The Guardian

Conservation groups warn not enough is being done to protect ecosystems as state government data shows more than 400,000ha of land was cleared in 2019-20

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Queensland continues to record the highest rate of land clearing in the country, with more than 400,000 hectares destroyed in 2019-20, according to new government data.

The Queensland government’s annual statewide landcover and tree study shows 418,656 hectares was cleared, a 38% decline from 680,688 hectares the previous year but still the equivalent of about 567 Melbourne Cricket Grounds a day.

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Welcome to the magical world of marsupial landlords!

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Free market mechanisms have been used for years to tackle the environmental crisis – with disastrous results. It’s time for some new ideas

“When [a] crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the idea that are lying around.”

Nowhere has Milton Friedman’s dictum applied with more force than in respect of the environment. When scientists first raised the alarm about global warming in the late 1980s, the ideas “lying around” all pertained to neoliberalism. As a result, mainstream climate action has prioritised free market mechanisms, with disastrous results.

Conservationists say amount is ‘nothing like what’s needed’ to achieve 30x30 target and address nature crisis

The UK has announced it will give nearly £30m to support developing countries in delivering the target to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030, an amount conservationists criticised as being “nothing like what’s needed”.

The announcement was made on Thursday as the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, started international negotiations at Cop15 in Montreal. The £29m pledge – £24m of which is new money – is being allocated to support developing countries in delivering the 30x30 target, which is a negotiating priority for the UK at the UN summit.

Brazil’s incoming president adds voice to demand as Montreal talks restart after series of walkouts

Brazil’s incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has backed calls for rich nations to provide more money to protect Earth’s ecosystems at Cop15 as talks restart in Montreal after a series of walkouts.

More than 100 environment ministers arrived at the biodiversity summit in Canada on Thursday before a weekend of intense negotiations on this decade’s UN targets to protect the natural world.

US star, who was also in Succession, urged leaders at biodiversity conference to take more forceful action to end nature crisis

The US actor James Cromwell revisited his old role in Jurassic Park with a modern twist in a protest against inaction on the nature crisis. He urged leaders at Cop15 to “Stop the Human Asteroid” as he stood in front of a model dinosaur surrounded by pictures of world leaders’ heads as bits of rock flying into Earth.

The 82-year-old actor – known for his roles as Ewan Logan in Succession and the farmer in Babe – staged the protest near the Cop15 convention centre in Montreal, where more than 10,000 people have gathered to create the next decade of targets to bend the curve on biodiversity loss. He told the Guardian: “With all the history of the Cops, we have achieved nothing, absolutely nothing, and they know that. I don’t know how they look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.”

Chemicals that leach out of plastic shown to cause fatal abnormalities, including gut developing outside body

Sea urchins raised in sea water with high levels of plastic pollution, including fragments collected from a Cornish surfing beach, die from developmental abnormalities, research shows.

Scientists placed fertilised urchin eggs in seawater with varying levels of plastic to compare the effects of newly made plastic pellets, or “nurdles”, with the impacts of high levels of fragments found washed up on Watergate Bay in Cornwall.

Populations have increased tenfold in the past two decades, leading to a new national strategy to halt the rapid spread

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Populations of feral deer have increased tenfold in the past two decades with numbers now too high to be managed by recreational hunting or other recent control measures.

Numbers of the invasive species are now so large in some parts of the east coast that a new national strategy by federal and state governments proposes establishing a “containment zone” to stop the spread of the animals westward across the country.

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Labor revokes Abbott government move which allowed energy from burning wood waste to be counted with solar and wind

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Electricity generated by burning native forest wood waste will no longer be allowed to be classified as renewable energy under a regulatory change adopted by the Albanese government.

The decision, which Labor had promised to consider after it was recommended by a Senate committee in September, reverses a 2015 Abbott government move which allowed burning native forest timber to be counted alongside solar and wind energy towards the national renewable energy target.

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The efforts, including restoring grassland in the Georgian steppe, will work in cooperation with local communities to repair biodiversity hotspots

From the wilderness of the Finnish boreal forest to the busy Solent estuary, seven landscape restoration projects across Europe have been boosted by more than $26m (£21m) from the Endangered Landscapes Programme (ELP).

The projects cover an area 18 times the size of Greater London and include returning nature to the Iberian Highlands, restoring grassland in the Georgian steppe, and replacing coniferous plantations with natural riverine and deciduous forests in the Rhodope mountains in south-east Bulgaria.

Scientists behind car number plate study say ‘potentially catastrophic’ decline must be reversed

The number of insects splattered on vehicle number plates in Britain fell by 64% between 2004 and 2022, according to a survey.

Each summer citizen scientists record the number of insect splats on their number plates on an app after a journey. The latest Bugs Matter report, produced by Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, found another drop in 2022 compared with 2021, with the long-term decrease jumping by five percentage points.

Post-pandemic relaxation of restrictions could weaken animal protection and pose a hazard to public health, say experts

China appears to be weakening its post-Covid restrictions on the farming of wildlife such as porcupines, civets and bamboo rats, which raises a new risk to public health and biodiversity, warn NGOs and experts.

Before the pandemic, wildlife farming was promoted by government agencies as an easy way for rural Chinese people to get rich. But China issued an outright ban on hunting, trading and transporting wildlife, as well as the consumption as food, after public health experts suggested the virus could have originated from the supply chain.

Report by Australia Institute finds a windfall profits tax could collect almost all this money for public use

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Coal exporters from Australia reaped as much as $45bn in windfall gain in the 2021-22 year, with a similar bonanza likely this year, offering governments a budgetary boon for those willing to grasp it, the Australia Institute has said.

In a report released on Thursday, the institute’s economists said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent disruption to energy markets alone had delivered between $13bn and $23bn of gains to coalminers. All up, those gains totalled between $39bn and $45bn.

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Delegates from developing nations leave discussions as divisions grow over who should pay to protect biodiversity

Divisions between developed and developing nations over who should pay to protect Earth’s ecosystems are threatening to derail a UN biodiversity summit after a group of developing countries walked out of discussions overnight.

In echoes of last month’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt – where countries agreed to create a new fund to compensate loss and damage from global heating in vulnerable nations – countries from the global south left Cop15 talks on Wednesday due to disagreements over finance.

In Montreal, progress on biodiversity issues has been slow. We cannot go on like this

Even by the glacial standards of UN biodiversity negotiations, Cop15 has been slow. We have been in Montreal for more than a week and I am flabbergasted at the lack of progress, especially after how important several world leaders said the summit would be.

There is still time to turn it around. But there is no political urgency behind the biodiversity crisis or any desire for transformative change, as far as I can tell. Greta Thunberg’s “blah, blah, blah” criticism of government negotiations on the environment is proving right as things stand, unfortunately.

National park argues attempt by landowner to stop people sleeping overnight could restrict other ‘sedentary pursuits’

Banning wild camping on Dartmoor could also end up affecting birdwatching and rock climbing, lawyers for the national park have said, as a landowner tries to stop people sleeping overnight in the park.

The judge hearing the case, Sir Julian Flaux, the chancellor of the high court, has said he will give a judgment on the case early next year.

Exclusive: In her first interview since being released from prison, Coco recalls how bushfires three years ago sparked her epiphany

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Deanna “Violet” Coco never imagined that she would end up in jail.

Three years ago Coco was an entrepreneur, living in Sydney and running an events management business. She had “never considered” engaging in the kind of protest which currently sees her facing a maximum of 15 months in prison.

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Researchers say previous studies mistook the organs on female snakes as scent glands or under-developed versions of penises

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Female snakes have clitorises, scientists have detailed for the first time in a study of the animal’s sex organs.

The scientists say previous research had mistaken the organs as scent glands or underdeveloped versions of penises, in a study that criticised the comparatively limited research into female sex organs.

Cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups reportedly set to be banned in England after a consultation

Single-use plastic items including cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups are reportedly to be banned in England by the UK government after a consultation.

Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, is poised to unveil plans to phase out the items and replace them with biodegradable alternatives in the coming weeks, the Financial Times reported.

Scientists raise concerns after annual fishing talks for key EU waters ended in quotas above those recommended

Eels are facing population collapse, conservation groups have warned, after annual fishing negotiations for key EU waters ended in the setting of quotas above those scientists have recommended.

Eels are critically endangered, and conservation groups and scientists have argued that all EU eel fisheries should be closed, to allow populations space to recover.