The Guardian

Billions of birds are disappearing because of humanity’s impact on Earth, global review finds

The world’s birds, described as the planet’s “canaries in the coalmine”, are disappearing in large numbers as the colossal impact of humanity on the Earth grows, a global review has found.

There are about 11,000 species of bird spanning the globe, but the populations of half of them are falling, while just 6% are increasing. Their flight and song make them easier to study than many animals, meaning they are the best studied large group.

State government rejected proposal to relocate endangered animals in Gordon plantation despite concerns for their safety

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Wildlife campaigners have made a last ditch plea to the Victorian government to save koalas in a blue gum plantation due to be logged on Friday.

The Victorian government has approved the clear-felling of the Gordon plantation by owner Midway Pty Ltd without relocating the koalas, despite pleas from local carers and experts to protect them.

Move would also lower emissions by reducing razing of trees and methane emissions from livestock, scientists say

Replacing 20% of the world’s beef consumption with microbial protein, such as Quorn, could halve the destruction of the planet’s forests over the next three decades, according to the latest analysis.

The move would also halve emissions from the global food system, by reducing the razing of trees and the methane emissions from livestock. Previous studies have found meat alternatives have lower environmental footprints but this latest analysis is the first to assess what impact that could have in the world.

Exclusive: Global Warming Policy Foundation has led the backlash against UK government’s net zero policy

An influential thinktank that has led the backlash against the government’s net zero policy has received funding from groups with oil and gas interests, according to tax documents seen by the Guardian and OpenDemocracy.

Though the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has always said it is independent of the fossil fuel industry, the revelations about its funding will raise questions over its campaigning.

Adam Bychawski is a reporter for OpenDemocracy

Last year Idaho approved the killing of 90% of its wolves and Wisconsin killed 200 in less than 60 hours. Recently 500 were killed in the northern Rockies. This is a disaster for our ecosystem

Will Americans ever stop killing wolves?

We stopped commercially hunting whales, and the mass slaughter of bison. We no longer clearcut old-growth redwoods, or use explosives on prairie dog towns, or build massive dams on wild salmon rivers. We no longer kill egrets and herons to adorn women’s hats with their feathers.

Kim Heacox writes frequently for The Guardian about the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and threats to US public lands. He is the author of many books, including The Only Kayak, a memoir, and Jimmy Bluefeather, a novel, both winners of the National Outdoor Book Award. He lives in Alaska

Fossil fuel interest groups are telling New Mexicans: let us keep drilling or the state’s education system will collapse

The oil and gas industry wants to play a word-and-picture association game with you. Think of four images: a brightly-colored backpack stuffed with pencils, a smiling teacher with a tablet tucked under her arm, a pair of glasses resting on a stack of pastel notebooks, and a gleaming school bus welcoming a young student aboard.

“What do all of these have in common?” an April 6 Facebook post by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA), asked. “They are powered by oil and natural gas!”

Police investigation will look at whether the man wore a helmet, as growing popularity of e-scooters prompts new regulations

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A man riding an electric scooter has died in Perth after colliding with a cyclist early on Wednesday morning.

Police say about 2.25am on Wednesday, the 46-year-old man on the scooter crashed into a cyclist on a blind bend on the corner of Nicholson and Yale roads in Thornlie.

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Campaigners seeking land reform to overturn system that they say denies them access to waterways

Canoeists are campaigning for a right to “blue spaces”, with fewer than 4% of England’s rivers open to the public.

Paddlers have described being shouted at and even subjected to physical abuse for passing through some stretches of river during their exercise.

Researchers in Australia and North America say management of oyster reefs should incorporate Indigenous knowledge

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Oyster fisheries in Australia and North America survived for up to 10,000 years prior to colonisation, sustaining First Nations communities even under intense harvest, according to new research.

The study calls for Indigenous knowledge to be incorporated into managing oyster reefs today. Oyster fisheries have declined globally in modern times: an estimated 85% of 19th-century oyster reef area has been lost in the past 200 years.

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Demonstrators stage dawn protest at plans for new oil and gas fields in North Sea off Scotland’s coast

Just Stop Oil has taken action in Scotland for the first time, with more than 50 activists blockading an oil terminal in Glasgow.

Shortly before sunrise on Tuesday, about 40 supporters of the civil resistance campaign against fossil fuel production blocked the entrance to the Nustar Clydebank terminal, locking themselves together and climbing on tankers.

Green spaces near new housing developments in England and Wales down in last 20 years

New homes have a dwindling amount of green space because property developers claim they cannot afford to build parks, research has found.

Analysis from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) looked at data from the Office for National Statistics, data on the average age of local housing stock from Datadaptive and national survey data on public perceptions of local green space from the government agency Natural England.

According to a recent poll, 82% of American voters would support a decision by the National Park Service to stop selling and distributing single-use plastic at national parks

The writer Wallace Stegner once called the national parks “America’s best idea”, but the second half of that quote is more resonant today: “They reflect us at our best rather than our worst.” In these challenging times, we must look for decisions that reflect us at our best.

National parks like the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Yellowstone and Acadia provide the closest thing we have to experiencing unbridled nature. They also represent our collective decision not to do something in special places that can harm their environment, like cutting down the forest, mining for minerals or hunting wildlife. Over time our understanding of what is the right thing not to do has grown and matured. One of those right things not to do is provide single-use plastics in our national parks.

Jonathan B Jarvis served 40 years with the National Park Service and was its 18th director

Christy Leavitt is the plastics campaign director for the international ocean advocacy organization Oceana

As Muslims around the world celebrate Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, a lack of rain and food prices soaring globally following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left many families in Kenya struggling to provide the iftar that ends their daily fast

All photographs by Peter Caton for Islamic Relief

Up to 120,000 new homes halted in areas including Eden Valley and Norfolk Broads due to ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules

A legal requirement that new houses do not pollute nearby wetlands, rivers and nature reserves has halted development across a swath of England.

Forty-two local authorities in England were last month told they must ensure that new homes are “nutrient neutral” and do not add damaging nitrates or phosphates to river catchments and protected areas including the Eden Valley in Cumbria, the River Camel in Cornwall and the Norfolk Broads.

The Ukraine war has focused minds on win-win policies from ending coal and oil subsidies to raising petrol taxes on petrol

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has amplified the importance of national-security considerations in western countries’ energy policies. At the same time, governments must continue to focus on reducing environmental damage – in particular, on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. Both goals, geopolitical and environmental, are urgent and should be evaluated together.

These two objectives are not necessarily in conflict, as some believe. There are plenty of energy measures the west can adopt that would benefit the environment and further its geopolitical aims. The most obvious steps, especially for the European Union, are sanctions that reduce demand for imports of fossil fuels from Russia.

Liberal Democrats condemn ‘environment scandal’ as party releases figures compiled from Environment Agency data

Untreated sewage was discharged into England’s coastal bathing waters for more than 160,000 hours last year, according to figures collated by the Liberal Democrats to mark the start of the summer sea-swimming season.

Data compiled by the party using Environment Agency figures on 2021 discharges shows that water companies released raw sewage 25,000 times into designated bathing waters off the English coast.

Researchers say natural spaces are worth £25.6bn a year and warn against cuts to councils’ green space budgets

The nation’s green spaces are worth £25.6bn in “welfare value” a year, according to a new study.

Scientists have said this flies in the face of decisions by councils to cut nature areas.

RSPB reports 183 pairs at reserves including in Arne in Dorset and Minsmere in Suffolk

The distinctive sight and sound of a Dartford warbler singing from the top of a sprig of gorse in the May sunshine is making a welcome comeback after the bird almost became extinct half a century ago.

Dartford warblers suffered a population crash and were at risk of vanishing from the UK in the 1960s, largely because of loss of the lowland heathland they thrive in.

The heritage listed and critically endangered Cumberland plain woodland was cleared for a new defence department facility

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An area of heritage-listed bushland that formed part of the environmental offset for the western Sydney airport has been bulldozed for a car park at a new defence facility.

The clearing was revealed in an independent audit of the federal government’s progress in delivering the offsets required to compensate for the destruction of endangered habitat for the new travel hub in Badgerys Creek.

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Energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng believed to be open to extension in response to leap in gas prices and energy security concerns

Nuclear power advocates believe energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng is open to extending the life of the Hinkley Point B plant to help wean the UK off gas imports and prevent a faster-than-expected decline in Britain’s fleet of atomic reactors.

Soaring gas prices and the war in Ukraine have already spurred the government to ask coal power plant owners to stay open longer, while ministers also revisited their staunch opposition to fracking in the light of energy supply concerns.