The Guardian
Americans' love of hiking has driven elk to the brink, scientists say
Trail use near Vail, Colorado, has more than doubled since 2009. It’s had a devastating impact on a herd of elk
Biologists used to count over 1,000 head of elk from the air near Vail, Colorado. The majestic brown animals, a symbol of the American west, dotted hundreds of square miles of slopes and valleys.
But when researchers flew the same area in February for an annual elk count, they saw only 53.
Continue reading...G7 can’t turn a blind eye to ecocide in the Amazon
Leaders must ask themselves if Jair Bolsonaro’s destructive attitude to the forest and its peoples should be considered a crime
When G7 leaders sit in judgment on Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro this weekend, the question they should ask themselves is whether the rape of the natural world should finally be treated as a crime. The language of sexual violence will be familiar to the former army captain, who publicly admires the sadistic torturers of the dictatorship era and once said to a congresswoman, “I would never rape you because you are not worth it.” Last month, after Pope Francis and European leaders expressed concern about the Amazon, Bolsonaro lashed back by claiming: “Brazil is a virgin that every foreign pervert desires.”
As a nationalist, the president sees the Amazon in terms of ownership and sovereignty. As a chauvinist, he sees the region as a possession to be exploited and opened up, rather than cherished and nurtured.
Continue reading...Massive pumice 'raft' spotted in the Pacific could help replenish Great Barrier Reef
The 150 sq km field of floating rock was created by an underwater volcanic eruption near Tonga
A giant raft of pumice, which was spotted in the Pacific and is expected to make its way towards Australia, could help the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef from its bleaching episode by restocking millions of tiny marine organisms, including coral.
The pumice raft, which is about 150 sq km, was produced by an underwater volcano near Tonga. It was first reported by Australian couple Michael Hoult and Larissa Brill, who were sailing a catamaran to Fiji, on 16 August.
Continue reading...UK fracking site near Blackpool reports largest tremor yet
Cuadrilla reports ‘mico-seismic event’ at Preston New Road facility on Saturday night
A tremor measuring 2.1 on the Richter scale has been recorded at the UK’s only active fracking site – the largest detected at the facility.
The energy firm Cuadrilla said the “micro-seismic event” at its site near Blackpool occurred at 11.01pm on Saturday.
Continue reading...UK ‘is failing to protect wildlife habitats’, new EU report shows
The UK is failing to meet its international obligations to protect its most important wildlife sites and vulnerable species, and now lags behind most other EU countries on key criteria, according to figures posted online by the European Environment Agency.
With the environment high on the agenda at the G7 summit in Biarritz this weekend, the data will be an embarrassment to ministers who have repeatedly pledged to protect the environment – despite imposing savage cuts on England’s statutory nature conservation agency, Natural England.
Continue reading...The five: endangered species in line for a boost to their protection
African elephants play a key role in shaping landscapes, dispersing seeds and providing other species with access to water. Though several populations already receive protection from trade, those in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are currently excluded from the Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) appendix I, which offers the greatest level of protection. This month’s conference should see all African elephants added to the list.
Continue reading...David Wallace-Wells: ‘There are many cases of climate hypocrisy’
David Wallace-Wells is the deputy editor of New York magazine. In July 2017, he wrote a long-form essay about the dire prospects for human civilisation caused by the climate crisis. It became the most read article in the history of the magazine and led to a book, The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future, which is being published in paperback in September.
The first line of your book states: “It is worse, much worse, than you think.” If you were sitting down to write the book again, would you be inserting another “much” into that sentence?
I still think the public aren’t as concerned as they should be about some of the scary stuff that’s possible this century. But I do think things have changed quite a bit. And I also think the politics have changed quite a lot. When I turned in the book in September, nobody had heard of Greta Thunberg. Nobody had heard of Extinction Rebellion. In the US, very few people had heard of Sunrise. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had not even been elected.
Messing about with the river: water firms accused of draining the Cam dry
It’s a beautiful day on the river Cam in Cambridge. As the sun sparkles on the water at Jesus Green lock, tourists line up for ice-cream and prepare to take a punt around the university’s most celebrated colleges. Few notice how pathetic the flow of water is over the lock.
It is a clear sign that this ancient waterway is faring badly, says Stephen Tomkins, emeritus fellow and former head of the science faculty at Homerton College. “That little bit running through here is the total flow from the whole of south Cambridgeshire,” he says, pointing at an unimpressive trickle. There just is not enough water, he adds: “The river Cam is drying up.”
Continue reading...UK fracking site experiences second tremor in a week
Lancashire-based operation, Britain’s only active fracking site, has magnitude 1.05 tremor
The UK’s only active fracking site experienced a magnitude 1.05 tremor on Friday night.
It came two days after a magnitude 1.55 tremor, which was the largest ever tremor at the site run by Cuadrilla in Preston New Road, Lancashire.
Continue reading...Jair Bolsonaro claims 'profound love' for Amazon rainforest as criticism intensifies
President uses TV speech to criticise ‘disinformation’ about fire crisis, saying it cannot be used as pretext for sanctions
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has professed to feeling “profound love and respect” for the Amazon as fires continued to rage in the world’s biggest tropical rainforest and criticism of his environmental policies intensified.
In a televised address to the nation – met with pot-banging protests in several Brazilian cities – Bolsonaro said he was “not content” with the situation in the Amazon and was taking “firm action” to resolve it by deploying troops to the region.
Continue reading...Plan clears way for mining and drilling on land stripped from Utah monument
Management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante, downsized by Trump administration in 2017, criticized as ‘a giveaway to fossil fuel’
A new US government plan had cleared the way for coal mining and oil and gas drilling on land stripped from Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante monument by the Trump administration two years ago.
The plan, released by the Bureau of Land Management on Friday, would also open more lands to cattle grazing and recreation and acknowledges there could be “adverse effects” on land and resources in the monument.
Trump drastically shrank the southern Utah monument in 2017, as well as the nearby Bears Ears national monument, in what represented the largest elimination of public lands protections in US history. Some 800,000 acres were removed from the Grand Staircase.
Hybrid helmeted honeyeater introduced to save bird from extinction – video
Researchers have introduced three dozen hybrid helmeted honeyeaters into the wild in an attempt to prevent the critically endangered bird from dying out because of inbreeding. On Friday, the juvenile birds were released into the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve, which holds the only wild population of critically endangered helmeted honeyeaters, in an unusual attempt at genetic species rescue. The researchers say that without interbreeding, fertility rates within the 230-strong wild population could drop so low that the species would not survive.
Continue reading...With a little help from its relatives: hybrid plan to save helmeted honeyeater from extinction
Only 230 of the sub-species remain in the wild, a population that will become unsustainable without interbreeding
• The Guardian Australia/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll will return in October
Researchers have introduced three dozen hybrid helmeted honeyeaters into the wild in an attempt to prevent the critically endangered bird from dying out because of inbreeding.
On Friday, the juvenile birds were released into the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve, which holds the only wild population of critically endangered helmeted honeyeaters, in an unusual attempt at genetic species rescue.
Continue reading...Amazon fires: why ecocide must be recognised as an international crime | Letters
Simon Surtees says the burning Brazilian forest is redolent of the plot of Lord of the Flies; Stefan Simanowitz writes that it’s time ecocide joined genocide as a named crime; while John Charlton despairs at the race in aviation to fly longer and faster
Eliane Brum’s passionate attack on the Amazon clearances is well made (In the burning Amazon, all our futures are now at stake, 23 August). In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the war between Ralph and Jack leads to the burning of the jungle. The boys are rescued by a naval crew attracted by the smoke and flames. But it is worth noting that Golding had to be persuaded by his editor to change the ending, which was considered a bit bleak for the 1950s, when it was written. He would have been quite happy for readers to take in the consequences of their selfishness and stupidity; the destruction of the place where they live. How he must be chuckling now.
Simon Surtees
London
• In 1944, Winston Churchill described German atrocities in Russia as “a crime without a name”. Later that year, the term “genocide” was coined. Today the Amazon rainforest – the lungs of the world – is ablaze, with thousands of fires deliberately lit by land-grabbers keen to clear the forest for logging, farming and mining. This destruction, which has increased massively since Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s deregulated deforestation, threatens an area that is home to about 3 million species of plants and animals and 1 million indigenous people.
Continue reading...Keystone XL pipeline set to go ahead as court lifts last major hurdle
State’s highest court rejects attempt to derail project by opponents who want to force developer to reapply for state approval
Nebraska’s highest court lifted one of the last major hurdles for the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday when it rejected another attempt to derail the project by opponents who wanted to force the developer to reapply for state approval.
The pipeline faces intense resistance from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some landowners along the route who worry about its long-term impact on their groundwater and property rights. But in Nebraska, many affected landowners have accepted the project and are eager to collect payments from the company.
Continue reading...Amazon fires: the tribes fighting to save their dying rainforest – video
Indigenous people in Brazil have vowed to protect their land as large swathes of the Amazon forest continue to burn. The largest rainforest in the world absorbs billions of tonnes of CO2 every year, slowing the pace of global heating. It is also home to about 3m species of plants and animals and a million people.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Endangered white rhinos, breeding cycads and fires in the Amazon rainforest
Continue reading...Boris Johnson 'deeply concerned' by fires raging in the Amazon
Jeremy Corbyn pressures UK government to take action against the Brazilian president
Boris Johnson has expressed concern about the fires raging in the Amazon and called for international action to protect rainforests, as his government came under pressure from Jeremy Corbyn to take action against the Brazilian president.
“The prime minister is deeply concerned by the increase in fires in the Amazon rainforest and the impact of the tragic loss of these precious habitats,” Johnson’s spokesperson said ahead of this weekend’s summit in Biarritz, after a call to action from the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Continue reading...Amazon fires: what is happening and is there anything we can do?
Why people should be worried about the blazes and increased deforestation in Brazil
Thousands of fires are burning in Brazil, many of them in the world’s biggest rainforest, which is sending clouds of smoke across the region and pumping alarming quantities of carbon into the world’s atmosphere.
Continue reading...Ireland could oppose trade deal if Brazil fails to stop Amazon fires
Leo Varadkar says Dublin will vote against EU’s Mercosur pact unless action is taken
Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has said Dublin will vote against an EU trade deal with South American nations unless Brazil takes action to stop the burning of the Amazon.
Varadkar said his government would oppose the Mercosur trade agreement with four Latin American countries – Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – that was clinched in June after two decades of negotation but has not yet been ratified.
Continue reading...