The Guardian

Residents voice their fears as the water level of the Seine river in Paris continues to rise. Officials forecast the Seine could peak at 6.5 metres, its highest level for more than 30 years in central Paris, stressing this is still well below the level at which it would threaten residents and businesses. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

• Europe floods: Seine could peak at 6.5 metres as Louvre closes doors
  
• Sinkholes and landslides follow flooding in France and Germany – video

We’re halfway through the year with the month of June and we’d like to see your photos of the June wildlife near you

The southern hemisphere approaches winter during the month of June while the northern hemisphere basks in warm, sunny weather. So what sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps? We’d like to see your photos of the June wildlife near you.

Share your photos and videos with us and we’ll feature our favourites on the Guardian site.

We asked you to share your May pictures of the wildlife around the world wherever you are. Here’s a selection of our favourites

• You can add your June wildlife photographs by clicking on the ‘Contribute’ button below

Fighting snakes, a rare sand cat family and Belgium’s newborn giant panda are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

City is under increasing pressure to change test methods that scientists said may underestimate the amount of lead found in water after a Guardian investigation

The Philadelphia water department, accused by some experts of having water testing “worse than Flint”, is facing a class action lawsuit and a lead-testing campaign mounted by citizens concerned about water quality.

On Thursday, hours after the Guardian published an investigation into the water-testing practices of 33 cities east of the Mississippi River, the Hagens Berman law firm announced a class action lawsuit against Philadelphia, based in part on the city’s outdated test practices.

Four men face charges over images on social media showing them going off trail in fragile area of park, after earlier wake-boarding incident at Bonneville Salt Flats

Authorities in Yellowstone national park are urging a group of Canadian men accused of tramping off trail and dabbing in a delicate hot spring to turn themselves in, after images were posted on social media of their reported antics there and across a string of American “national treasures”.

Federal warrants have been issued in Wyoming for the arrest of the four friends, who market themselves under variations of their Vancouver-based clothing and entertainment brand High on Life.

Droughts, floods, forest fires and melting poles – climate change is impacting Earth like never before. From the Australia to Greenland, Ashley Cooper’s work spans 13 years and over 30 countries. This selection, taken from his new book, shows a changing landscape, scarred by pollution and natural disasters – but there is hope too, with the steady rise of renewable energy

Two government agencies at odds with colleagues on bleaching taskforce over extent of reef damage, even though figures are broadly similar

• Share your pictures and stories of climate change in Australia
  

Almost a quarter of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef is now dead, according to two government agencies, with the previously pristine remote northern sections worst affected.

The data from in-water surveys, released on Friday afternoon, was from the two agencies that were part of the national coral bleaching taskforce.

Pennines’ becks and limestone scars form backdrop for Mallerstang Yomp challenge

The wind brings tears to the eyes as I make my cautious way to the brink of Hell Gill, the limestone chasm that once marked the boundary between Yorkshire and old Westmorland. Below, the infant river Eden, at this point called Hell Gill Beck, races north en route for Carlisle and the Solway Firth.

It was here, according to legend, that the 18th-century highwayman Dick Turpin eluded his pursuers by spurring his horse, Black Bess, into a flying leap across the 5ft gap.

Huge revenues generated by the Camisea project in Peru’s Amazon, but locals suffer from health epidemics and lack of clean water

Every year a group of experts called the South Peru Panel issues a report on the country’s largest ever energy development which extracts natural gas and natural gas liquids from the Amazon and pipes them all the way across the Andes to Peru’s Pacific coast. The conclusions of its latest report? “Very positive macroeconomic benefits” and “without precedent in Peru’s modern economic history”, but pathetic, if not disastrous, for the indigenous people living near where the gas is extracted.

The South Peru Panel was established in 2009 as a condition of a US$458.6 million loan by the Export-Import Bank of the United States to the Peru Liquified Natural Gas Project (Peru LNG), run by US company Hunt Oil, to build a 408 km pipeline, a gas liquefaction plant on the coast, and a marine terminal. The total cost is reported to have been almost US$4 billion - making it at the time the largest foreign direct investment in Peru’s history, according to the Panel, and the first and to date only LNG export project in Latin America.

Kent police warn drivers in Tunbridge Wells to check brakes before travelling after six incidents since blamed on fox cubs chewing through cables

Drivers in Tunbridge Wells have been left outraged after hungry foxes apparently chewed through the brake cables of several cars. Kent police have now warned drivers to check their brakes before setting off on journeys.

Officers called on wildlife expert John Bryant to determine whether there was an explanation other than deliberate damage to six vehicles in the second half of May. He concluded that a family of teenage fox cubs, rather than a human vandal, had gnawed through the brake cables.

There are two butterfly summers underway in Britain right now. If you have the good fortune to be a silver-studded blue or a large skipper in the West Country you are leaping out of your chrysalis and dancing in the sunshine.

If you were unlucky enough to be an egg laid in eastern England you are still stuck in the pupal stage, perhaps so chilled and damp you will never take to the skies.

Shoppers in East Anchorage sit quietly for hours on Thursday and watch a mother moose give birth and then bond with her newborn calf in the parking of a Lowe’s hardware store. The store set up a safe zone for the mother and calf until the two eventually left the area

Tiny particles of plastic litter in oceans causing deaths, stunted growth and altering behaviour of some fish that feed on them, research shows

Fish are being killed, and prevented from reaching maturity, by the litter of plastic particles finding their way into the world’s oceans, new research has proved.

Some young fish have been found to prefer tiny particles of plastic to their natural food sources, effectively starving them before they can reproduce.

Barack Obama tightens restriction on sale of elephant ivory within the US to clamp down on illegal trade

Barack Obama imposed a near total ban on the commercial trade in elephant ivory on Thursday in an effort to choke off smuggling networks and end the slaughter of African wildlife.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service rules ban the sale of elephant ivory across state lines, and deepen restrictions on international ivory sales.

Multiple listings of banned species found and since Guardian investigation 19 ads were closed down – but controlling the trade is akin to a game of whack-a-mole

A killer algae, a monstrous pondweed, a tree that has infested the Everglades and a dozen more of the US’s most environmentally destructive plants have been discovered for sale on eBay. Online traders told the Guardian that ignorance of the law led them to create listings that had spread hundreds of illegal specimens across the country.

Ebay hosted multiple listings for 15 species from the federal noxious weeds list the nation’s highest level of plant biosecurity. Most offered import to the US from abroad. But six sellers were hawking plants from within the country.

The world needs to move away from industrial agriculture to avoid ecological, social and human health crises, say scientists

A new approach to farming is needed to safeguard human health and avoid rising air and water pollution, high greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, a group of 20 leading agronomists, health, nutrition and social scientists has concluded.

Rather than the giant feedlots used to rear animals or the uniform crop monocultures that now dominate farming worldwide, the solution is to diversify agriculture and re-orient it around ecological practices, says the report (pdf) by the International panel of experts on sustainable food systems (IPES-Food).

Georgia O’Keeffe camping with Ansel Adams, paintings of the Tetons and comparisons of Yellowstone from 1871 and now are some of the highlights at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming. A series of exhibitions celebrates a range of arts focused on the anniversary of the national parks, running now until 28 August

Exclusive: Guardian investigation reveals testing regimes similar to that of Flint were in place in major cities including Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia

• Water departments to change lead-testing methods after investigation

At least 33 cities across 17 US states have used water testing “cheats” that potentially conceal dangerous levels of lead, a Guardian investigation launched in the wake of the toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan, has found.

Related: Chicago residents take action to be rid of lead pipes as fear of toxic water grows

Instructions provided varied greatly, ranging from those that contained protocols the EPA advised against a decade ago to those that were periodically updated

• At least 33 US cities used water testing ‘cheats’ over lead concerns

Water departments that use controversial lead-testing practices have told the Guardian they will change their methods after an investigation revealed they were not following environmental guidelines.

Most of the water departments involved said they used the testing methods because state governments told them to, federal guidance was not clear, or they had not received any word that practices may underestimate lead content.