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Global biodiversity targets won't be met by 2020, scientists say
World leaders failing in their pledge to stop wildlife decline, save habitats and create marine reserves
World leaders are failing in their pledge to cut the rate at which wildlife lose their homes, according to the the first ever progress report on targets to slow biodiversity loss by the end of the decade. Conservationist called the lack of action a “troubling sign” and a “reality check”.
Governments agreed on a set of targets in 2010 to stem the destruction of species’ habitats, increase the number of nature reserves and stop overfishing, but an international team of more than 30 scientists say in a report that, almost halfway towards the 2020 deadline, the Aichi targets are unlikely to be met.
Continue reading...The reason fewer US women cycle than the Dutch is not what you think it is
American women aren’t being put off by a lack of bike lanes but by lives that are disproportionately filled with domestic chores
Why don’t more women in the US bike? Men are two to four times more likely to make a bicycle trip than women, and just one quarter of bicycle commuters are women nationwide. The gap is large, and no city in the US has closed it.
Many researchers and advocates chalk it up to differences in risk and comfort.
Continue reading...20 Million Trees Programme Round One
UK nuclear bomb factories rapped by watchdogs over radioactive waste
Atomic Weapons Establishment issued with non-compliance notice by Environment Agency over handling of hazardous waste
Britain’s nuclear bomb factories have been reprimanded by two government watchdogs for breaking safety rules on radioactive waste.
AWE, the private consortium that operates Trident nuclear weapons facilities at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire for the Ministry of Defence, has come under fire from the Environment Agency (EA) and the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) for failures in managing its hazardous waste.
The EA has issued AWE with a non-compliance notice because key posts meant to ensure the safe handling of wastes have been vacant for months. These include waste officers, radioactive specialists and the head of environment.
AWE blamed security requirements – which can include the vetting of prospective employees – for delays in filling the vacancies. According to the EA, AWE has breached conditions imposed in 2012 to ensure that enough skilled staff were employed to look after radioactive waste safely.
“Operators are expected to comply with their permit conditions at all times,” an EA spokesman told The Guardian. “Following a site audit we found that AWE Aldermaston was not fully complying with all their permit conditions.”
AWE stressed that it kept its staffing arrangement under constant review. “But a number of unforeseen circumstances at very short notice led to the vacancies,” said an AWE spokeswoman.
“At the time of the EA inspection candidates were identified to fill the posts but the security requirements have led to recruitment delays. In the interim, existing staff are covering the roles.”
AWE pointed out that the EA had found its radioactive waste arrangements to be “robust and identified a number of areas of good practice”.
At the same time ONR is considering whether to take legal action over AWE’s failure to make 1,000 drums of hazardous radioactive waste safe. AWE promised in 2007 to repackage and reduce the waste by February 2014, but has not done so.
“ONR is continuing to investigate AWE’s failure to meet the requirements of the licence instrument, in accordance with our normal processes,” said an ONR spokesman. “ONR will consider enforcement action in accordance with our enforcement policy when all investigations are completed.”
AWE said it was “working with the ONR in support of its decision to formally investigate.” It pointed out that ONR was content that the way in which the waste was currently stored was acceptable in the short-term.
Anti-nuclear campaigners, however, accused AWE of only taking action when regulators forced them to. “Like all private companies undertaking government work, AWE is more interested in pursuing profitable activities than doing work which costs money,” said Pete Wilkinson, director of Nuclear Information Service.
“Since 2010 safety and environmental regulators have increasingly had to take action at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, and it is time to start asking whether AWE are fit to run this complex and hazardous site if they are unable to improve standards.”
Gamekeeper found guilty of poisoning 10 buzzards and a sparrowhawk
A gamekeeper found with a bag of nine dead buzzards on a pheasant-shooting estate has been found guilty of intentionally killing a protected species in what is England’s worst recorded case of poisoning birds of prey.
Allen Lambert, gamekeeper for 24 years at the Stody Estate in Norfolk, will be sentenced next month after being convicted of killing 10 buzzards and a sparrowhawk. Lambert was also found guilty of possessing illegal pesticides and other equipment including a syringe for injecting poison into eggs or meat baits, which prosecutors described as a “classic poisoner’s kit”.
Continue reading...‘Cathedral of the Wimmera’ a welcome addition to National Heritage List
National Heritage Listing for Victoria's 'Cathedral of the Wimmera'
Earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF
Species across land, rivers and seas decimated as humans kill for food in unsustainable numbers and destroy habitats
• See picture gallery of wild animals facing decline
• George Monbiot: It’s time to shout stop on this war on the living world
The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years, according to a new analysis. Creatures across land, rivers and the seas are being decimated as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats, the research by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London found.
“If half the animals died in London zoo next week it would be front page news,” said Professor Ken Norris, ZSL’s director of science. “But that is happening in the great outdoors. This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live.” He said nature, which provides food and clean water and air, was essential for human wellbeing.
Continue reading...Queensland Mud Crab Fishery
Queensland Mud Crab Fishery
'Extinct' cat-sized chinchilla found alive in shadows of Machu Picchu
Living arboreal chinchilla rat thought to have been extinct is tracked down in Peruvian cloud forests, reports Mongabay
Below one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world, scientists have made a remarkable discovery: a living, cat-sized mammal that until now was only known from fossils.
The Machu Picchu arboreal chinchilla rat (Cuscomys oblativa) was first described from two enigmatic skulls discovered in Incan pottery sculpted 400 years ago.
Continue reading...National Environmental Science Programme
Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit 11-12 November
Water Purchase Tender in the Queensland Lower Balonne now open
Hairy, scary and lethal: how dangerous are Britain’s household spiders?
Spiders are in the news again. It happens this time every year. Why? Because now is the time for spiders, in their more-or-less annual life cycle, to reach maturity – in other words, their maximum adult size. And yes, some of them can seem very big. They especially grow large when they have had plenty to eat and, being insect predators, they have grown fat on the full and wholesome menu of all those flies and bugs that nice, warm, sunny 2014 has delivered in such abundance.
First, a key fact: all spiders are venomous. That’s how they catch their insect prey, by injecting venom down hollow fangs into their struggling victims. But they don’t really bite humans. We are much too big and taste foul. Think about it. The largest garden spider, seemingly the size of a ping-pong ball hanging ponderously in its web, just cannot get its delicate jaws open wide enough to bite even the daintiest finger. It would be like a human vainly trying to bite a giant pumpkin. Of Britain’s 600 different spider species, just half-a-dozen can open their mouths wide enough, and have fangs long enough to deliver a venomous nip. Despite tabloid horror headlines, it feels like a wasp sting. Even a mild cat scratch can become infected and ooze pus. Deaths from spider bites still hover around the zero mark.
Continue reading...Revamped lorry designs could avoid hundreds of cycling deaths – study
Lorries should have longer cabs, rounded noses and expanded glazed areas to increase visibility, Loughborough team says
Revamping lorry designs to overhaul blind spots in current models could save the lives of hundreds of cyclists and pedestrians every year, according to a new report by Loughborough University.
Lorries are responsible for over half of all cyclist deaths in London, a third across the UK as a whole, 43% of cycling fatalities in Belgium and 38% in the Netherlands.
Continue reading...Draft conservation advice for the Posidonia australis seagrass meadows of the Manning-Hawkesbury ecoregion ecological community
Rewilding Britain: bringing wolves, bears and beavers back to the land
Introducing extinct species to the landscape is called rewilding and advocates enthuse about the benefits. But opponents fear the impact could be devastating
A pair of highland ponies nibble grass as two kestrels swoop across the path. Up a rock face across this windswept valley deep in the Scottish highlands, a golden eagle is hunting for prey, its movements tracked by a GPS tag. Nearby are Scottish wildcats among the bracken – Europe’s rarest cat, with fewer than 400 left – plus red squirrels, black grouse, the occasional pine marten, shaggy highland cattle adapted to the harsh environment here, and, like much of the highlands, plenty of deer. Wild boar and moose roamed this corner of Sutherland until recently.
But if Paul Lister, the estate’s multimillionaire owner and the heir to the MFI fortune gets his way, two species not seen on this land for centuries could soon be added to the list: wolves and bears. Alladale estate, which Lister prefers to call a “wilderness reserve”, is one of the most ambitious examples of so-called “rewilding”, the banner under which a growing number of people are calling for the reintroduction of locally extinct species to landscapes. Bringing back species such as wolves, beavers and lynx, rewilding advocates say, can increase the diversity of other flora and fauna, enable woodlands to expand and help reconnect people with nature.
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