The Guardian

Greenpeace says it has uncovered a large illegal tuna fishing operation in the waters of Papua New Guinea after apprehending a Taiwanese ship with 75kg of shark fins. Irregularities in the ships log book raised activists’ suspicions and they later found that the Shuen De Ching No.888 had no fishing licence for the area

The British countryside is becoming a playground for millionaires. We need more broadcasters that dare to take on wildlife killers like the Countryside Alliance

Chris Packham should wear the Countryside Alliance’s attempt to have him silenced with pride. It’s another indication that, in the eerie wasteland of the BBC’s rural coverage, his is one of the very few voices prepared to tell us what is really going on.

The Countryside Alliance, which represents people who kill wild animals, demands that unless he stops speaking out against the persecution of wildlife, “the BBC’s only answer can be to remove the BBC from Chris Packham’s biography by refusing to employ him any more.”

Biodegradeable water packaging made from seaweed and new way of dyeing clothes have won joint award for new sustainable products

An edible alternative to plastic water bottles made from seaweed has topped the UK round of an EU competition for new, more sustainable products.

The new spherical form of packaging, called Ooho and described by its makers as “water you can eat”, is biodegradeable, hygenic and costs 1p per unit to make. It is made chiefly from calcium chloride and a seaweed derivative called sodium alginate.

With authorities ineffective, the 2,200-strong Ka’apor, in the Brazilian state of Maranhão, are taking on the illegal loggers with technology and direct action

With bows, arrows, GPS trackers and camera traps, an indigenous community in northern Brazil is fighting to achieve what the government has long failed to do: halt illegal logging in their corner of the Amazon.

The Ka’apor – a tribe of about 2,200 people in Maranhão state – have organised a militia of “forest guardians” who follow a strategy of nature conservation through aggressive confrontation.

New work is first in the world to set a national baseline and will detect any rise in earthquakes following an expansion of shale gas exploration in the future

At least three earthquakes strike the UK every year as the result of human activity, according to a new study.

Most of the tremors in recent decades resulted from coal mining, but fracking exploration caused two small earthquakes in 2011. The new work is the first in the world to set a national baseline and will allow the detection of any rise in earthquakes that follows an expansion of UK shale gas exploration in the future.

Queensland scientist Jeff Johnson, who identified species from photos, formally christens combative reef fish Plectorhinchus caeruleonothus

The “blue bastard”, an elusive and uniquely combative reef fish from northern Australia, long known only in fishing folklore, has been recognised officially by science.

Queensland Museum scientist Jeff Johnson, who identified the species from photos taken last year by a Weipa fisherman, has formally christened it Plectorhinchus caeruleonothus – a direct Latin translation of the colloquial name anglers bestowed on a fish famously difficult to land.

Crocodile researcher warns the reptiles face a ‘bleak future’, but Australia’s saltwater and freshwater species have a brighter outlook due to hunting ban

As many as half of the world’s 27 species of crocodilian face being wiped out due to human activity, although the most feared variety, the saltwater crocodile, faces a brighter future, according to a new book by a veteran crocodile researcher.

Land use changes, pollution, culling and feral animal invasions mean that many crocodile species face a “bleak future”, warned Professor Gordon Grigg of the University of Queensland.

They are touted as a free source of clean, unlimited energy to heat your water but the first independent test suggests they are not as efficient as thought

Thermodynamic panels have been touted as “a free source of natural, clean and inexhaustible energy providing 100% of your hot water needs, 365 days of the year”. For around £5,000 to buy and install, they sound too good to be true – and the first independent tests suggest they are.

Thermodynamic panels are similar to air-source heat pumps and work like refrigerators in reverse.

Jean-Luc Kister was one of a team which planted mines on the Rainbow Warrior in 1985, killing photographer Fernando Pereira

A French secret service diver who took part in the operation to sink Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior 30 years ago has spoken publicly for the first time to apologise for his actions.

Jean-Luc Kister, who attached a mine to the ship’s hull, says the guilt of the bombing, which killed a photographer, still weighs heavily on his mind.

Feathers are flying in the bird world. Potential changes to the law, following a campaign by pigeon fanciers to reduce attacks on their pets by raptors, have met with opposition from the RSPB.

The Raptor Alliance, a body representing many of the UK’s 42,000 pigeon owners, is writing to MPs warning that an “iconic traditional British sport” is under threat as a result of an increasing number of attacks on their birds.

Ancient eel-like fish is reclaiming its former river strongholds as water quailty improves

An ancient fish blamed for the death of a king and served as a traditional royal dish is returning to parts of Britain where it has been absent for 200 years.

Lampreys, a Medieval delicacy and eaten in a scene of Games of Thrones, evolved almost 200m years before the dinosaurs but industrial pollution drove them out of many of Britain’s rivers.

The thawing of Dachstein Massif show how climate change is precipitating the melting of glaciers, reports Der Standard

The view is breathtaking. Sheer cliff faces extend beneath the gondola as it glides from the Styrian town of Ramsau to the southern part of the Dachstein Massif, home to three glaciers.

Upon arrival, visitors to the mountain are greeted by a green model dinosaur. The figure is meant to amuse children, but it has taken on a symbolic role too: glaciers belong to a dying breed. All three of the Dachstein’s glaciers – the Gosau, the Hallstätter and the Schladminger – have shrunk this year.

Authorities seek to widen a road that would cut wildlife corridors and put the future sustainability of three tiger reserves at risk

If the tigers of Panna are under threat of being displaced by a dam, the tigers of nearby Kanha, Pench, and Navegaon Nagzira tiger reserves in the two central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are in danger from a highway.

The National Highways Authority of India proposes to widen a 50-km (31-mile) stretch of road to a four-lane divided highway connecting Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, with Nagpur, Maharashtra. While allowing humans to hurtle between these two cities, the road slices two tiger corridors: Pench-Nagzira corridor in Maharashtra and the Pench-Kanha corridor in Madhya Pradesh. Although National Highway 7 (NH7) exists already, widening it will aggravate the problem it poses to wildlife. Central Indian forests hold about 33% of India’s tigers, 688 of them.

People love Bromptons: not just suited commuters but maître d’s and cinema ushers. What’s the big deal?

Brompton M3L
Price £905
Weight 11.8kg

I count myself a functional cyclist: I don’t cycle for exercise, because I enjoy a sense of speed or to justify a wardrobe full of steampunk chic. I cycle because I am lazy and pedalling feels like less effort than walking. My journey into work only takes a quarter of an hour by bike, allowing me 15 minutes longer in bed. But when cycling seems like an effort, I simply won’t do it. Anything beyond a 25-minute radius of my house and I reach for the tube app.

The best shots from Robin McKie’s journey through the north-west passage. Read the full account here

If grey squirrels killed every year in the UK were sold for meat, it would be no bad thing. Factory farming is more harmful to the environment

The first hour of the day, before the sun is over the horizon: this is the time to see wildlife. In the spring and summer, when no one else is walking, when there is no traffic and the air is dense, so that the sounds of the natural world reverberate, when nocturnal and diurnal beasts are roaming, you will see animals that melt away like snow as the sun rises.

Whenever I stay in an unfamiliar part of the countryside, I try to wake before dawn and walk until the heat begins to rise. Many of my richest experiences with wildlife have occurred at such times. In this magical hour, I too seem to come to life. I hear more, smell more, I am more alert. I feel that at other times my perceptions are muted, my senses dulled by the white noise of the day.

A new paper finds common errors among the 3% of climate papers that reject the global warming consensus

Those who reject the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming often invoke Galileo as an example of when the scientific minority overturned the majority view. In reality, climate contrarians have almost nothing in common with Galileo, whose conclusions were based on empirical scientific evidence, supported by many scientific contemporaries, and persecuted by the religious-political establishment. Nevertheless, there’s a slim chance that the 2–3% minority is correct and the 97% climate consensus is wrong.

To evaluate that possibility, a new paper published in the journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology examines a selection of contrarian climate science research and attempts to replicate their results. The idea is that accurate scientific research should be replicable, and through replication we can also identify any methodological flaws in that research. The study also seeks to answer the question, why do these contrarian papers come to a different conclusion than 97% of the climate science literature?

Territory says it banned activist group’s entry after it had ‘deliberately attempted to disrupt the legal and regulated activity of driving and killing pilot whales’

Denmark’s autonomous Faroe Islands announced on Monday that they had refused entry to a ship carrying 21 activists from the militant conservation group Sea Shepherd who were trying to disrupt traditional whale hunts.

The territory’s government said in a statement that it had barred the ship, the Bob Barker, “with a basis in immigration legislation and in the interests of maintaining law and order”.

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) have been quietly re-establishing themselves in the woodlands of Britain for a couple of decades, although that statement might be challenged by those who have had their gardens dug up or crops eaten.

Related: Here comes trouble: the return of the wild boar to Britain

An indigenous tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, the Monpa, fears its religious and cultural sites will be affected by 15 hydroelectric projects

On 24 and 25 August, the Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects of the Ministry of Environment and Forests is scheduled to discuss the impact of 15 hydroelectric projects planned for the Tawang river basin in western Arunachal Pradesh. In an area wedged between China and Bhutan, these dams, with a combined capacity of about 2800MW of power, will submerge 249 hectares (615 acres) of forest. Other construction work such as roads will affect an even larger area of forest.

The Buddhist Monpa tribe, which lives in Tawang, fears its sacred sites, monasteries, and springs will be affected by the various components of these hydel projects. Villagers organised a huge rally from Tawang monastery to protest the construction of hydroelectric projects, defying a ban on public gathering in December 2012.