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Why Britain's barren uplands have farming subsidies to blame | George Monbiot

The Guardian - Thu, 2013-05-23 01:48
The hills have been grazed to destruction and it's time we begin to challenge the irrational aspects of the farming funding system

Even before you start reading the devastating State of Nature report, published today, you get an inkling of where the problem lies. It's illustrated in the opening pages with two dramatic photographs of upland Britain (p6). They are supposed to represent the natural glories we're losing. In neither of them (with the exception of some distant specks of scrub and leylandii in the second) is there a tree to be seen. The many square miles they cover contain nothing but grass and dead bracken. They could scarcely provide a better illustration of our uncanny ability to miss the big picture.

The majority of wildlife requires cover: places in which it can shelter from predators or ambush prey, places in which it can take refuge from extremes of heat and cold, or find the constant humidity that fragile roots and sensitive invertebrates require. Yet, in the very regions in which you might expect to find such cover (trees, scrub, other dense foliage) there is almost none. I'm talking about the infertile parts of Britain, in which farming is so unproductive that it survives only as a result of public money. Here, in the places commonly described as Britain's "wildernesses", almost nothing remains. And the "almost" has become radically smaller over the past 20 years.

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Categories: Around The Web

SENG Victoria Newsletter - May 2013

Newsletters VIC - Wed, 2013-05-22 12:39
SENG Victoria Newsletter - May 2013
Categories: Newsletters VIC

Record Burmese python caught in Florida

The Guardian - Wed, 2013-05-22 01:21
Snake, which measured 18.8ft and weighed 128lbs, was caught alongside rural road in Miami Dade county

Wildlife officials say a Burmese python nearly 19ft (5.8m) long has been captured in Florida.

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Categories: Around The Web

DR Congo waits on funding for world's largest hydropower project

The Guardian - Wed, 2013-05-22 00:44

Complete set of Grand Inga dams on the Congo River would generate a massive 40,000MW of electricity

The dream of harnessing the mighty Congo with the world's largest set of dams has moved closer, with the World Bank and other financial institutions expected to offer finance and South Africa agreeing to buy half of the power generated.

In the past 60 years French, Belgian, Chinese, Brazilian and African engineers have all hoped to dam the river.

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Categories: Around The Web

May Seminar - Toxic Materials as Recycled Product in QLD Road Pavements

Newsletters QLD - Thu, 2013-05-09 02:49
May Seminar - Toxic Materials as Recycled Product in QLD Road Pavements
Categories: Newsletters QLD

India acts to save Asiatic lion by moving it – but hard work has only just begun | Kavitha Rao

The Guardian - Tue, 2013-05-07 21:39
Ambitious plan to translocate lions from Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh finally gets green light with Supreme Court ruling

Wildlife is under threat in most of India, but there's one state that's clinging to its fauna, if rather too tightly. The state of Gujarat – whose Gir forest shelters the world's only Asiatic lion population – has lost a bitter battle over an ambitious translocation project.

For over 18 years, conservationists have been attempting to move a pride of Gir lions to the Kuno sanctuary in the state of Madhya Pradesh. But the Gujarat government stubbornly refused to let the lions go. Meanwhile, an impatient Madhya Pradesh government bizarrely suggested introducing African cheetahs, whose Asiatic cousin once roamed the area.

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Categories: Around The Web

PR smokescreen cannot hide the holes in climate teaching proposals | Bob Ward

The Guardian - Mon, 2013-04-29 21:05
The new national curriculum provide a less in-depth introduction to climate change, and misses out vital information about risks

The Department for Education this month ended a consultation on its controversial proposals for the national curriculum amid protests about its plans to cut back on the teaching of climate change.

The education secretary, Michael Gove, launched his review of the curriculum in January 2011, but it has been beset by problems and delays, including complaints about of a lack of transparency and resignation threats from key advisers. It has also been hit by criticisms over suggestions that climate change would be omitted from a new slimmed-down version of the curriculum, which would be taught in English schools from September 2014.

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Categories: Around The Web

The week in wildlife – in pictures

The Guardian - Sat, 2013-04-27 01:45
Wales's oldest oak is felled by gale force winds after standing for 1,285 years in our pick of this week's images from the natural world Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

The dirty fossil fuel secret behind Burma's democratic fairytale | Nafeez Ahmed

The Guardian - Fri, 2013-04-26 22:18
South-east Asian country's untapped natural wealth is being opened up, regardless of the environmental and human costs

New evidence has emerged that the systematic violence against ethnic Rohingya in Burma - "described as genocidal by some experts" - is being actively supported by state agencies. But the violence's links to the country's ambitions to rapidly expand fossil fuel production, at massive cost to local populations and to the environment, have been largely overlooked.

Over 125,000 ethnic Rohingya have been forcibly displaced since waves of violence swept across Burma's Arakan state last year, continuing until now, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch's (HRW) latest sobering report. The "ethnic cleansing" campaign against Arakan's Muslim minority, although instigated largely by Buddhist monks rallying local mobs, has been the product of "extensive state involvement and planning", according to HRW's UK director David Mepham.

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Categories: Around The Web

Inside a genetically modified salmon farm in Panama - video

The Guardian - Fri, 2013-04-26 00:10
Genetically modified salmon produced by US firm AquaBounty grow faster and fatter than their natural counterparts – and the firm that designed them hopes to have FDA approval to bring the first GM animal to consumers' plates this week. Online campaign group Avaaz visited the firm's ramshackle farm in the lush western highlands of Panama at 1,500m above sea level in the town of Boquete Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Amazon v the Amazon: internet retailer in domain name battle

The Guardian - Thu, 2013-04-25 21:57
Brazil and Peru governments say company should not profit from an address that refers to an important geographical area

When you see the word "Amazon", what's the first thing that springs to mind – the world's biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer – and which do you consider most important?

These questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have lodged objections to a bid made by the US e-commerce giant for a prime new piece of cyberspace: ".amazon".

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Categories: Around The Web

GM salmon's global HQ – 1,500m high in the Panamanian rainforest

The Guardian - Wed, 2013-04-24 23:34
Supersized genetically modified salmon grown fast and fat and after years of wrangling, are ready for market – but is the market ready for them? And why is the firm hidden away in Panama?

It is hard to think of a more unlikely setting for genetic experimentation or for raising salmon: a rundown shed at a secretive location in the Panamanian rainforest miles inland and 1,500m above sea level.

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Categories: Around The Web

Chernobyl's ghost town - in pictures

The Guardian - Mon, 2013-04-15 00:27
Pripyat, founded for the 49,000-plus Chernobyl nuclear power plant workers and their families, now stands empty within the Chernobyl exclusion zone in northern Ukraine. It was evacuated in 1986 after the explosion at reactor #4 Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

SEng Victoria Newsletter - April 2013

Newsletters VIC - Sat, 2013-04-13 03:43
SEng Victoria Newsletter - April 2013
Categories: Newsletters VIC

April Seminar - Brisbane District Cooling System

Newsletters QLD - Sun, 2013-04-07 07:33
April Seminar - Brisbane District Cooling System
Categories: Newsletters QLD

Fukushima town revealed in Google Street View two years after tsunami

The Guardian - Thu, 2013-03-28 05:36
Mayor of Namie invites Google's cameras in to stop world forgetting twin disasters of tsunami then nuclear meltdown

Two years after Fukushima's triple nuclear meltdown forced tens of thousands of residents to flee, it is possible to take a virtual journey deep into the exclusion zone to one of the towns they left behind.

Google Street View has published striking images of the devastation visited on Namie by the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown: abandoned homes, shops and restaurants, fields blanketed in grass and weeds.

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Categories: Around The Web

Easter eggs rated by palm oil use

The Guardian - Mon, 2013-03-25 20:21
Lindt, Thorntons and Guylian come bottom of a league table of chocolate Easter eggs scored on use of unsustainable palm oil

Lindt, Thorntons and Guylian have come bottom of a green ranking of Easter eggs based on their use of palm oil. Divine Chocolate came top, with the Co-operative and Sainsbury's close behind in the survey of more than 70 brands by Ethical Consumer magazine and charity Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK).

The organisations are launching a campaign in response to the increasing threat that unsustainable palm oil is posing to the world's rainforests, their indigenous wildlife, and the people whose livelihoods depend on the forests. Having destroyed vast areas of forest in countries such as Indonesia, palm oil companies are now planning to expand in the rainforests of the Congo Basin in Africa.

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Categories: Around The Web

Technical Seminar 19 March - the Carbon Faming Initiative

Newsletters QLD - Fri, 2013-03-15 07:13
Technical Seminar 19 March - the Carbon Faming Initiative
Categories: Newsletters QLD

Shark species facing extinction - in pictures

The Guardian - Mon, 2013-03-11 21:10
Almost 100 million sharks are being killed each year, with fishing rates outstripping the ability of populations to recover, scientists have estimated. Sharks are targeted for their fins for use in shark fin soup, a delicacy in Asia, but as they are slow-growing and slow to reproduce, they are vulnerable to overfishing Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

SEng Victoria Newsletter

Newsletters VIC - Thu, 2013-03-07 02:07
SEng Victoria Newsletter
Categories: Newsletters VIC

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