The Guardian

It will take ‘hard yakka’ and a couple of hundred years to rebuild north Queensland’s critically endangered mabi rainforest

Next to the old Eacham shire council chambers, on Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands, is a mosaic on a shop wall. One of nine made to commemorate the centenary of federation, the mosaic depicts a tropical rainforest.

The centrepiece is a giant red cedar, a tree with timber once considered so valuable it was called ‘red gold’. Two men swing axes into the trunk, exposing pale wood. Nearby, a tree kangaroo watches a felled cedar being dragged away by a bullock team.

At least 34 arrests since Friday as Just Stop Oil activists climb on to tankers and glue themselves to roads

Environmental protesters have continued to block UK oil terminals as part of a campaign to disrupt the fossil fuel industry despite dozens of arrests across the country.

Supporters of Just Stop Oil began the action in the early hours of Friday morning at refineries near London, Birmingham and Southampton by climbing on to tankers and gluing themselves to roads.

Solar panels and cleaner-burning stoves have reduced dangers faced by residents of three camps

“The camp has come from the dark into the light,” says Edson Sebutozi Munyakarambi, a refugee living in the Kigeme camp in southern Rwanda.

“Before the solar-powered street lamps, the camp was dark. Some people would come and steal things from the houses,” says Munyakarambi, who chairs the committee that represents the 16,000 people in the camp. “But now no one can rob people on the street corners and the children can study or play outside while they wait for their dinner.”

War means ‘breadbasket of the world’ faces unprecedented difficulty sowing, harvesting and exporting wheat and other produce

• How war in Ukraine is affecting food supply in Africa and the Middle East
• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is leading to a dramatic decline in crops planted by farmers in the country this spring, with fears for domestic and international food security.

Known for its fertile soils, Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat, barley, sunflower and maize, in particular to north Africa.

As climate change pioneers, communities are being called upon to respond to disasters that overwhelm emergency services

I’ve lived near Lismore for 15 years. During the town’s first floods, I took cupcakes to an evacuation centre and asked if they accepted homemade goods.

The answer: “We don’t, put them there, they’ll be great for morning tea.”

Rainfall not seen over South Australia’s vast desert lake since the 80s has brought it to spectacular life

As an amplified La Niña weather event turned life on the Australian east coast into a flooded misery over recent weeks, it has also played a role in helping bring the vast desert lake near the middle of the continent to life.

Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is about 700km north of Adelaide, covers more than 9,000 sq km – an area roughly equivalent to greater suburban Melbourne – and is the lowest point on the Australian mainland.

Vegetation flourishes in normally dry river channels after uncommonly high local rainfall at Anna Creek Station

Hundreds of climate change activists have blocked oil terminals across Britain, with some protesters climbing on top of oil tankers as part of their campaign to force the government to end the country's  reliance on fossil fuels.

Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil blocked refineries around London, Birmingham and Southampton on Friday.

The protests are part of a planned series of protests against UK oil infrastructure. XR said the aim was to cause enough disruption 'to create a tipping point moment'

• Inside Just Stop Oil, the youth climate group blocking UK refineries
  

African flamingo, who also goes by No 492, fled the Wichita county zoo in 2005 and was spotted this month by a fishing guide

It’s been 17 years since Pink Floyd made a daring escape from a zoo in Kansas. Now the African flamingo – who also goes by No 492 – has been seen living the life of a fugitive 700 miles to the south, in Texas.

The bird fled the Wichita county zoo in 2005 after keepers failed to clip its wings, the New York Times reported. Its survival in the wild was unlikely – indeed, a buddy who also made it out, No 347, hasn’t been heard from since. But Pink Floyd, as No 492 was nicknamed by Texas officials, was spotted this month by a fishing guide, David Foreman, to his intense surprise.

Range typically found in southern and central Europe is expanding north as climate warms

Giant orchids that can reach a metre tall have officially been found growing wild in the UK for the first time, having become established hundreds of miles north of their native range in the Mediterranean.

The “stately” plants were discovered on a grassy slope near Didcot in Oxfordshire by Hamza Nobes, a 29-year-old trainee nurse, who wishes to keep the exact location a secret.

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including a fluffy egret chick, escaped ostriches and migrating crabs

Activists climb on tankers and glue themselves to roads around London, Birmingham and Southampton

Hundreds of environmental protesters have blocked seven oil terminals across the country as part of a campaign to paralyse the UK’s fossil fuel infrastructure.

Early on Friday, supporters of Just Stop Oil began blockades at oil refineries around London, Birmingham and Southampton by climbing on top of tankers and gluing themselves to road surfaces.

The ISA, obliged to frame industry rules by July 2023, is said to lack transparency and caution in preventing exploitation of the seabed

The UN-affiliated organisation that oversees deep-sea mining, a controversial new industry, has been accused of failings of transparency after an independent body responsible for reporting on negotiations was kicked out.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is meeting this week at its council headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, to develop regulations for the fledgling industry. But it emerged this week that Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), a division of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which has covered previous ISA negotiations, had not had its contract renewed.

She began working with the National Park Service at 84 to reveal ‘untold stories’ of Black people’s efforts during the second world war

Betty Reid Soskin, the National Park Service’s oldest active ranger, has retired at the age of 100.

Soskin, who worked at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front national historical park in Richmond, California, spent her last day as she had for the last decade and a half: sharing her experiences and those of other women who worked on the home front in the second world war.

Rising costs threaten farms as NFU warns of huge drop in greenhouse crops such as cucumbers

Hundreds of egg producers are facing collapse as rising costs of fuel and energy combine with additional costs of keeping hens indoors during a bird flu outbreak.

British free-range poultry farmers are calling on big retailers to increase the price of a dozen eggs by 40p as some smaller producers are already on the brink of shutting down.

Regulator gives gas exploration company another year to plug wells, amid UK energy security concerns

The UK’s oil and gas regulator has withdrawn a demand that the fracking firm Cuadrilla plug and abandon two wells in Lancashire, amid concerns about the UK’s energy security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Weeks after Boris Johnson appeared to waver over the government’s moratorium on fracking, imposed in 2019, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) issued a ruling that indicates the door to the controversial technology could be reopened.

Tragically, the Biden administration is choosing to expand the fossil fuel industry at this critical moment

We are spiraling further into climate and ecological breakdown. Now is the perfect moment to build out renewables and end the fossil fuel industry as if the future of humanity depends on it.

Putin’s unprovoked and atrocious invasion of Ukraine has laid bare many things. One of these is our society’s precarious dependence on fossil fuels. Another is a burgeoning climate-driven food crisis. It’s time to phase out fossil fuels and industrial beef production with wartime resolve.

Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author based in Los Angeles

Government plan stop 40% of raw sewage releases by 2040 is too slow, say campaigners

Water companies discharged raw sewage into English rivers 372,533 times last year, a slight reduction on the previous year.

The water companies covering England released untreated sewage for a combined total of more than 2.7m hours; compared with 3.1m hours in 2020, according to data released by the Environment Agency (EA) on Thursday.

A man on hunger strikes has said he is willing to starve himself to death if the energy minister, Greg Hands, does not offer all MPs the same climate crisis briefing that Boris Johnson has described as his 'road to Damascus moment'. For 18 days, Angus Rose, 52, has gone without food, in the hope the minister will meet him to talk. So far he has lost 9.5kg (1st 5lb) in weight but Hands has not shown up

• Man on Westminster hunger strike fighting for MPs to get climate briefing

Peatlands hold double the carbon of the world’s forests, and scientists, gardeners and campaigners want a ban on peat sales

More than a third of all compost sold in the UK in 2021 was peat dug from carbon-rich habitats, new data has revealed.

The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), which opposes a ban on peat sales, provided the figures in its response to a government consultation. The consultation proposes banning peat compost sales to gardeners by 2024 and ministers have said they aim to end sales to professional growers by 2028. An earlier voluntary goal of ending retail sales by 2020 failed.

Angus Rose, 52, has gone 18 days without food demanding meeting with minister Greg Hands

A man has said he is willing to starve himself to death if the energy minister, Greg Hands, does not offer all MPs the same climate crisis briefing that Boris Johnson has described as his “road to Damascus moment”.

For 18 days, Angus Rose, 52, has gone without food. Each morning he goes to Westminster to sit at the gates of parliament on a wooden folding chair, by a blown-up copy of a letter to Hands, in the hope the minister will meet him to talk. So far he has lost 9.5kg (1st 5lb) in weight but Hands has not shown up.