The Guardian

Video provided by Coalition Against Duck Shooting shows muddy pits full of dead birds they allege were shot and dumped by hunters who exceeded their bag limit on the opening weekend of Victoria’s duck hunting season

British gardens also saw a ‘waxwing winter’ in this winter’s Big Garden Birdwatch, conservationists say

The number of robins visiting gardens hit a 20-year high in this winter’s Big Garden Birdwatch, conservationists said.

Average numbers of the robin seen in gardens were up to their highest levels since 1986, making it the seventh most commonly seen bird in the citizen science survey in January.

In the latest in our series on Australian green energy projects, we find out how the ACT is transitioning to 100% renewable energy, aided by the country’s largest community-owned solar farm

• How the ‘nonna effect’ got Darebin’s pensioners signing up to solar
• How Daylesford’s windfarm took back the power

As Australia remains mired in a broken debate about the supposed dangers of renewable energy, some states and territories are ignoring the controversy and steaming ahead.

While Australia is far from the renewable capital of the world, the Australian Capital Territory may soon be among the world’s top renewable energy regions. And as it transitions, the ACT is demonstrating the benefits of the renewables boom to the rest of the country.

Helped by the country’s largest community-owned solar farm, Australia’s capital is making plans to provide all its energy from renewables. Wind turbines now being built around Canberra and the 1.2MW community-owned solar farm will ensure the ACT meets its 2020 goal. About 600 locals have a share in the scheme

• Renewables roadshow: how Canberra took lead in renewable energy race

Mars Inc, Staples, The Gap and others speak out against Trump’s sweeping executive order that begins to dismantle Obama’s Clean Power Plan

In 2015, when Barack Obama signed the nation’s clean power plan, more than 300 companies came out in support, calling the guidelines “critical for moving our country toward a clean energy economy”. Now, as Donald Trump moves to strip those laws away, Mars Inc, Staples and The Gap are just a few of those US corporations who are challenging the new president’s reversal on climate policy.

Related: Trump's order signals end of US dominance in climate change battle

Study shows extent to which US and western European demand for clothes, toys and mobile phones contributes to air pollution in developing countries

Western consumers who buy cheap imported toys, clothes and mobile phones are indirectly contributing to tens of thousands of pollution-related deaths in the countries where the goods are produced, according to a landmark study.

Nearly 3.5 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution, the research estimates, and about 22% of these deaths are associated with goods and services that were produced in one region for consumption in another.

Ray Collier, who has died aged 79, was devoted to the wildlife and landscape of Scotland, and used his years of experience, depth of knowledge and lively writing to kindle a similar love in others. A longstanding member of the Guardian’s band of Country Diarists, he also wrote for a sheaf of Highland newspapers, took eagerly to blogging when the world went online and was the author of two respected books.

Born in Gloucestershire, he adopted the magnificent wilds of Scotland as his home and inspiration when his work for the Nature Conservancy took him north in the 1960s. When he retired in 2002, he was the chief warden for Scottish Natural Heritage, and so absorbed in his patch that he let his passport lapse and never renewed it. The scenery and wildlife on his doorstep were more than ample, especially as the doorstep extended from his porch in Strathnairn, near Inverness, to the Western Isles, Cape Wrath and the English border.

A 30-metre layer of salt discovered beneath Dead Sea reveals drought worse than any in human history – and it could happen again

Far below the Dead Sea, between Israel, Jordan and Palestinian territories, researchers have found evidence of a drought that has no precedent in human experience.

From depths of 300 metres below the landlocked basin, drillers brought to the surface a core that contained 30 metres of thick, crystalline salt: evidence that 120,000 years ago, and again about 10,000 years ago, rainfall had been only about one fifth of modern levels.

Critically endangered Indochinese tigers are captured on sensor-triggered cameras throughout 2016, set up in Thailand’s Eastern Forest Complex by the Forest Department and wildlife NGOs Freeland and Panthera. Conservationists say it gives hope for the survival of an animal whose total population is estimated at 221, spread across Myanmar and Thailand

• Footage courtesy of the Freeland foundation
• Nearly extinct tigers found breeding in Thai jungle

Lower cull targets are easier to achieve but risk increasing instances of TB in cattle rather than reducing them, warns expert

The government’s killing targets for the controversial badger cull in England are “deliberately being biased down”, according to a leading animal population expert.

The badger cull, now rolled out to seven counties in England, is part of efforts to reduce the scourge of tuberculosis in cattle but has been heavily criticised by scientists.

Models suggest solar geoengineering could reduce climate change and our independently assessed studies are vital to understanding its full potential

Even if the world were to cut emissions to zero tomorrow, global temperatures and sea levels would rise for decades. If our roll of the climate dice is unlucky, they could rise for centuries. It is in this context that some climate researchers have begun to reluctantly take seriously ideas first proposed in the 1960s: the possibility of using solar geoengineering to help restore the world’s climate, alongside aggressive actions to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions to zero and below.

Fear of solar geoengineering is entirely healthy. Its mere prospect might be hyped by fossil fuel interests to thwart emissions cuts. It could be used by one or a few nations in a way that’s harmful to many. There might be some yet undiscovered risk making the technology much less effective in reality than the largely positive story told by computer models.

EU membership has given Britain vital environmental laws. Any changes to legislation must be done with full public scrutiny to protect us from exploitation

When Theresa May fires the Brexit starting gun by triggering article 50, she will start a process that could dramatically reshape almost every aspect of British life – from our economy, laws, and place in the world to our natural environment. The difficult choices our politicians make in just a few years could change the face of Britain for generations to come.

Even before the tough bargaining with the EU and other countries start in earnest, another, more domestic negotiation process will get underway – the constitutional power struggle between parliament and government over who will have the final say on the momentous Brexit decisions. A lot will ride on the outcome of this tug of war, and that includes the fate of many vital environmental safeguards we take for granted.

Critically endangered Indochinese tigers are captured on sensor-triggered cameras throughout 2016, set up in Thailand’s Eastern Forest Complex by the Forest Department and wildlife NGOs Freeland and Panthera. Conservationists say it gives hope for the survival of an animal whose total population is estimated at 221, spread across Myanmar and Thailand

• Footage courtesy of the Freeland foundation
• Nearly extinct tigers found breeding in Thai jungle
  

Better infrastructure for transporting people by bike is great. But cycle freight could free up roads and transform cities and towns too

The plastic bike basket I bought online was billed as “large”, but even so I was amazed when it arrived. This was a behemoth – a cavernous, black box into which you could as easily fit a decent-sized dog as a bag of shopping.

Fitted to my new commuter bike, the initial effect was comical. But such worries were soon forgotten given how astonishingly useful it proved.

While observing sperm whale off the Sri Lankan coast, Philip Hoare came face to face with eight hunting orcas who had no fear of the 100-strong sperm whale pod

Former US vice president Al Gore has produced a follow-up to his award-winning 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Watch the first official trailer

OceanWatch had expressed hope cyclone could have alleviated pressure the reef is under and prevented further bleaching

The cooling effect of Cyclone Debbie will not be enough to prevent further mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, a leading marine scientist has said.

The category-four tropical storm made landfall on the north Queensland coast on Tuesday, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Airlie Beach, Proserpine and Bowen were among the worst hit, though Hamilton, Hayman and Daydream islands were also affected.

St Dominic, Tamar Valley The hardier bulbs have naturalised and merged with bluebells, ferns, dog’s mercury and moschatel, shaded by scrub and trees

Lucifer, Sunrise, Croesus and Bernardino, narcissi with orange cups and creamy-white petals, should be at their best but hail and wind have battered these successors to the yellow-trumpeted daffodils. Bath’s Flame, on a taller stem with spreading lemon-yellow petals and scarlet-rimmed centre, is also spoilt, part-eaten by snails and little slugs.

Here, on this historic market garden, about 20 old-fashioned varieties have been identified, still growing in their original patches and rows in woodland and, occasionally, cut grass; a tithe map from the 1840s shows the land as orchard, so the oldest sorts, Princeps and Van Sion, could date from then.

Hope for critically endangered cats as only 221 Indochinese tigers, which once ranged across much of Asia, are thought to remain in Thailand and Myanmar

Conservationists say they have evidence the critically endangered Indochinese tiger is breeding in a Thai jungle, giving hope for the survival of an animal whose total population may be only a little over 200.

Thailand’s conservation authorities, along with two private organisations, have announced photographs of new tiger cubs in eastern Thailand, supporting a scientific survey that confirmed the existence of the world’s second breeding population.

The renowned primatologist is dismayed by Trump administration’s climate skepticism, but says people have ‘woken up’ to the dangers of doing nothing

• Trump moves to dismantle Obama’s climate legacy with executive order
  

Leading conservationist Jane Goodall has condemned Donald Trump’s bid to rip up America’s climate change policies as “immensely depressing” and flying in the face of scientific evidence.

The US president signed an executive order on Tuesday aimed at dismantling Barack Obama’s clean power plan, intended to limit greenhouse gases from power plants, a move that calls US commitment to the Paris accord into question.