The Guardian

It is disappearing from our countryside, but what is the real story behind its inclusion in the famous carol?

“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…” I bet you’re already singing the next line: “a partridge in a pear tree!” The Twelve Days of Christmas is one of our best-known Christmas carols, even if its repetitive format does sometimes drive us round the bend.

But what of the partridge itself? When I was growing up on the edge of London, the grey partridge was, if not exactly common, a fairly regular sight. If I took a trip to East Anglia, they were ten a penny. Nowadays, I struggle to find them anywhere.

• Swedish activist tweeted about murders of indigenous people
• President laments press attention for ‘pirralha [little brat]’

Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has derided Greta Thunberg​ after the teenage climate activist added her voice to growing international condemnation of a surge of anti-indigenous violence in the Amazon.

Related: Amazon indigenous leaders killed in Brazil drive-by shooting

Scale and speed of loss much higher than predicted, threatening inundation for hundreds of millions of people

Greenland’s ice sheet is melting much faster than previously thought, threatening hundreds of millions of people with inundation and bringing some of the irreversible impacts of the climate emergency much closer.

Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, and the scale and speed of ice loss is much higher than was predicted in the comprehensive studies of global climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to data.

Ten species with improved numbers in IUCN red list unveiled amid call for more biodiversity focus at COP25

The Guam rail, a flightless bird typically about 30cm long, usually dull brown in colour and adorned with black and white stripes, has become a rare success story in the recent history of conservation.

Previously extinct in the wild, the bird has been saved by captive breeding programmes and on Tuesday its status was updated on the IUCN red list of threatened species to critically endangered, along with nine others whose numbers have recently improved.

Investigation showing Brazilian beef industry tied to Amazon destruction prompts demands for firms to scrutinise supply chains

• Revealed: fires three times more common in Amazon beef farming zones
• World Bank urged to rethink investment in one of Brazil’s big beef companies

There is growing support in the UK and Europe for laws that would make due diligence on issues such as deforestation and human rights abuses mandatory for large businesses.

NGOs have been pushing for regulatory action for at least a decade. But this year governments and, more surprisingly, the private sector have swung behind the cause.

UN experts say it is impossible to rule out that cattle raised on illegally deforested land end up in supply chain of Minerva

• Revealed: fires three times more common in Amazon beef farming zones
• Calls grow for laws requiring firms to reveal links to deforestation

The World Bank should reconsider its investment in one of Brazil’s biggest beef producers because of the industry’s links to deforestation and the climate crisis, according to two UN-appointed experts.

Minerva is Brazil’s second largest beef exporter, and some of its product is supplied, both directly and indirectly, by cattle farmers based in the Amazon rainforest.

Investigation reveals 70% of Nasa fire alerts were in the estimated buying zones of beef companies, some of which export to UK

• Calls grow for laws requiring firms to reveal links to deforestation
• World Bank urged to rethink investment in one of Brazil’s big beef companies

Fires were three times more common in beef-producing zones than in the rest of the Amazon this summer, according to a new analysis.

The findings once again draw attention to the links between Brazil’s powerful beef industry and the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, just as the world debates climate change at COP25.

Dangerous smoke haze hangs over the city of Sydney as the New South Wales fire danger risk is raised from ‘very high’ to ‘severe’. Sydney air quality is 11 times the hazardous level due to the ongoing bushfires.

Sydney GP Dr Kim Loo says poor patients are worst affected as AMA warns of possible long-term increase in asthma cases

A Sydney GP working in the suburbs hardest hit by bushfire smoke plaguing NSW has said she is devastated for her patients, many of them unable to afford air filters, air-conditioning or masks.

Dr Kim Loo works in Rouse Hill, which along with Richmond and St Mary’s on Tuesday recorded some of the highest levels of ultra-fine PM2.5 particles, small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream. On Tuesday afternoon the 24-hour average index for Rouse Hill stood at 430, with anything above 200 rated “hazardous”.

Sea level rise, erosion and cruise ships are worsening Venice’s flood problem. But corruption nearly scuppered the solution. By Neal E Robbins

I was in Venice when the acqua alta struck on 28 October 2018. I noted in my diary: “It happened today. The first big acqua alta of the year, with a siren at 09.17, followed by two steady tones. One tone is for 1.1 metres, two 1.2 metres, three 1.3 metres and four 1.4 metres or more. The tidal chart says the level should peak just after noon. At 12.30 I put on my green rubber boots. Stepping out along the canals, I found the water above my ankles and immediately had to re-learn how to walk. Walking at normal speed causes the water to splash over your boots and on to your legs. I slowed down, finding I also needed to watch out for little waves from the boats on the canal, which rode up right over the submerged pavement.

“Tourists used bin bags or fluorescent pink plastic booties over their shoes, walked barefoot or just got their shoes wet. Judging by the laughs and picture taking, high water looked fun, but not for the tourists who held heavy suitcases to their chests to keep them dry as they walked. One woman, who had given up, was dragging hers through the water. They looked really stressed. People carried small dogs and children, while a man hefted an old woman on to one of the raised board walkways set up for pedestrians. Many shops are open, some with thigh-high ‘flood’ barriers at the door, even as clerks mop up, pushing water out with wiper blades on sticks or setting up pumps to spew water back out on to the street. In a pizzeria, waiters shuffled through the water to serve customers.

Working group comes as new federal drought coordinator Shane Stone refuses to be drawn on climate change’s impact on drought

Agriculture ministers have agreed to establish a new drought working group to better coordinate the country’s assistance to farmers, amid criticism that the current system is too confusing.

Following a meeting of state and territory agriculture ministers in Moree in NSW on Tuesday, federal drought minister David Littleproud announced the new working group would be set up and would report back to government in February.

Research on 378 killer whales finds those with grandmothers live longer and the older females help them when food is scarce

Doting killer whale grandmothers help their grand calves survive, particularly in times of food scarcity, scientists reported in a paper that sheds new light on the evolutionary role of menopause.

Orca females stop reproducing in their thirties or forties but can continue to live for decades more, a phenomenon known only to exist in humans and four other mammal species, all of which are whales.

Young activists including Greta Thunberg put pressure on negotiators to break deadlock

Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis, the UN and campaigners have said as climate talks in Madrid enter their second week with little concrete progress.

Young people, including Greta Thunberg, played a leading role in protests at COP25 over the weekend, and on Monday appeared at the conference to put pressure on negotiators to come up with a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and tackling the impacts of climate breakdown.

Analysis shows ‘staggering’ 40% reduction in government spending in a decade

Public funding for environment bodies in Scotland has plummeted by 40% in a decade, placing already declining wildlife at risk, according to analysis of government budgets.

Scottish Environment Link, a coalition of more than 35 wildlife, environment and countryside charities, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, WWF and the Scottish Wildlife Trust, estimates almost £100m has been slashed from the budgets of public agencies in Scotland between 2010-11 and 2019-20.

Rising demand and climate crisis threaten entire mountain ecosystem, say scientists

A quarter of the world’s population are at risk of water supply problems as mountain glaciers, snow-packs and alpine lakes are run down by global heating and rising demand, according to an international study.

The first inventory of high-altitude sources finds the Indus is the most important and vulnerable “water tower” due to run-off from the Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Ladakh, and Himalayan mountain ranges, which flow downstream to a densely populated and intensively irrigated basin in Pakistan, India, China and Afghanistan.

Rising temperatures have contributed to the decline of hundreds of ski resorts on Italian slopes

Deserted ski lifts and ruined hotels are some of the relics of a tourist industry that first seduced and then abandoned the Alps, along with cement, steel cables, paved car parks and deforested slopes.

From Piedmont to Friuli, there are hundreds of abandoned ski resorts in Italy. Researchers counted 186 in 2011, a number that is likely to have grown since.

Activists were left frustrated by the lack of urgency inside negotiating rooms in Madrid

What happened in week one?

The COP25 climate talks in Madrid may have officially opened on Monday 2 December, but they only really started on Friday evening. That was when Greta Thunberg arrived to join a 500,000-strong march through the centre of Madrid, demanding that world leaders listen.

Demonstrators wearing gas masks glue hands to breeze blocks outside tube station

Climate change activists wearing gas masks have blocked a central London road to demand the next government tackles “deadly levels of air pollution” in the capital.

Six Extinction Rebellion protesters dressed in hi-vis suits glued their hands to yellow breeze blocks in the middle of Cranbourn Street, outside Leicester Square tube station.

New report says greenhouse gas emissions equal carbon footprint of a quarter of passenger cars in Europe

Greenhouse gas emissions from shipping equal the carbon footprint of a quarter of passenger cars in Europe and stand in the way of countries meeting the Paris agreement, new analysis reveals.

Despite the scale of shipping emissions from both container and cruise ships in Europe, they are not part of European emissions reduction targets.

Ocean species endangered as black market trade devastates marine life across Puglia region

Every night, dozens of wooden boats loaded with fishing equipment pass under the Punta Penna bridge and into the protected waters of the Mar Piccolo, a unique saltwater lagoon in the southern Italian port city of Taranto.

Trawling nets, cage traps and even homemade bombs are deployed into the moonlit waters by those in search of lucrative prey. “It’s like my father picking lemons and making limoncello at home,” says Luciano Manna, a local activist who has been monitoring the illegal activity for five years. “It’s too easy.”