The Guardian
A ladybird: how is it possible to love something so small so much? | Helen Sullivan
Ladybirds know how good they look, and they don’t keep it to themselves
The ladybird gets the first part of its name from Our Lady, The Lady, Mary. Its spots – seven, if you are in Europe – symbolise Mary’s seven sorrows, its red shell the cloak she wears sometimes, when she is feeling passionate or loving, or devoted to her son, or, when she’s in a particularly generous mood, devoted to all of humanity.
Ladybirds come from the coccinellid family of beetles, which comes from the Latin for scarlet. They were named by Pierre André Latreille, a priest who had grown up an orphan and was thrown into a dungeon during the French Revolution. He was released because he recognised a rare species of beetle. A physician had come to inspect the prisoners, and found Latreille preoccupied by an insect. The story is about to sound like a bible passage written by AI. The insect was very rare, Latreille told the physician. It was a “red-necked bacon beetle”. The physician took the beetle to a local physician, 15 years old, who, impressed, used his connections to get Latreille released from prison. Within a month, every other inmate was dead from “a notorious killing frenzy”. (As they say: God loves beetles.)
Continue reading...Australia must do more to prevent ‘looting and destruction’ of underwater heritage, report says
Government urged to ratify UN convention in order to protect undersea areas like shipwrecks and now-submerged First Nations heritage sites
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The underwater world – from shipwrecks with human remains inside to First Nations sites that are tens of thousands of years old – needs better protection, a parliamentary committee has found.
Pirates have targeted second world war shipwrecks for scrap metal, looters have been trophy hunting in sunken boats and the bodies of drowned sailors have been disturbed in the process. Technological advancements mean Australia’s underwater cultural heritage is more vulnerable than ever, the committee heard.
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Continue reading...Scientists deliver ‘final warning’ on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late
IPCC report says only swift and drastic action can avert irrevocable damage to world
Scientists have delivered a “final warning” on the climate crisis, as rising greenhouse gas emissions push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage that only swift and drastic action can avert.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, set out the final part of its mammoth sixth assessment report on Monday.
Continue reading...Voters in city seats support ban on new coal and gas projects, poll shows
Majority in teal seats of Mackellar and Goldstein – and Labor’s Moreton and Bennelong – also say industry should not use offsets for emissions
The majority of voters in several metropolitan areas support stopping new coal and gas projects and believe industrial polluters should not be able to use carbon offsets for all their greenhouse gas emissions, according to new polling.
The progressive thinktank the Australia Institute commissioned uComms to poll more than 800 residents in each of two “teal” electorates – Mackellar and Goldstein – and the Labor-held seats of Moreton Bennelong and Sydney.
Continue reading...Watchdog to block shareholder payouts if UK water companies miss targets
Ofwat says new powers will be used if firms fail to reach performance and environmental goals
The UK water regulator is to use new powers to block companies from shareholder payouts if they fail to hit performance and environmental targets.
Ofwat, which in December heavily criticised some of the country’s biggest suppliers over the size of dividend payments relative to their financial performance, said the new rules will also mean water companies will “maintain a higher level of overall financial health”.
Continue reading...The Aukus deal is a crime against the world’s climate future. It didn’t have to be like this | Jeff Sparrow
By the time Australia gets its first nuclear-powered submarines, ecological collapse will already have reshaped world politics
Under the terms of the government’s nuclear submarine purchase, the first Australian-built Aukus class vessels come into service in the early 2040s. What else might be happening then?
According to the IPCC, at current rates, the planet will have warmed more than 1.5C above its pre-industrial state. In fact, many scientists believe temperatures could smash the 1.5C barrier as soon as 2030 or 2035 – that is, around about when Australia receives the first of its Virginia-class nuclear subs.
Continue reading...Rare 6ft shark washed up then decapitated on Hampshire beach
Historian Dan Snow pleads for person to come forward who removed head from animal washed up on Lepe beach
An appeal has been launched to recover the head of a rare smalltooth sand tiger shark after the fish was washed up on a Hampshire beach.
The 2 metre (6ft) long shark was initially found on Lepe beach on Friday.
Continue reading...Samoa PM urges world to save Pacific people from climate crisis obliteration
Fiame Naomi Mata’afa pleads for action before landmark IPCC report is expected to issue ‘final warning’
The world must step back from the brink of climate disaster to save the people of the Pacific from obliteration, the prime minister of Samoa has urged.
On the eve of a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which is expected to deliver a scientific “final warning” on the climate emergency, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, Samoa’s prime minister, issued a desperate plea for action.
Continue reading...From city centre to riverside idyll, the massacre of our sylvan treasures has to stop | Henry Porter
Last Wednesday morning, the people of Plymouth woke to a scene on the city’s Armada Way that looked very much like a landscape ravaged by war, trees felled and uprooted as if by artillery shells. And the shocking part was that the felling of more than 100 trees was plotted in secrecy and executed at night by the very people who are meant to love their city, protect its environment, and honour the wellbeing and wishes of its inhabitants – the local council.
No surprise in that, you may say, but what happened in Plymouth was a singular example of bad faith, a betrayal and an act of contempt towards Plymouth’s citizens. The damage done to the environment and to trust is unlikely to be reversed for many years.
Continue reading...Paradise (almost) lost: bypass threatens to destroy Cambridge farmland rich in wildlife
Coton Orchard can literally boast a partridge in a pear tree – but the idyll is threatened by a busway scheme, which campaigners say is totally unnecessary
The Coton Orchard is the eighth largest traditional orchard left in the UK, its owner Anna Gazeley is proud to say. “Not because we’re huge but because 80% have gone since the 1900s,” she said. Commercial fruit trees are smaller and more productive, but this orchard is filled with wildlife, a legacy of Gazeley’s father, who bought the land three decades ago to save the trees from developers.
That may have been a temporary reprieve. The fate of the the trees and farmland west of Cambridge will be decided on Tuesday, when Cambridgeshire county council votes on a £160m scheme to include a bus bypass that would tear through the orchard.
Continue reading...Why worry about an import ban on hunting trophies when you can bag one at home? | Catherine Bennett
An alliance that brought together conservationists, African leaders, taxidermists, recreational hunters and the patron saint of upskirters, Christopher Chope MP, is recovering, its protests having last week failed to prevent the progress of Henry Smith’s hunting trophies (import prohibition) bill towards enactment.
These trophies being – incomprehensibly for anyone whose love of animals does not express itself in killing them – the dead animal’s body parts, brought home for display or sale. A recent US Humane Society investigation at a Safari Club International convention found, for instance, “elephant skin luggage sets ranging from $10,000 to $18,000 and jewellery made from leopard claws”.
Continue reading...Breeding birds in captivity may alter their wing shapes and reduce post-release survival chances
Research into critically endangered orange-bellied parrot finds 1mm difference in length of one feather is enough to reduce survival rate by 2.7 times
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Breeding in captivity can alter birds’ wing shapes, reducing their chances of surviving migratory flights when they are released to the wild, new research suggests.
A study of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot has found that in captive-bred birds, those with altered wing shapes had a survival rate 2.7 times lower than those born with wings close to an ideal “wild type” wing.
Continue reading...‘A wake-up call’: total weight of wild mammals less than 10% of humanity’s
From elephants to tigers, study reveals scale of damage to wildlife caused by transformation of wildernesses and human activity
The total weight of Earth’s wild land mammals – from elephants to bisons and from deer to tigers – is now less than 10% of the combined tonnage of men, women and children living on the planet.
A study by scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, published this month, concludes that wild land mammals alive today have a total mass of 22m tonnes. By comparison, humanity now weighs in at a total of around 390m tonnes.
Continue reading...Drone footage shows millions of dead fish in river near Menindee - video
Drone footage filmed above a stretch of the Darling-Baaka River near the Australian town of Menindee showed millions of dead fish blanketing the water on Saturday. The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries said the deaths were related to low oxygen levels after the extreme flooding in the region in January had receded. It is the latest in a series of large-scale fish deaths that have prompted questions about the management of water levels in the Murray-Darling Basin
- ‘The smell is next level’: millions of dead fish begin to rot
- ‘Unfathomable’: millions of dead fish blanket river near Menindee
Pigs and ponies join UK’s wild bison to recreate prehistoric landscape
Ancient breeds will act as ecosystem engineers to convert commercial pine plantation into a wild wood
The UK’s first wild bison in millennia have been joined by iron-age pigs, Exmoor ponies and longhorn cattle as the rewilding project moves forward in creating a rich and natural new habitat.
The Wilder Blean project in Kent is deploying the animals to replicate the roles played by mega-herbivores when bison, aurochs and wild horses roamed prehistoric England. The animals will be closely monitored as they transform a former commercial pine plantation into a wild wood.
Continue reading...Taking the lead: dog owners urged to keep their pets in check in the countryside
The Wildlife Trusts warn letting dogs loose in nature reserves in spring and summer can cause damage and disturbances to animals and plants
From scaring endangered birds on their nests to the mountain of excrement they produce each day, dogs with irresponsible owners are a growing problem in UK nature reserves, say conservationists, who are urging owners to keep their pets on a short lead.
The Wildlife Trusts, which operate more than 2,300 nature reserves across the country, say loose dogs are a leading cause of plant and animal disturbances in UK reserves and their waste carries diseases for wildlife, with growing evidence that the 3,000 tonnes of faeces and urine produced by dogs each day disturbs the balance of ecosystems at levels that would be illegal on farmland.
Continue reading...‘Alarming’ rate of mountain forest loss a threat to alpine wildlife
Since 2001, 7% of the habitat has been lost globally due to logging, wildfires and agriculture, scientists report
An area of mountain forest larger than the state of Texas has been lost since 2001, with the amount disappearing each year accelerating at an “alarming” rate, a study warns.
Scientists found 78m hectares (193m acres) of mountain forest have been lost across the world in the past two decades, which is more than 7% of all that exists. The main drivers of loss were logging, the expansion of agriculture and wildfires.
Continue reading...Bill banning import of hunting trophies into UK passed by MPs
House of Lords to rule on divisive legislation that would stop import of endangered animals’ body parts
MPs have voted to support a controversial ban on importing hunting trophies from thousands of species into the UK, preventing British hunters from bringing the body parts of lions, elephants and giraffes into the country.
A private member’s bill put forward by the Conservative MP Henry Smith and backed by the government received the support of parliament on Friday morning after years of divisive debate on the issue. MPs from across the political spectrum spoke in favour of the legislation before it passed.
Continue reading...Japan’s most familiar orchid is found to have near-identical cousin
All the Spiranthes on the Japanese mainland were thought to be a single species, but in fact there are two
In Japan, a country with a rich and ancient history of horticulture, it is nowadays extremely rare for a new plant species to be identified. But the latest one has been growing under their noses, and it is exceptionally beautiful.
Spiranthes hachijoensis, whose rosy pink petals bear a striking resemblance to glasswork, can be found in common environments such as lawns and parks, and even in private gardens and on balconies, and yet until now it had not been named. That is because until now it was believed that all the Spiranthes on the Japanese mainland were a single species, when in fact there are two.
Continue reading...Weather tracker: Cyclone Freddy leaves trail of devastation
Hundreds killed in Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi in what may be longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record
Cyclone Freddy, which developed over the Indian Ocean more than a month ago, has dissipated this week, after making landfall a second time in southern Africa. The death toll had exceeded 300 across Madagascar, Mozambique, and Malawi by Thursday, with more than 700 people injured, 40 missing and 80,000 displaced.
The devastation was caused by severe flooding and landslides, which swept away roads and buried homes in mud. Power outages in Mozambique have affected small villages since last weekend, hindering rescue efforts as people await food and medical assistance.
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