The Guardian
Scientists warn against China's plan to flatten over 700 mountains
Environmental consequences of removing hills to create more land for cities not considered, academics say in Nature paper
Scientists have criticised China's bulldozing of hundreds of mountains to provide more building land for cities.
In a paper published in journal Nature this week, three Chinese academics say plan to remove over 700 mountains and shovel debris into valleys to create 250 sq km of flat land has not been sufficiently considered “environmentally, technically or economically.”
Continue reading...Jamaica's rare wildlife – in pictures
The Portland Bight protected area is home to the iconic Jamaican iguana
and 20 other endangered species. Its fragile coastal ecosystem and
wildlife faces the risk of being lost for ever as Jamaica approves a
Chinese company to build a port. Photographs by Robin Moore
Whale killed by cruise ship near New York amid upsurge in cetacean strikes
• Sei whale carcass dragged into Hudson River
• Strike is third in north-east waters in recent weeks
A cruise ship heading for New York this month struck and killed a whale and dragged it into the Hudson River, part of a higher-than-usual rate of strikes along the eastern seaboard for this time of year, a federal agency said.
There were three whale strikes recently, including one in which a cruise ship hit a sei whale and did not discover it until it reached port, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Continue reading...Fracking in Tunbridge Wells: 'Where is it going to stop?'
Residents in the Kent Weald react with mixture of fear and enthusiasm to news of shale oil reserves and plans to change the law to allowing fracking without clearance
Residents of Kent have reacted angrily to a government announcement that fracking companies will no longer need to ask permission before drilling beneath their homes.
In Tunbridge Wells, Sue Reddick, a local housekeeper, said she was shocked to learn the government was preparing to amend trespass laws to allow companies to operate beneath homes without first asking the owner’s permission.
Continue reading...Sloth baby surprises keepers at London zoo
A pair of sloths have speeded up their usual slow courtship to produce London zoo's first baby sloth – to the surprise of their keepers.
Keepers at London zoo were shocked to discover two-toed sloth Marilyn was pregnant as they were unaware she had mated with male partner Leander, who arrived from Germany in 2012 to be paired with her.
Continue reading...Meet the top 10 newly discovered species of 2014
• See a gallery of top 10 species here
A tree-living raccoon from the cloud forests of the Andes, a sea anenome that burrows into Antarctic glaciers and ultra-hardy bacteria that thrive in supposedly sterile clean rooms are all among the top 10 newly discovered species of 2014.
The list, as selected by an international panel of experts from the 18,000 new species revealed in the last 12 months, aims to highlight the undiscovered richness of life on Earth at a time when human activities are driving species extinct at a rate unprecedented since a giant meteorite strike wiped out the dinosaurs.
Continue reading...Return of the European bison
Europe's largest beast is to roam the forests of Romania after 200 years. Adam Vaughan witnesses the buzz as a herd of 17 is released in the Carpathian mountains
The crowd surges forward against the barrier, cameraphones are held aloft, children are hoisted on to shoulders. The celebrities, the first European bison about to set their hooves in this remote Romanian valley in the southern Carpathian mountains for two centuries, wait in the shadows of a huge trailer.
The forest, already home to bears and packs of wolves, is the final destination for 17 of Europe's largest land mammal, some of whom have been travelling hitched to lorries for five days from as far as Sweden. It will be their first time out of captivity.
Continue reading...Landmark sites in the US at risk from climate change – in pictures
From Statue of Liberty to Fort Monroe, a string of national monuments and heritage sites are becoming vulnerable to rising seas, floods and wildfires according to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists
Continue reading...Leave seashells on the seashore or risk damaging ecosystem, says study
You might think twice next time you snag a seashell from the beach and drop it into your pocket: you might be altering the seaside environment.
In a study more than 30 years in the making, researchers have found that the removal of shells from beaches could damage ecosystems and endanger organisms that rely on shells for their survival.
Continue reading...Traces of cocaine in our tap water don't prove we have a problem
According to various headlines this weekend, we Brits use so much cocaine that traces of the drug have been found in our water supply. A study by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) aimed at assessing the danger from pharmaceutical compounds in drinking water revealed that even after intensive purification treatment, minute quantities of benzoylecgonine – the metabolised form of cocaine – were found at four sites in Britain. So are we a nation of coke-heads? And does the presence of something related to a class-A drug in the water we drink actually matter?
The answer to the first question, says Sue Pennison of DWI, the independent body that ensures the water companies supply water fit to drink, is not clear. Benzoylecgonine, she notes, "is also an ingredient in a popular muscle-rub, and there's no way of telling which it came from".
Continue reading...Honeybees abandoning hives and dying due to insecticide use, research finds
The mysterious vanishing of honeybees from hives can be directly linked to insectcide use, according to new research from Harvard University. The scientists showed that exposure to two neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used class of insecticide, lead to half the colonies studied dying, while none of the untreated colonies saw their bees disappear.
"We demonstrated that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering 'colony collapse disorder' in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter," said Chensheng Lu, an expert on environmental exposure biology at Harvard School of Public Health and who led the work.
Continue reading...Behind the rise of Boko Haram - ecological disaster, oil crisis, spy games | Nafeez Ahmed
The kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian school girls, and the massacre of as many as 300 civilians in the town of Gamboru Ngala, by the militant al-Qaeda affiliated group, Boko Haram, has shocked the world.
But while condemnations have rightly been forthcoming from a whole range of senior figures from celebrities to government officials, less attention has been paid to the roots of the crisis.
Continue reading...The goblin shark: a rare glimpse of something truly hideous
Name: The goblin shark.
Age: You'd have to ask it.
Continue reading...Invasion of albino snakes threatens Gran Canaria wildlife
Invasive species experts will gather in Gran Canaria this week to offer their advice on how best to control an albino variety of a popular pet snake whose population has exploded across the island in recent years, decimating local bird and lizard species.
Originally brought to the island as pets, the albino California king snakes were set loose or escaped decades ago, said Ramón Gallo, a biologist who is spearheading the effort to control the population through a project called LIFE+Lampropeltis.
Continue reading...Chris Packham: Why I'm fighting to stop the slaughter of Malta's wild birds
When it comes to life and death I'm probably more stoic than most. But last week I cried in front of more than 20,000 viewers on YouTube. Like all our team, I was close to exhaustion – we'd been on four hours sleep a night for days. I was also clearly depressed by the daily slaughter we had been witness to and the relentless attrition that had been mounting with every dead bird I'd seen blasted from the Maltese skies. But in truth from the moment I reached into the cardboard box that held a shot Montagu's harrier and gently felt its badly broken wing, as soon as I saw the blood of this beautiful and rare raptor on my fingers and looked at the defiance and confusion in its brilliant yellow eyes, it was a predictable reaction.
I like birds, and this was a very special bird. That morning I had been out with a team of observers from BirdLife Malta, patrolling the dry fields of this tiny island where about 10,000 hunters wander and wait to shoot at turtle doves and quail. It's their highly controversial spring hunting season, the only such in the European Union, of which Malta has been a member since 2004.
Continue reading...Chris Packham: Malta is a bird hell
The BBC presenter talks of confrontations with hunters and police while making films to highlight the cruelty of the annual bird shoot
When Chris Packham announced he was heading to Malta to report on the island's annual spring bird shoot as if he was a war correspondent covering a conflict, even his admirers probably thought he was guilty of hyperbole.
But after a week in which the naturalist has detained by police for five hours, shoved to the ground by gunmen and witnessed the illegal killing of dozens of endangered birds, his mission to raise awareness of the annual slaughter of migratory birds has been more like a battle than he imagined.
Continue reading...B31: huge Antarctic iceberg headed for open ocean
Iceberg that calved from the Pine Island glacier last year is headed for the open ocean, scientists say
An enormous iceberg half the size of Greater London that broke off an Antarctic glacier last year is headed for the open ocean, scientists said on Wednesday.
B31, which calved from Pine Island glacier last November, is large enough at 33km long and 20km wide to lead Nasa to monitor its movements via satellite. It is up to 500 metres thick.
Continue reading...Jackfruit heralded as 'miracle' food crop
• Climate change 'already affecting food supply' – UN
• Teff poised to become next big super grain
It's big and bumpy with a gooey interior and a powerful smell of decay – but it could help keep millions of people from hunger.
Researchers say jackfruit – a large ungainly fruit grown across south and south-east Asia – could be a replacement for wheat, corn and other staple crops under threat from climate change.
Continue reading...MPs warn of invasion by non-native plant and animal species
The government must introduce new legal powers to tackle plant and animal species that are invading Britain at a rate never seen before, a committee of MPs has warned.
Species such as Japanese knotweed, the North American signal crayfish, killer shrimp and zebra mussels not only have an impact on biodiversity by supplanting native species, but affect human health and the economy, according to a report from the environmental audit committee.
Continue reading...IPCC report: the scientists have done their bit, now it is up to us | Leo Hickman
So, there we have it. The seven-year task undertaken by hundreds of the world's leading scientists, who sifted through thousands of the latest peer-reviewed studies examining the causes, impacts and mitigation options of climate change, is over.
The last of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's (IPCC) three "working group" reports was published yesterday in Berlin and the take-home message was crystal clear: "The high-speed mitigation train needs to leave the station very soon and all of global society needs to get on board," said the chair, Rajendra Pachauri.
Continue reading...