The Guardian

In a rare move to shun tourism profits for environmental protection, 10 popular dive sites have been shut down in a bid to slow a coral bleaching crisis

Thailand has shut down 10 popular diving sites in a bid to slow a coral bleaching crisis, an official said Thursday, in a rare move to shun tourism profits to protect the environment.

The tropical country’s southern coastline and string of islands are home to some of the world’s most prized white sand beaches and scuba sites, and the booming tourism industry props up Thailand’s lagging economy.

Increase fuel efficiency of heavy good vehicles that cause a quarter of Europe’s traffic carbon emissions to meet climate targets, says clean corporate alliance

An alliance of companies including Ikea, Nestle and Heathrow airport have called on the EU to pass new laws cutting truck emissions within two years, to meet promises made at the Paris climate conference.

Heavy duty vehicles make up less than 5% of Europe’s road traffic but chug out a quarter of the sector’s carbon emissions – more than airplanes – and their fuel efficiency has hardly changed in two decades.

A collection of zoological wonders from May 2016, featuring brave new rhinos, brand new pandas, earthworm engineers and more

Author and passionate lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov once said: ‘Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.’ His scientific drawings and watercolours of butterflies have now been collected into one volume, Fine Lines

On climate change, is Trump uninformed, or playing his voters?

Donald Trump has consistently expressed his conspiratorial and misinformed beliefs that global warming is a hoax.

Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!

Environmental protection order the first use of Queensland’s new chain-of-responsibility laws

An environmental protection order has been issued against Linc Energy’s former chief executive Peter Bond.

It is the first time the Queensland government’s new chain-of-responsibility laws have been put into use and comes after creditors on Monday unanimously voted to place Linc into liquidation.

Male and female set free as part of five-year trial to monitor the impact of England’s only wild population of the mammals

A new pair of beavers has been released into a river in Devon to boost the genetic diversity of England’s only wild population of the mammals.

The male and female were set free on the river Otter as part of a five-year trial monitoring the impact of Eurasian beavers, a species hunted to extinction hundreds of years ago in the UK, on the surrounding landscape, wildlife and economy.

Malcolm Turnbull’s $150m pledge to boost agriculture in northern Australia comes under fire from conservationists

Malcolm Turnbull has promised to spend $150m on dams in Queensland as part of a plan to double the agricultural output of northern Australia – but which would dump thousands of tonnes of pollution on the Great Barrier Reef, according to conservationists.

The prime minister committed $130m to one dam near Rockhampton and a further $20m to feasibility studies for 14 others across the state.

Sandy, Bedfordshire Ash dieback threatens a tree that is unwittingly generous at both ends of the season

A line of trees on the green, their fresh bright leaves glazed with sunlight, take from the east and give nothing to the west. Oaks, sycamores and chestnuts bathe their crowns in the mid-morning rays and cast dark shadows on the ground, as wide as the trees are broad, as long as they are tall, with dappled haloes all around. The beeches are worst of all, offering the land beneath no chink in their green armour. No wonder so little grows under the canopy of a beech wood, a crowd of overlapping umbrellas giving shelter, blotting out the light.

Civil society organizations and Peru government institutions say United Cacao is operating illegally, but the company denies it

Two indigenous Shipibo men from Peru’s Amazon - Sedequías Ancón Chávez and Robert Guimaraes Vasquez - paid a rare visit to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) earlier this month. The reason? To present a letter addressed to Marcus Stuttard, Claire Dorrian and Umerah Akram from the LSE’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) urging the AIM to investigate, suspend and bar a company called United Cacao Limited SEZC - as well as amend its rules and “exact more active oversight” in general.

“The nature of the crimes which the company stands accused are an important matter for AIM to address,” the letter states. “Allowing companies listed on AIM to raise capital to violate other countries’ national laws jeopardizes the “integrity and reputation” of the market, which is grounds for suspension of a company’s trading, according to AIM Rules.”

The decision of North Yorkshire county council to allow fracking (Campaigners vow to fight fracking permit, 25 May) was based on limited information. I enquired some weeks ago whether there was or would be a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA), and was told in essence this was too difficult and not required for a planning decision. An SCBA would examine not only the economic viability of a scheme but also the social costs to the community of pollution and damage to the local amenities. One clear social cost will be the damage and repair costs caused by thousands of heavy lorry movements on rural roads. These costs would be borne by the taxpayers of North Yorkshire, as now sanctified by the council, and not the drillers and government so enthusiastic for the fracking.
John Launder
Skipton, North Yorkshire

• I sat through the two-day planning meeting to decide the fracking application at KM8, Kirby Misperton. More than 80 most persuasive and eloquent objections were made by two professors, a former UN climate change adviser, medical professionals, planning consultants, and businesspeople, along with well-informed and passionate members of the community. There were more than 4,000 letters of objection and only 36 in support. Every argument was totally dismissed by the applicant and planning officer as if it were complete nonsense. The end debate, which lasted no more than 20 minutes, made it clear that some but not all members had not been receptive to opposing views and revealed through their comments they had only a basic grasp of the risk associated with fracking. The decision could obviously have been made without any meeting or representations. In all a travesty of democracy and very disrespectful to the people of North Yorkshire.
Michael Tanner
Nawton, North Yorkshire

Activists consider ‘more confrontational’ action to prevent energy firms drilling for shale gas in Yorkshire and Lancashire

Anti-fracking campaigners are threatening to set up protest camps in Yorkshire and Lancashire to prevent energy companies drilling for shale gas. Fracking firm Third Energy was given permission on Monday to carry out test drilling at a site in Kirby Misperton in Rydale, North Yorkshire, even after 99% of locals voiced their opposition to the application.

The decision prompted fears around the country that other fracking sites would be given the green light. Those fears are particularly acute in Lancashire, seen as the “next frontier” in the fight against the extreme form of energy extraction. Ian Roberts, the chair of Residents Action on Fylde Fracking, which opposes fracking on the Fylde coast in Lancashire, said his group was ready to start “more confrontational” action.

Officials reject applications from 61 companies for new palm oil operations in a crackdown on the industry blamed for fuelling haze-belching forest fires

Indonesia has rejected applications from scores of companies for new palm oil operations, an official said on Wednesday, as it cracks down on an industry whose expansion has been blamed for fuelling haze-belching forest fires.

Almost 1m hectares (2.5m acres) of land were spared from conversion to palm oil plantations due to the decision, said San Afri Awang, a senior official from the environment and forestry ministry.

The World Wildlife Foundation surveyed 2000 UK adults about their knowledge of endangered species. Roughly a third didn’t know giant pandas and snow leopards are under threat, while a fifth thought cows and grey squirrels are. One in four thought the dodo and brachiosaurus still exist!

• Do you know your wild species at risk? – in pictures

Campaigners fear more sites will get green light after decision to let Third Energy carry out test drilling in Kirby Misperton

Anti-fracking campaigners are threatening to set up protest camps in Yorkshire and Lancashire to prevent energy companies drilling for shale gas.

The fracking firm Third Energy was given permission on Monday to carry out test drilling at a site in Kirby Misperton in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, despite 99% of locals opposing its application.

People could be deterred from eating meat by increasing its price further up the supply chain, stemming rise in consumption and environmental damage

Governments should tax meat production in order to stem the global rise in consumption and the environmental damage that goes with it, according to a UN expert.

The world faces serious environmental problems if emerging economies such as China emulate Americans and Europeans in the amount of meat they eat, Prof Maarten Hajer, the lead author of a report into the impact of food production and the environment, told the UN environment assembly in Nairobi.

Three climbers have died on Mount Everest in the past week, all succumbing to altitude sickness after reaching the summit. The increasing number of deaths on the world’s tallest mountain is raising fresh fears about overcrowding and the ethics of commercial mountaineering on Everest

More than 8 million people were employed worldwide in the renewable energy sector last year as rapidly falling costs drove growth in the industry

A boom in solar and wind power jobs in the US led the way to a global increase in renewable energy employment to more than 8 million people in 2015, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).

More than 769,000 people were employed in renewable energy in the US in 2015, dwarfing the 187,000 employed in the oil and gas sector and the 68,000 in coal mining. The gap is set to grow further, with jobs in solar and wind growing by more than 20% in 2015, while oil and gas jobs fell by 18% as the fossil fuel industry struggled with low prices.

Newcastle University latest to announce it will pursue investment decisions that are compatible with its sustainability values, reports BusinessGreen

As the world’s leading oil and gas majors this week face a series of questions about their ability to respond to escalating climate risks, two of the UK’s leading universities have become the latest institutions to announce new investment strategies designed to curb their exposure to fossil fuel assets.

Newcastle University yesterday followed hot on the heels of the University of Southampton inannouncing plans to modify its investment strategy to better embed Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations.

Paula Kahumbu: A global alliance to end wildlife crime is within reach. Let’s start talking about how it can be made to work

Today the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is hosting a high level dialogue on wildlife crime at the UN Environmental Assembly (UNEA) which is taking place in Nairobi. The session will open with the launch of the UN Wild for Life campaign that is calling on citizens, governments and corporations to pledge to act on this issue. Participants at the event are expected to announce initiatives to take forward the implementation of resolutions made by UNEA-1 and the UN General Assembly on illegal trade in wildlife.

These resolutions, and the incorporation of specific targets to end poaching and trafficking of wildlife in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, have helped raise this issue to the top of the international agenda.