soon. While the debate rages on, more vegetation is lost – and ultimately we all lose.

Megan C Evans receives funding from the National Environmental Science Programme (NESP) Threatened Species Recovery Hub, an Australian Postgraduate Award and a CSIRO top-up scholarship. She is a signatory to the recent Scientist's Declaration on Accelerating forest, woodland and grassland destruction in Australia.

New research blames rising temperatures over the last century as the key cause of decline in one of the world's most important fisheries.

Sweeter stone fruits abundant alongside lower yields of leafy vegetables due to erratic British weather

Shoppers can hope to enjoy a late-summer bounty of bigger and sweeter cherries, apricots and plums, followed by late blackberries, as this year’s fluctuating weather and unpredictable growing conditions have an effect on UK-grown fresh produce.

But while farmers have struggled with lower yields from leaf vegetables such as spinach and kale, regional weather variations and imports mean supermarket shelves are unlikely to fall empty.

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The speedy, almost comical horse step known as an ambling gait originated in England in the middle of the Ninth Century, scientists say.

The Macduff Marine Aquarium releases an octopus into the North Sea in July. The octopus was given to the aquarium after it was caught in a fisherman’s creel by accident. The female octopus was studied for several weeks before being returned to the sea to complete its brief life-cycle

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The nuclear project is outdated and expensive - the UK should be focussing time and money on renewables, interconnectors, storage, smart grids and efficiency

Hinkley Point C, the multibillion pound nuclear deal, years in the making, is on the cusp of unravelling. At the last minute, the government has hit the pause button in order to take a hard look at what Hinkley is offering in return for £37bn of energy consumers’ money.

The voices of opposition are growing. Even newspapers which have supported the nuclear industry are raising doubts.

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Another giant panda cub is born at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo - the fourth time that mother Yang Yang has conceived naturally.

Government says payments, capped at £10m for communities near wells, will not be made until site is up and running

The government has admitted that payments of up to £10,000 a household for living near a fracking well would not be distributed until a new site begins operating and producing gas – at least five years after exploration begins.

In a consultation on the shale wealth fund published on Monday, officials said that payments would be capped at £10m for each community living near a well, over its lifetime. They also conceded that any money flowing directly to households would not happen until a full-scale fracking industry is up and running.

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Earlier this year photojournalist Toby Smith followed a group of migrating cuckoos to the forests of Gabon, west Africa. His images document the African landscapes in which the globally dwindling cuckoo population spends its winter months away from the UK, and will help conservationists understand how land use change is affecting birds

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Clexit calls for withdrawal from climate treaties, rejects the conclusions of 97% of climate science experts and 95% of economics experts

Brexit support and climate denial have many similarities. Many Brexit Leave campaign leaders also deny the dangers of human-caused climate change. Older generations were more likely to vote for the UK to leave the EU and are more likely to oppose taking action on climate change; younger generations disagree, and will be forced to live with the consequences of those decisions. On both issues there’s also a dangerous strain of anti-intellectualism, in which campaigners mock experts and dismiss their evidence and conclusions.

With Brexit, the Leave campaign won the vote, and the UK economy is already feeling the consequences. As Graham Readfearn reported, a new group called “Clexit” (Climate Exit) has formed in an effort to similarly withdraw countries from the successful international climate treaty forged last year in Paris. As the group describes itself:

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Scientific survey found all reefs had been affected by high sea surface temperatures, with up to 90% of coral colonies bleached in some areas

More than 60% of coral in reefs in the Maldives has been hit by “bleaching” as the world is gripped by record temperatures in 2016, a scientific survey suggests. 

Bleaching happens when algae that lives in the coral is expelled due to stress caused by extreme and sustained changes in temperatures, turning the coral white and putting it at risk of dying if conditions do not return to normal. 

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Palm oil producer was stripped of its certification in March 2016 after failing to meet environmental standards, reports BusinessGreen

Palm oil supplier IOI Group has had its certificate for sustainable palm oil reinstated by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), after it was judged to have fulfilled the body’s demands to improve its environmental performance.

In a statement issued last Friday, the RSPO said the palm oil supplier would be re-instated with its certificate from Monday.

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