The Guardian

Conservationists and law enforcement have struggled to catch the Walter Whites behind wildlife trafficking. But could some plastic eggs and GPS trackers change the game?

Sometimes life really does imitate art. In the fourth season of the hit TV show, Breaking Bad, police put GPS devices on barrels of methylamine to try and track the show’s protagonists to their meth lab. Inspired by the episode, Kim Williams-Guillen, a conservationist with Paso Pacifico, decided to take the concept one step further: what if you could catch wildlife poachers by slipping GPS devices into convincingly faked wildlife parts? In this case: Hollywood-inspired, high-tech sea turtle eggs; fake eggs so convincingly crafted that poachers would have a hard time distinguishing them from the real thing.

“Every year millions of sea turtle eggs are taken by poachers for sale on the black market. Paso Pacifico’s solution has the potential to reveal the trade routes and destination markets for trafficked sea turtle eggs,” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said.

Solar Impulse 2 completes the first round-the-world flight powered by a renewable energy, landing in Abu Dhabi early on Tuesday. Piloted by Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, the solar-powered plane began its circumnavigation in March 2015 and has made 16 stops across the world without using any fuel

The British photographer draws on a childhood playing in the New Forest for her images, and reminds us of a lost, near-mythical England

Thockrington, Northumberland Once, the church stood above a village; now there is just the church and a farm. A returning sailor brought cholera in 1847 and the village was wiped out, its houses burnt

From a distance the tiny buttressed church appears as a rocky outcrop, a crag jutting up from the hard dolerite of the Whin Sill. Behind its skyline silhouette, over the shoulder of the hill, the three-pointed stars of wind turbines swivel in the wind. I’m high up here, the view reaching far into the North Pennines. Grasses sway and buckle as I cross the field to open the wooden gate. My hair is whipped across my face as I lower the age-smoothed latch.

The church of St Aidan’s at Thockrington is one of the oldest in Northumberland. Once, it stood above a village; now there is just the church and a farm. A returning sailor brought cholera in 1847 and the village was wiped out, its houses burnt. A drystone wall zigzags around the knoll of the churchyard, an angled enclosure with sparse memorials, randomly placed. I came here thirty years ago to record the flora. Today the grass has been cut, the hay taken off and piled up against the inside of the boundary walls. Fresh leaves are emerging in the turf: red clover, cow parsley, sorrel, vetch and plantain.

Solar Impulse 2, which landed in Abu Dhabi, is first plane powered by the renewable energy source to tour the globe

Solar Impulse 2 has completed the first round-the-world flight by a solar-powered aeroplane, after touching down in Abu Dhabi early on Tuesday.

The final leg of the feat, aimed at showcasing the potential of renewable energy, was a bumpy one, with turbulence driven by hot desert air leaving the solo pilot, Bertrand Piccard, fighting with the controls.

Switching from diesel to solar power has reduced power costs and given two remote Northern Territory communities a new lease on life

Deep in the outback, about a 90-minute drive from Tennant Creek, two tiny Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory are coming back to life.

Since May, the Kunapa communities of Ngurrara and Kurnturlpara have been returning to the Barkly tableland, moving into the houses that had been abandoned years ago, setting up a School of the Air for their 15 children, and re-establishing their Indigenous culture. In fact, in a little over a month, the population has increased from just two people to about 40. And the reason? Solar power.

Research found that 23% of violent clashes in ethnically divided places were connected to climate disasters

Climate-related disasters increase the risk of armed conflicts, according to research that shows a quarter of the violent struggles in ethnically divided countries were preceded by extreme weather.

The role of severe heatwaves, floods and storms in increasing the risk of wars has been controversial, particularly in relation to the long drought in Syria. But the new work reveals a strong link in places where the population is already fractured along ethnic lines.

Britain’s front gardens are being paved for parking while back gardens become patios. But in Canada and the US, the Depave movement is tearing up hard surfaces

In towns and cities, flash floods are a growing problem. The concrete jungle can’t soak up rainwater, so in heavy downpours it has nowhere to go except into drains, overloading them and setting off flash floods.

A movement in Canada and the US called Depave is tearing up concrete and asphalt in local neighbourhoods and replacing it with gardens to soak up rainwater and help prevent flooding. And although Depave is largely unknown in Britain, there’s a growing need for similar action here.

Exclusive: farm gets the green light to be built by Chinese companies after $9.9m grant from renewable energy agency

Australia’s first large-scale hybrid wind and solar farm is set to be built near Canberra, with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) providing a $9.9m grant.

The money would go towards the $26m cost of building a 10MW solar photovoltaic plant alongside the existing Gullen Range windfarm.

Conservationists are calling on the US to raise the protection level for leopards, severely curbing hunters’ ability to import body parts as trophies

Conservationists have demanded a crackdown on the import to the US of leopards killed by American hunters, in an attempt to replicate the protections introduced in the wake of the furore caused by the death of famed lion Cecil.

Related: Cecil the lion's legacy: death brings new hope for his grandcubs

Study by economists say achievement by world’s biggest polluter may be a significant milestone, rather than a blip

The global battle against climate change has passed a historic turning point with China’s huge coal burning finally having peaked, according to senior economists.

They say the moment may well be a significant milestone in the course of the Anthropocene, the current era in which human activity dominates the world’s environment.

Group says move would allow shoots to be banned if birds of prey are illegally killed, amid withdrawal from hen harrier scheme

Grouse shooting estates should be licensed so that authorities have the power to ban them if birds of prey are illegally killed, the RSPB has urged, as it quit a government initiative to save the hen harrier in England.

The hen harrier action plan is a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs-led scheme in which landowners, shooting groups and conservation organisations agreed to work together to increase numbers of hen harriers in England.

Two-thirds of 16- to 34-year-olds consider environmental and wildlife policies a top voting priority, according to survey

Almost nine out of 10 young people think it is important for politicians to take care of wildlife and the environment, according to a new poll.

Two-thirds of 16- to 34-year-olds agree the environment is a top voting priority for them, the CensusWide survey of 1,000 people of all ages revealed.

Contrarian climate scientist Roy Spencer summed up the contrarian case for a fossil fuel and tobacco-funded think tank

When I give a presentation and mention the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, I’m often asked, “what’s the deal with the other 3%?”. These are the publishing climate scientists who argue that something other than humans is responsible for the majority of global warming, although their explanations are often contradictory and don’t withstand scientific scrutiny.

A few months ago, the world’s largest private sector coal company went to court, made its best scientific case against the 97% expert consensus, and lost. One of coal’s expert witnesses was University of Alabama at Huntsville climate scientist Roy Spencer - a controversial figure who once compared those with whom he disagreed to Nazis, and has expressed his love for Fox News.

UK loses third of solar posts as survey reveals almost four in 10 companies are considering leaving market entirely

More than 12,000 solar power jobs have been lost in the past year because of government subsidy cuts, according to the industry.

A third of solar jobs have been lost in the UK, found the report by PwC for the Solar Trade Association (STA), based on a survey of 238 companies, around 10% of the industry.

Friends of the Earth condemns Coal Authority for granting licences for underground coal gasification at 19 UK sites

Plans to set fire to coal under the seabed at up to 19 sites around the UK would cause significant climate pollution, groundwater contamination and toxic waste, according to a report by environmentalists.

The UK government’s Coal Authority has granted licences for underground coal gasification (UCG) covering more than 1,500 sq km of seabed off north-east and north-west England, Wales and east central Scotland.

Iveragh Peninsula, County Kerry Roadsides are a riot of primary yellow, pinks and purples

This verdant isle is indeed a green gem, but for the visitor from eastern England the abundance of richly coloured flowers is the stand-out botanical feature of the west coast of Ireland.

Roadsides are a riot of primary yellow – bird’s foot trefoil, St John’s wort, ragwort and cat’s ear; pinks and purples – including common, bell and cross-leaved heather and whole hedges of fuchsia; whitish umbels of angelica, and big white and pink striped, flared trumpets of the roseata subspecies of large bindweed.

Solar energy, no sodium and organic fertiliser: how one of Australia’s biggest wineries is reducing waste while saving money and energy

One of Australia’s biggest family-owned wineries wants to become the country’s first zero-waste wine producer, and has invested more than $15m to achieve this goal.

De Bortoli Wines, which has wineries at four sites in two states, has already cut the amount of waste it disposes to landfill from 300 tonnes a year to 48 tonnes as part of a long-term sustainable business plan adopted in 2004.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 28 July 1916

The ragwort is out on the sandhills, masses of handsome flowers above dense, dark green leaves, except where a colony of black and orange cinnabar caterpillars is defoliating the strong plants. Brighter even than the ragwort is the yellow-wort, each flower facing the sun above its stem-pierced leaves. Acres are plentifully sprinkled with yellow-worts, pink centauries, marsh helleborines with nodding mauve or purple white-lipped flowers, and grass of Parnassus with elegant white flowers delicately veined with grey. On the level stretches are considerable areas of solid pink, paler but more dainty than that of the centaury, for the small, short-stalked flowers of the bog pimpernel grow so close together as to hide their creeping leaves.

Over this floral wilderness a few terns still call harshly, for belated pairs, their earlier efforts having failed, yet hope to hatch their two or three mottled eggs. When, one day this week, we left the sandhills, we found scores of adult birds resting on the sands, and others offering small shining fish to the young they had tempted towards the sea; over the water beyond were many more beating up and down, hovering and diving. Suddenly, from the dunes behind, came a wild, angry clamour, and an Arctic skua, big and brown beside the dainty terns, came skimming towards the beach. Two or three irate terns followed it, and the resting birds on the shore got up in a flurried cloud. Heedless of this noisy multitude and their mobbing cries it singled out one with food in its coral bill and, twisting and dodging from side to side, chased it until the quarry was dropped. Had we been near enough we might have seen the skua stoop try catch the dropped fish before it reached the water, for that is the constant habit of this fierce aerial highway robber.

A fish familiar to Mediterranean fishermen can now be caught around Britain, from the south-west to the Hebrides

A favourite haunt of a newcomer to British shores, the grey triggerfish Balistes capriscus, is the seaside pier. For the holiday angler it could be quite a shock landing such an unfamiliar fish, and it will need caution. Triggerfish have small mouths but eight sharp teeth and strong jaws, useful for crushing the shells of mussels and other prey.

The increase in sea temperatures of around 1C in the last 30 years, caused by climate change, has attracted this and other newcomers more familiar to fishermen in Mediterranean countries. Unlike the octopus, which still seems confined to the southern half of Britain and Ireland, the grey triggerfish is moving north quite fast.