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The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder today announced his decision to make water available to Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales for a multi-use environmental watering event in the River Murray.

Harmondsworth villagers say they will support direct action against any attempt to bulldoze 750 homes if government backs expansion

Community leaders in Harmondsworth, the village that would be largely flattened to make way for a third runway at Heathrow, have reacted with anger at Howard Davies’s recommendation that the plan should go ahead – and alleged they were “deceived” by the government.

Related: Davies report says new runway should be at Heathrow airport - Politics live

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Investment by the Australian and Queensland Governments, industry and the community in the Great Barrier Reef exceeds more than $485 million in 2014/15 alone.

National park authority backs plan to dig mile-deep shaft under protected moorland and tunnel 16km inland from coast, with promise of 1,000 jobs

A small corner of one of Britain’s most stunning national parks will be dug up to make way for a £1.7bn potash mine after locals were wooed with promises of more than 1,000 jobs – and the idea of restoring the proud mining heritage of the north-east of England.

After a four-year planning wrangle, members of the North York Moors National Park Authority were cheered on Tuesday when they narrowly gave the green light to UK firm Sirius Minerals – via its subsidiary York Potash – to dig a mile-deep shaft under heavily protected moorland overlooking Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay.

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The Minister has approved the inclusion of eight species to various categories effective 26 June 2015.

Catching up with Jamie Golley-Bogaerts, CEO of Sustainability House after one of our Spotlight events.

sustainabilityhouse.com.au

Sustainability House is one of Australia’s leading ESD companies offering energy efficiency modelling, simulation and design advice for both commercial and residential buildings. Sustainability House has offices in Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth and has experience working across all states and territories of Australia. Sustainability House works closely with architects, builders, manufacturers and suppliers, government bodies and developers to provide innovative solutions for the built environment.

Cast: AdelaideSBN

Tags: AdelaideSBN, Adelaide, Sustainability and Sustainable Design

After two years of recording the surprising relationship between a baby giant armadillo and its mother, scientists have found the juvenile dead in the Brazilian Pantanal.

For almost two years, Alex the giant armadillo has been the most famous of his little-known and cryptic species. Born in June of 2013, photos and videos of Alex appeared across the global media, including the BBC, National Geographic and Mongabay. From Alex and his mother, Isabelle, researchers learned that giant armadillos are far more parental and familial than long believed.

Two weeks ago, researchers found Alex dead.

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As part of its campaign against an open-cut coalmine expansion, a NSW community collective has funded and produced this video profiling 65-year-old Kevin Taggart, an elder of the local Wonnarua traditional custodians. Bulga residents, alongside the custodians, have been fighting for more than five years to stop the expansion by Rio Tinto. They say it will create severe noise and dust pollution, destroy a critically endangered woodland and threaten 110 registered Aboriginal cultural sites. A final decision is expected within weeks.

This video was made by the campaign collective, Our Land Our Water Our Future Continue reading...

Ross Harding:

Founder and Executive Director of Finding Infinity.

Principal of Sustainability of BESTEC Melbourne.

After studying Mechanical Engineering and Finance at the University of Adelaide, Ross snuck off to Sweden thirsty for knowledge. Studying Sustainable Energy Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, he has been focused on causing trouble in the renewable energy and self sufficiency space every since. Over the past 9 years, Ross has been living & working in Stockholm, Sydney, London, Mexico, Berlin & and recently returned to Melbourne, with a weird and wonderful portfolio of projects in his pocket, ranging from techy consulting projects with internationally renowned architects, to quirky communications campaigns with luxury designer brands & even a few solar powered parties. He has recently returned to Australia to be based in Fitzroy, Melbourne and is focused on self sufficient building design and master planning.

Nick Harding:

Principal of Ha

Nick graduated from the UniSA, with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2003, and registered in Victoria in 2007. He commenced work with acclaimed design practice, John Wardle Architects in 2004, focusing primarily on institutional and residential projects. In his time at JWA Nicholas worked on multiple award winning projects, including UniSA’s Hawke Centre and the Melbourne Grammar Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership. In 2009 he joined conceptual design practice Herbert & Mason, where he worked on intensive interior focused projects. Since founding Ha in 2011, Nick's focus for the practice has been to undertake community focused design projects, of varying scales.

Cast: AdelaideSBN and ESM

The Minister for the Environment has published the annual list of classes of products the Minister is proposing to consider, during the next financial year, for some form of accreditation or regulation under the Product Stewardship Act 2011.

Lamb genetically modified with jellyfish protein may have been sent from Paris lab to abattoir after dispute between researchers – and ended up on someone’s plate

A lamb born with a jellyfish gene was mistakenly sold for human consumption and probably ended up on someone’s plate, French authorities have said. A dispute between researchers at a highly respected national institute may have been the cause of the animal being deliberately sent to the abattoir last year. Police have now been called in and an inquiry launched into how the lamb could have been passed as fit for human consumption.

Le Parisien newspaper reported that the animal’s mother was a sheep called Emeraude whose DNA had been modified to include a jellyfish gene called Green Fluorescent Protein by researchers at the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) in Paris. Her lamb, Rubis, was born with the gene in the spring of 2014. Although produced for research purposes, Rubis was allegedly deliberately mixed with several other lambs that had not been genetically modified and sent to an abattoir.

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The rate at which vertebrate species are dying far exceeds the norm

Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event? This is what Gerardo Caballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues have assessed, in a paper that came out on Friday.

These are extraordinarily difficult questions. There are many millions of species, many elusive and rare, and inhabiting remote and dangerous places. There are too few skilled biologists in the field to keep track of them all. Demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that any single species is extinct is arduous and painstaking (think how long it took to show – to most people, at least – that Loch Ness probably does not harbour a large monster).

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Study reveals rate of extinction for species in the 20th century has been up to 100 times higher than would have been normal without human impact

The modern world is experiencing a “sixth great extinction” of animal species even when the lowest estimates of extinction rates are considered, scientists have warned.

The rate of extinction for species in the 20th century was up to 100 times higher than it would have been without man’s impact, they said.

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Industry observers including Greenpeace have defended the confectionery firm on sourcing sustainable palm oil after a French minister urged citizens to stop buying its spread

It is not often that government ministers urge their citizens to boycott a specific product. But that is just what the French environment minister Ségolène Royal did with Nutella this week – claiming that the palm oil it is made from contributes to deforestation and does “considerable damage” to the environment.

Cue irritation from the Italian company Ferrero that makes the chocolatey spread and a backlash from Royal’s opposite number in Italy. Industry observers including Greenpeace and WWF also leapt to the defence of the company, pointing out that it has in fact led the industry in cleaning up its act and goes much further than most competitors on responsible sourcing of palm oil.

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A guide is now available for this nationally listed critically endangered ecological community.

Researchers on NOAA research vessel begin survey of massive toxic algae bloom recorded in region that has led to shutdown of shellfish harvests, reports the Seattle Times

A team of federal biologists set out from Oregon on Monday to survey what could be the largest toxic algae bloom ever recorded off the west coast.

The effects stretch from central California to British Columbia, and possibly as far north as Alaska. Dangerous levels of the natural toxin domoic acid have shut down recreational and commercial shellfish harvests in Washington, Oregon and California this spring, including the lucrative Dungeness crab fishery off Washington’s southern coast and the state’s popular razor-clam season.

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Application on ecological sustainability - comments open from 22 June 2015 until 22 July 2015

The US Fish and Wildlife service has called for the eastern cougar to be removed from endangered species list after four-year review confirms their extinction

Eastern cougars that once roamed North America from Canada to South Carolina are extinct and no longer warrant federal Endangered Species Act protections, US wildlife managers have said.

The proposal to remove so-called eastern cougars from the list of endangered and threatened species comes nearly 80 years after the last of those mountain lions was believed to have been trapped and killed in New England, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Global warming is driving more species further north, scientists say, as polar bears are spotted devouring dolphins for the first time

Norwegian scientists have seen polar bears eating dolphins in the Arctic for the first time ever and blame global warming for the bears expanding their diet.

Polar bears feed mainly on seals but Jon Aars at the Norwegian Polar Institute has photographed dolphins being devoured by a bear and published his findings in the latest edition of Polar Research this month.

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Sustainable Cities through Intentional Communities
5th June 2015, Adelaide City Library, Adelaide, South Australia

Host: Ed Wilby- Cofounder, Intentional Communities Australia Alliance
Panellist:
Brett Aylen - Architect, TS4 Architecture
Ken Long - Sustainability Consultant, dsquared Consulting & Chair, Adelaide Sustainable Building Network
Joise McLean - Principle Coach, The Partnership
Phil Donaldson - Founder, SustainSA

This session is also available as a podcast:
soundcloud.com/adelaidesbn/sustainable-cities-through-intentional-communities

Cast: AdelaideSBN and ESM