The Guardian

NGO Acción Ecológica responds to the government’s attempt to close the organization down

Members of one of Latin America’s most well-known environmental organisations, Acción Ecológica, are fighting for their survival against a controversial attempt by Ecuador’s government to shut them down.

The move by the government came six days after violence between soldiers, police and indigenous Shuar people opposed to a proposed giant Chinese-run copper mine in Ecuador’s south-eastern Amazon region, and just two days after Acción Ecológica had called for a Truth Commission to be set up to investigate events there. The attempt to close the organisation has sparked severe criticism from UN human rights experts and outrage from numerous civil society organisations in Latin America and elsewhere.

Elephants will only be safe when decisive action is taken against the ivory traffickers who have been operating under the cover of the legal trade

China’s decision to ban all trade in ivory by the end of the year has been widely hailed as a game changer by environmentalists in China itself and across the world. There is no doubt that this is very welcome news.

Many commentators have also pointed out that this new Chinese policy is also motivated by self-interest. China has rapidly growing economic and political interests in Africa and hopes to improve its image on the continent by responding to pressure from its African allies to reduce demand for ivory among Chinese consumers. If protecting elephants is in China’s self-interest—and if African leaders care enough about them to put pressure on China to change its policies—that is also welcome news.

Udale Bay, Cromarty, Highlands Rapid wings took the peregrine high, and it wheeled, looking for any movement below

The tide was starting to ebb as I raised two of the windows in the RSPB hide. This meant I could not only see the mass of birds on the saltmarsh but also enjoy the music of their various calls. They seemed to be trying to decide just when to leave for the mudflats and the food that would be exposed for them by the departing tide.

Curlews walked around looking superior on their long legs, drake wigeon whistled in their inimitable fashion, and the black and white plumage of the several shelduck stood out in contrast to the brown and grey camouflage of the waders.

China has ordered all its legal ivory carvers and traders to get of the business by the end of the year. But it will have to do more if it really wants to stop poaching

China’s ban on ivory trading and processing has been hailed as a monumental step on the path to saving elephants from extinction. But if China does not simultaneously tackle its much larger illegal trade in ivory, the ban could perversely make it more lucrative for the poaching gangs who massacre Africa’s elephants and ship their tusks to Asia.

The number of legal businesses being shut down is relatively small. The plan, announced on 30 December by China’s central government, will close “a portion” (the Guardian understands it will be roughly half) of its 34 licensed carving factories and 130 retailers before the end of March 2017. The rest will be forced shut by the end of the year.

For years China’s ivory carvers and collectors have been blamed for elephant poaching. Now their government is banning the ivory trade. How do they see their future?

In a tiny workshop at his home in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong, 84-year-old Au Yue-Shung shows me an ivory carving he has been working on for months. Measuring just 5x10 inches, Nine Sages in Mount Xiang depicts the 9th-century poet Bai Juyi and eight of his peers in full creative flow in Henan province, far from the imperial court that Bai once served. The point of the story is that the sages tried to maintain their integrity by staying close to nature and art, and away from the ugly politics of the time. This is a piece that Au created for himself rather than a client. It is his statement about life after going through many ups and downs.

Born during the Japanese occupation of China in the 1930s, Au joined Guangzhou’s Daxin ivory carving factory at the age of 13 as an apprentice. With only one year’s formal education and with no one caring to teach him, he taught himself drawing and carving in his spare time. Unable to afford drawing paper, he drew on toilet paper. His gift was soon recognised and by the late 1960s he had become a key carving artist at Daxin. Later, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, he decided that he had had enough of the political and artistic repression.

Scientists predict that a giant iceberg is about to break off from the Antarctic shelf after the sudden expansion of a rift which has been growing steadily for a decade. Several ice shelves have cracked up around northern parts of Antarctica in recent years, including the Larsen B that disintegrated in 2002

• Giant iceberg poised to break off from Antarctic shelf

We know diesel vehicles are the key culprit, but when it comes to both long-term solutions and emergency measures the govenment has been asleep at the wheel

Cutting toxic levels of city air pollution to safer levels is simple, but not easy – it requires resolve. Yet, despite the key culprit in the UK being well known – diesel vehicles – the government has been asleep at the wheel for years.

Levels of nitrogen dioxide have been illegally high across much of the UK since 2010. In 2015 86% of major urban areas broke annual limits. Cutting this pollution means choking off diesel emissions and there is a wide range of effective measures available.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

A swimming baby elephant, diving penguins and jumping impalas are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Pushback will be needed against an impending swarm of climate zombie myths

Climate myths are like zombies – you shoot them through the heart, walk away thinking they’re dead, and then they pop back up behind you and try once again to eat your brain.

So it is with Stage 1 climate denial and the myth that the Earth isn’t warming. It’s so persistent that it’s related to the 5th, 9th, and 49th-most popular myths in the Skeptical Science database. Climate deniers have been peddling the myth ‘no warming since [insert date]’ for over a decade.

Brixton Road in Lambeth has already broken legal limits for toxic air for the entire year, with many other sites across the capital set to follow

London has breached its annual air pollution limits just five days into 2017, a “shameful reminder of the severity of London’s air pollution”, according to campaigners.

By law, hourly levels of toxic nitrogen dioxide must not be more than 200 micrograms per cubic metre more than 18 times in a whole year, but late on Thursday this limit was broken on Brixton Road in Lambeth.

It now owns five of the world’s six largest solar-module manufacturing firms and the largest wind-turbine manufacturer

China is cementing its global dominance of renewable energy and supporting technologies, aggressively investing in them both at home and around the globe, leaving countries including the US, UK and Australia at risk of missing the growing market.

A report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (Ieefa) found China’s dominance in renewables is rapidly spreading overseas, with the country accelerating its foreign investment in renewable energy and supporting technologies.

Residents of the new eco hamlet in Pembrokeshire can expect greatly reduced fuel bills and shared use of an electric car

Most of the houses in the Welsh village of Glanrhyd are of traditional construction – walls made out of hefty local stone, roofs of grey slate. They can get chilly when the winter winds whistle through the gaps.

The six houses that make up the “eco hamlet” of Pentre Solar look and feel very different. They are built using light, bright timber sourced from a nearby valley. The houses are carefully insulated, airtight and powered by solar panels.

A late list of new year resolutions include a return to mountain biking and a position in the commuting slow lane

New year resolutions are, of course, traditionally made before 1 January, not nearly a week into 2017. But I shall disregard convention – below are my cycling-related hopes for the current year.

Some are personal, some more general. I should also stress that these aren’t my sole hopes for humanity, just some specific Bike Blog-based ones. New bike lanes would be great, but I’m more keen overall on peace for all and a continued avoidance of a nuclear holocaust.

Stricter EU emissions testing for large vehicles means modern diesel cars produce 10 times more NOx per litre of fuel

Modern diesel cars produce 10 times more toxic air pollution than heavy trucks and buses, new European data has revealed.

The stark difference in emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) is due to the much stricter testing applied to large vehicles in the EU, according to the researchers behind a new report. They say the same strict measures must be applied to cars.

Stoke Abbott, Dorset Every limb is a puzzle, whether to remove or keep, how to split, where to interlace

Thunk! The billhook bites deep and splits the hazel slantwise. With a heave and a twist on the trunk, the young tree shakes its embryonic catkins against the sky and swishes down to lie lengthwise with the others. Then begins the business of trimming the prone sapling and weaving it in so it becomes both hedge and living fence.

Hedge laying is an ancient craft. Small tree trunks are sliced with a shallow, diagonal cut and then bent sideways. A thin bridge of wood remains to connect the laid tree to the live root. The horizontal trees, called pleaches or plashes, are interlaced and held in place with posts and crooks – pieces of forked stick driven into the ground. New side shoots grow outwards and upwards, regenerating the hedge from a thick, stock-proof, base.

Matt Horn bitten twice after he found 11-year-old Braeden, who has autism, playing with the reptile

A Melbourne father and his 11-year-old autistic son have been bitten by a tiger snake that slithered into their suburban home.

Matt Horn was bitten twice as he tried to protect his son, Braeden, who had been bitten while playing with the snake in the hallway of their Diamond Creek home.

In unprecedented move, OECD will look into allegations that world’s largest conservation organisation facilitated abuse of Baka people of Cameroon

A human rights abuses complaint against WWF, the world’s largest conservation organisation, is to be examined by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OECD) in an unprecedented step.

Anti-poaching government “eco-guards” in the Cameroon rainforests, part-funded and logistically supported by WWF, are alleged to have destroyed camps and property belonging to the hunter-gatherer Baka people. The guards are accused of using physical force and threats of violence against the Baka people over a number of years.

Climate sceptic journalist’s claim that marine life has nothing to fear from rising ocean acidity levels is not misleading but ‘comment’, says Ipso

A magazine article claiming “marine life has nothing whatsoever to fear from ocean acidification” has been deemed neither misleading nor inaccurate by the UK’s press regulator.

The feature, written by journalist and climate-change sceptic James Delingpole, appeared in the Spectator under the headline “Ocean acidification: yet another wobbly pillar of climate alarmism”.

Some flashpoints for environmental activists relating to climate change that are likely to erupt in the first few months of Donald Trump’s presidency

Donald Trump is likely to face unprecedented opposition from environmental groups during his presidency as activists prepare to battle the new administration on a number of fronts across the US.

While environmentalists clashed with Barack Obama over the Keystone and Dakota Access oil pipelines, these fights could pale in comparison to the array of grievances Trump will face over water security, fracking and climate change.