The Guardian

Find is ‘hopeful sign’ the species, one of world’s largest and rarest freshwater fish, is not at imminent risk of extinction

Six critically endangered Mekong giant catfish — one of the largest and rarest freshwater fish in the world — have been caught and released in Cambodia, reviving hopes for the survival of the species.

The underwater giants can grow up to 3 metres long and weigh up to 300kg. They are found only in south-east Asia’s Mekong River but in the past inhabited the entire 3,044-mile (4,900km)-long river all the way from its outlet in Vietnam to its northern reaches in China’s Yunnan province.

Action helps thwart advance of invasive yellow-legged hornet that can kill 50 bees a day and has devastated honeybee colonies in France and Italy

Rapid action against an invasive bee-killing hornet has stopped its spread in the UK despite suitable climate and habitat for the insect, a study has found.

Research led by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) looked at how suitable European countries were for the yellow-legged or Asian hornet to become established, and how they might have spread without action.

Energy secretary to set out plan to boost renewable energy supply, such as building canopies of solar panels on outdoor car parks

Ed Miliband has pledged to bring in “the most ambitious reforms to the country’s energy system in generations” as he presses ahead with plans to accelerate the development of onshore windfarms in England.

The energy secretary is to set out the government’s “clean power 2030” plan on Friday, including measures to boost the UK’s renewable energy supply such as building canopies of solar panels on outdoor car parks.

Reforming the system for connecting new projects to the national grid to prioritise the most viable projects;

Speeding up decisions on planning permission by empowering planners to prioritise critical energy infrastructure;

Expanding the renewable auction process to allow funding to be secured before planning permission in an effort to stop delays and get more projects connected;

Allowing households to get access to cheaper tariffs at different times of day.

Changing state guidelines to lift wind speed turbines start spinning won’t notably affect energy generated, government consultants say

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Victoria will consider changing windfarm guidelines after government research found lifting the wind speed at which turbines start spinning could significantly reduce bat deaths without notably affecting the energy generated.

Ecologist Emma Bennett has estimated between 25,000 and 50,000 bats die annually from collisions with the more than 1,400 wind turbines operating in Victoria.

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Contamination thought to stem from the heavy application of pesticides containing TFA, a type of PFAS

Mineral water from several European nations has been found for the first time to be contaminated with TFA, a type of PFAS “forever chemical” that is a reproductive toxicant accumulating at alarming levels across the globe.

The finding is startling because mineral water should be pristine and insulated from manmade chemicals. The contamination is thought to stem from the heavy application of pesticides containing TFA, or compounds that turn into it in the environment, which are used throughout the world.

Climate researchers presented potential reasons – clouds, shipping, volcanic eruption – for the apparent surge

Scientists are still puzzling over the reasons behind a streak of unexpected, record heat that scorched 2023 and into this year, sparking fears that the climate crisis could be moving faster than previously thought.

Is it the clouds? Or shipping? Or maybe a huge volcanic eruption?

Our natural soundscapes are falling silent as bird populations decline. To improve our lives, we must invest in conservation

Imagine you’re walking across rolling hills that stretch for miles, with warm sunshine and the chirping of birds all around.

This peaceful and serene scene is an increasingly rare one in the modern world.

It goes to show how important nature is for humanity on so many levels and hopefully a study like this supports more investment and help in retaining as well as improving our natural soundscapes.

Developers in England deliver 53% of features such as trees and bird boxes demanded in planning permissions, study says

Nearly half of the nature-friendly enhancements promised by developers building new homes have failed to materialise, according to a study of almost 6,000 new houses.

Developers are failing to keep legally binding pledges to boost wildlife when building new homes, according to the survey by University of Sheffield academics for Wild Justice.

A dozen marine scientists, film-makers, musicians and conservationists, including Tim Winton, John Butler and Dr Ben Fitzpatrick, have made an epic voyage to Scott Reef, one of Australia’s wildest and most remote coral reefs, to document the threats posed by Woodside’s Browse gas proposal. Woodside’s Burrup Hub is the biggest new fossil fuel project in the southern hemisphere and, if approved, would emit more than 6bn tonnes of CO2 by 2070

• Australia’s north-west reefs teem with life – but they are also at the centre of a massive fossil fuel expansion

From farm workers in Brazil to India and the US midwest, shifting to a schedule where it’s dark out could mean dangerous conditions and less food

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with the Guardian.

For years, Josana Pinto da Costa ventured out every morning on to the waterways lining Óbidos, Brazil, in a small fishing boat. Gliding over the murky, churning currents of the Amazon River basin, her flat nets brought in writhing hauls.

Mapping based on documents released under right-to-information laws show proposed areas include habitats for 37 threatened species

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Environmentalists have released what they say are the first maps of nearly 40,000 hectares of protected Tasmanian native forests that the state government plans to open to logging in what critics have described as “political point scoring”.

They suggest significant parts of the state’s north-east around the Ben Lomond national park and near the town of Scottsdale could be made available to the forestry industry if the Liberal government wins support for the changes in parliament. A smaller area of forest could be opened up in the north-west between Smithton and Wynyard.

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Access to balanced diet also affected by inflation and Brexit, hitting most vulnerable households hardest

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Numbers of hungry and malnourished households in the UK are on the rise because of climate breakdown and inflation, government figures show, with poorer, younger and disabled people hit hardest.

Many households worry about food running out, cannot afford balanced meals, experience hunger and have missed meals in the past 30 days, the figures reveal.

Andrew Powell first said he was not ‘100% convinced’ 12 years ago while holding the portfolio during the Campbell Newman era

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Queensland’s environment minister has told parliament he stands by his comments more than a decade ago that he was “a bit sceptical” about human involvement in climate change.

Andrew Powell returned to the environment, tourism, science and innovation portfolio last month, having held it under the former premier Campbell Newman in 2012.

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Research done with the help of citizen science shows male humpback completed almost twice the typical migration distance

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A humpback whale has journeyed more than 13,000km from South America to Africa, which researchers say is the longest distance ever recorded for an individual whale.

New research published in Royal Society Open Science recorded sightings of a male humpback whale, initially spotted near the coast of Colombia and recorded nearly a decade later near Zanzibar, Africa.

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From rural buses to solar panels, our Green agenda has been transformative. Yet, vested interests and big polluters helped to poison the well of public thinking

• Eamon Ryan was Irish Green party leader from 2011 to 2024

Ireland’s Green party went into government in 2020 determined to bring Ireland from laggard to leader on the climate crisis. Public opinion was with us, and we won more than 7% of the national vote. This mandate allowed us to negotiate a coalition agreement with Ireland’s two large centrist parties that was recognised by European Green colleagues as one of the greenest deals they had seen.

Over the past four and a half years we worked flat out to implement that programme. I think most independent experts would say the impact has been transformational. Last year Ireland’s emissions fell 6.8%, despite having one of Europe’s fastest growing economies and record population growth. The Greens switched spending in favour of public transport, cycling and walking. We rolled out a new rural bus service every week, while cutting young people’s fares by 60%. Passenger numbers took off immediately and we are only at the start of the transformation. A pipeline of big new projects is coming through our planning system, ready to go.

Eamon Ryan served as the minister for the environment and transport in Ireland’s outgoing coalition government and was Green party leader from 2011 to 2024

Pesticide Action Network analysis of government testing data finds chemicals linked to cancer and harmful to bees

Imported food has been found to have residues of 48 pesticides that have not been approved for use by British farmers, including chemicals linked to cancer and imidacloprid, which is harmful to bees, analysis shows.

Pesticide Action Network (PAN) went through UK government testing data, comparing the results for pesticide tests on imported and domestically produced food. They found there were residues of 46 cancer-linked pesticides in imported produce, compared with 19 in food of UK origin.. Importers include the EU, Peru, Thailand, Turkey and the US.

Research shows UK police arrest environmental and climate protesters at three times the average global rate

British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average rate, research has found, revealing the country as a world leader in the legal crackdown on climate activism.

Only Australia arrested climate and environmental protesters at a higher rate than UK police. One in five Australian eco-protests led to arrests, compared with about 17% in the UK. The global average rate is 6.7%.

US Fish and Wildlife Service extends protections to ‘iconic’ insects, who experts say may not survive climate crisis

The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision on Tuesday to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies after years of warnings from environmentalists that populations are shrinking and the beloved pollinator may not survive the climate crisis.

Officials plans to add the butterfly to the threatened species list by the end of next year following an extensive public comment period.

Filter performs well in removing plastic pollution from water and Chinese researchers say it appears to be scalable

A sponge made of cotton and squid bone that has absorbed about 99.9% of microplastics in water samples in China could provide an elusive answer to ubiquitous microplastic pollution in water across the globe, a new report suggests.

Just as importantly, the filter’s production appears to be scalable, the University of Wuhan study authors said in the paper, which was peer-reviewed and published in the journal Science Advances. That would address a problem that has stymied the use of previous microplastic filtration systems that were successful in controlled settings, but could not be scaled up.

Government should point to evidence of FSA licensing of additive, says chair of environment and climate change committee

The government must urgently reassure consumers that feed additives given to cattle to reduce methane emissions are harmless, and a vital tool in tackling the climate crisis, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee has warned.

Lady Sheehan, chair of the environment and climate change committee of the House of Lords, called on ministers to step up as a row has blown up over the prospective use of the additive Bovaer in British dairy herds supplying Arla, the dairy company.