The Guardian

Parrtjima festival will see art beamed onto a 2.5km area of the MacDonnell Ranges, raising concerns for a struggling species

Concerns that a light festival in central Australia could affect a vulnerable population of rock wallaby has led to more than a thousand people signing a petition calling for it to be stopped, and to the federal Department of the Environment and Energy examining the festival’s plans.

Parrtjima – A Festival in Light is planned to go for 10 days at the end of September. Each night a four-hour light show will project Indigenous art onto a 2.5km stretch of cliff in the MacDonnell Ranges.

Stanton Moor, Derbyshire A landscape seamed with neolithic stone circles and burial sites made this one of Britain’s first official ancient monuments

There’s a dog-eared feel to Stanton Moor, but in a good way. It’s a much loved scrap of high country between Bakewell and Matlock, sacred ground in the neolithic and bronze ages, its geomantic potency derived from long views and its proximity to the confluence of the rivers Derwent and Wye. And it’s fairly sacred even now, after a fashion.

Related: Country diary: Langsett, Peak District

Exclusive: Bob Bea, who investigated Deepwater Horizon, blasts BP and Australian regulators, calling their response to concerns about faulty equipment an ‘early warning sign’ of a potential disaster

A leading global expert on oil disasters has said the response to concerns about potentially faulty equipment in offshore drilling planned for the Great Australian Bight by BP is an early warning sign of problems that could potentially lead to disasters.

Bob Bea, an emeritus professor and founder of the center for catastrophic risk management at Berkeley, said what BP, its subcontractor Diamond Offshore Drilling and the Australian regulator had said in response to concerns about faulty bolts was “very alarming”.

It’s refreshing to read a Guardian editorial describing the benefits of GM crops (The Guardian view on GM cotton: handle with care, 5 September). However, we disagree with the article regarding our relationship with farmers and technology pricing.

Related: The Guardian view on GM cotton: handle with care | Editorial

Indonesia will become the first country in the world to export wood products to the EU that meet new environmental standards to curb illegal logging

Indonesia will in November become the first country in the world to export wood products to the European Union meeting new environmental standards in a move aimed at bolstering transparency and curbing illicit logging.

Officials from both parties unveiled measures on Thursday to ensure timber exports to the trade bloc, valued at roughly $1bn a year, are sustainable and harvested within the law.

Government creates marine protected areas around four islands in the Pacific and Atlantic, with commercial fishing banned in some areas

The UK is to ban commercial fishing from a million square kilometres of ocean around British overseas territories, the government said on Thursday.

In total, the government is creating marine protected areas around four islands in the Pacific and Atlantic, including the designation this week of one of the world’s biggest around the Pitcairn Islands.

The business secretary, Greg Clark, says the Hinkley Point deal will have a ‘series of measures to enhance security’ after Theresa May gave the green light to the construction of Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in two decades on Thursday. The plant will be financed by a Chinese nuclear power provider and French energy group EDF

• Hinkley Point C nuclear power station gets government go-ahead

If global temperatures rise more than 1.5C, the Marshall Islands will disappear. The thin atolls scattered across the Pacific Ocean are already seeing regular flooding and droughts directly related to climate change. More Marshallese are leaving in search of dry land, with nearly one-third of the population currently in the US. Many fear that with the exodus, their culture will be lost to a country that has already taken so much from them

The numerous atolls that make up the island nation are now regularly swamped due to sea level rise. But as more people flee for the US, many fear their culture will be lost to a country that has already taken so much from them

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There may be music in the roar of the sea, as Byron eulogized, but the waves can also bring creeping unease. On low-lying fragments of land like the Marshall Islands, the tides are threatening to take away what they previously helped support: life.

Energy investment fell 8% in 2015, reflecting low oil and gas prices, but falling costs and government policy shift spending towards clean energy, data shows

Global investment in energy fell by 8% last year to $1.8tn (£1.4), reflecting low oil and gas prices and cost falls in the sector, new data shows.

Nearly half of the decline was accounted for by the US, where plunging oil prices and a recent boom in shale gas, along with cost deflation in the energy sector, have played an increasing role.

Move aims to protect nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the coast of New England

President Barack Obama will establish on Thursday the first national marine monument in the Atlantic, a move that’s designed to permanently protect nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the coast of New England.

The White House said the designation will lead to a ban on commercial fishing, mining and drilling, though a seven-year exception will occur for the lobster and red crab industries. Also, recreational fishing will be allowed within the monument.

Beautiful yet terrifying, Edward Burtynsky’s aerial photography is a reminder of just how much human activity has affected the planet – as industry and agriculture leave indelible scars everywhere

A report by Swiss NGO Public Eye says businesses in Europe are exporting highly polluting, high-sulphur diesel to the African market that could never be sold at pumps in their home countries, exploiting weak fuel standards there

All photographs: Carl De Keyzer/Magnum Photos

Doñana wetlands in Andalusia is home to thousands of species but has lost most of its natural water due to industry and faces ‘danger’ listing by Unesco

A Spanish wetland home to 2,000 species of wildlife – including around 6 million migratory birds – is on track to join a Unesco world heritage danger list, according to a new report.

Doñana is an Andalusian reserve of sand dunes, shallow streams and lagoons, stretching for 540 square kilometres (209 square miles) where flamingoes feed and wild horses and Iberian lynx still roam.

Blanchland, Northumberland The sexton beetle can detect ‘the irresistible bouquet of death’ from a mile away

As we climbed the hill the low cloud thinned then became wisps of mist. Patches of blue sky began to appear. Soon the heat of the rising sun would dry the droplets of water clinging to hawkbit seed heads beside the path, and their parachute of hairs would expand, carrying them away to join a blizzard of downy thistle and willowherb seeds drifting on the breeze.

The aroma of September, of damp earth and decaying grass, hung in the air, though there was, as yet, no hint of autumn colour in the trees. Fungi, the great recyclers, were already at work.

Attribution studies are letting researchers respond quickly to questions about human influence – before the news cycle turns elsewhere

Is it still true to say you can’t point to any single extreme weather event and claim you can’t link it to human-caused climate change?

Plenty of people seem to think this is still the case. But a rapidly evolving field of climate science suggests that it’s not.

Poll findings released as prominent Australians call on big four to withdraw backing for fossil fuel industry

About half of all Australians would be likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending money to projects that contribute to climate change, according to polling commissioned by the financial activist group Market Forces.

The findings came as more than 100 prominent Australian individuals and organisations signed a letter demanding that the big four banks stop supporting projects that expand the fossil fuel industry. Among the signatories are JM Coetzee, Charlotte Wood, James Bradley, Missy Higgins, Peter Singer and Jack Mundey, as well as unions, religious orders and conservation groups.

Report comparing past mass extinction events warns that hunting and killing of ocean’s largest species will disrupt ecosystems for millions of years

Humanity is driving an unprecedented extinction of sealife unlike any in the fossil record, hunting and killing larger species in a way that will disrupt ocean ecosystems for millions of years, scientists have found.

A new analysis of the five mass extinction events millions of years ago discovered there was either no pattern to which marine species were lost, or smaller species were the ones that disappeared.

Some 15,000 people responded to the mayor’s air quality consultation, with 79% backing plans to bring forward restrictions on polluting vehicles, reports BusinessGreen

Londoners are backing Sadiq Khan’s plans to crack down on air pollution in the capital, with more than 70 per cent of residents supporting plans to bring forward measures to restrict polluting vehicles in the city, according to the results of the Mayor’s air quality consultation.

Some 15,000 people responded to the Mayor’s office air quality consultation this summer - the highest number of responses to a City Hall consultation ever. Nearly 80 per cent of respondents said they supported Khan’s plans to bring forward the introduction of the Ultra Low Emission Zone - currently due to enter force in 2020 - to 2019, while 71 per cent said the zone should be expanded to encompass the north and south circular.

Brexit is an opportunity to refine legislation to match UK’s needs, says conservationist, speaking at the launch of a major report that shows Britain is one of the world’s most ‘nature-depleted countries’

David Attenborough has urged the government to use Brexit to better protect the UK’s nature and wildlife.

“Like it or not Brexit has happened. All agriculture and environment treaties for nature and wildlife will have to be rethought. It’s a great opportunity to refine the legislation to match our part of the world,” he told conservationists at the launch of the 2016 State of Nature report.