The Guardian

Restoration project uses seed-rich hay taken from roadside verges to regrow lost meadows

There is something back to front about the idyllic scene on a meadow south of Norwich. Hay is normally gathered in, but this freshly cut, sweet-smelling grass is being carefully forked across a field.

The hay, harvested from nearby roadside verges, is spread to scatter the seeds contained within it, part of an innovative scheme to restore natural flower-rich meadows and reverse losses. More than 97% of Britain’s wildflower meadows have vanished since the 1930s.

German chancellor ‘convinced of emergency’ but Brazil’s leader accuses European leaders of colonialism

Angela Merkel has backed Emmanuel Macron’s call to put the fires in the Amazon on the agenda at this weekend’s G7 summit, after the French president said the situation amounted to an international crisis.

Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for the German chancellor, told journalists in Berlin on Friday: “The extent of the fires in the Amazon area is shocking and threatening, not only for Brazil and the other affected countries, but also for the whole world.

Experts say international pressure may be only way to sway Bolsonaro government

International pressure may be the only way to stop the Brazilian government from taking a “suicide” path in the Amazon, one of the country’s most respected scientists has said, as the world’s biggest rainforest continues to be ravaged by thousands of deliberate fires.

The large number of conflagrations – set illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – has prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency, created giant smoke clouds that have drifted hundreds of miles, and sparked international concerns about the destruction of an essential carbon sink.

Administration’s move is a ‘head in the sand approach’ that will further imperil creatures threatened by the climate crisis

Life as a sea turtle is already harrowing. Emerging alone from a shell to crawl through a deadly gauntlet of predatory birds, dogs and ants, all for the goal of reaching the ocean, a place where fish swallow you whole and fragments of discarded plastic slowly suffocate you.

Now climate change – in the form of sea level rise, rising temperatures and fiercer storms – is adding further, existential hardships and in the US a recent weakening of endangered species protections by the Trump administration will further imperil sea turtles and other creatures threatened by the climate crisis.

Report says outlook in India is ‘finely balanced and uncertain’ despite resources industry’s high hopes

Thermal coal exporters face “significant risk” that demand from India will decline, a report by the Australian office of the chief economist says.

It also warned of long-term uncertainties in the market considered a “great hope” by miners.

Researchers say the Thomson catchment is missing out each year on the amount of water used by 250,000 people

Logging is causing Melbourne’s main catchment area to miss out on 15,000 megalitres of water each year, equivalent to the amount used by 250,000 people, a peer-reviewed study has found.

If logging in Victoria’s Thomson catchment continues as planned, that number would increase to 600,000 Melburnians by 2060, according to the research from the Australian National University.

Exclusive: Farmers United says ‘we know in our hearts and minds’ experts are wrong about run-off damaging the reef

Queensland cane growers’ groups are backing an opaque front organisation working to undermine Great Barrier Reef consensus science, including publishing claims that “we know in our hearts and minds” that the experts are wrong.

The group, Farmers United, published full-page advertisements in News Corp Queensland newspapers this week.

Jeering activists interrupted a speech by Ricardo Salles on Wednesday at the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week conference in Salvador, Brazil. Booing protesters virtually drowned out Salles' speech during which one activist held a placard reading: 'Don't you get tired of your own lies?' The minister and the government of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, have come under fire for their policies, which activists say are harming the environment

• Brazilian minister booed at climate event as outcry grows over Amazon fires
  

Political storm over rainforest devastation as Ricardo Salles attends summit

The environment minister of Brazil, where wildfires have been sweeping the Amazon rainforest, was booed at a climate event on Wednesday as celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio and Ariana Grande joined an international chorus of criticism.

Videos of Ricardo Salles being booed by demonstrators as he took to the stage at Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week in the north-eastern city of Salvador circulated widely in Brazil. An opposition senator is planning to seek his impeachment at Brazil’s supreme court.

Three protesters found guilty despite intervention of shadow chancellor in their support

Three activists from the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion have been found guilty of public order offences.

Patrick Thelwell, 19, from York; Peter Scott, 66, from Devon; and Samuel Elmore, 26, from Hyde End in Buckinghamshire were charged with offences including breach of section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986, obstructing a highway and obstructing police. However, they were spared jail sentences by a judge, who discharged them on condition that they did not reoffend in the next year.

Nations back first restrictions on global trade in parts, as well as ban on saiga antelope horn

The world’s tallest animal has gained further protections after the world’s nations voted to end the unregulated international trade in giraffe parts.

There are fewer giraffes alive than elephants and their population has plunged by 40% since 1985 to just 97,500. Scientists have called it a “silent extinction”. However, the bitter debate at the 183-nation summit of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) exposed anorth-south divide in Africa.

Conservationists hope release of six eaglets on Isle of Wight will mirror Scotland success

White-tailed eagles are gracing the skies of southern Britain for the first time in 240 years after six eaglets were released on the Isle of Wight.

The huge birds, which are fitted with satellite tags, are expected to disperse along the south coast of England in a scheme backed by the environment secretary, Theresa Villiers, who welcomed the return of the “majestic” species.

There have been more than 72,000 fire outbreaks in Brazil so far this year, up 84% on the same period in 2018, according to the country’s National Institute for Space Research. More than half were in the Amazon. It followed reports that farmers were feeling emboldened to clear land for crop fields and cattle ranches because the new Brazilian government was keen to open up the region to economic activity. The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, instead accused environmental groups of starting fires

• Jair Bolsonaro claims NGOs behind Amazon forest fire surge – but provides no evidence

Cycad in Isle of Wight produces outdoor male and female cones for first time on record

An exotic plant has produced male and female cones outdoors in Britain for what is believed to be the first time in 60m years. Botanists say the event is a sign of global heating.

Two cycads (Cycas revoluta), a type of primitive tree that dominated the planet 280m years ago, have produced cones on the sheltered undercliffs of Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight.

‘Microseismic event’ measuring 1.55ML on Richter scale stops Preston New Road operations

Cuadrilla was forced to halt fracking at its shale gas site near Blackpool in Lancashire on Wednesday night after triggering the largest tremor recorded at the location.

The tremor closed down operations at the Preston New Road site shortly after it was detected at 8.46pm.

A strict conservation programme is helping protect the tiny country’s marine ecosystems, despite the growing threat of steadily warming waters

Why Belize is a world leader in protecting the ocean

All photographs by Tony Rath

The city has been on stage-one water restrictions since May, and the outlook for spring is for more dry conditions

Sydney’s dam storage levels have dropped below 50% for the first time in more than a decade.

Storages dropped to 49.7% on Thursday, a 0.4% decline on the previous week.

Scathing report says Tory governments have held back progress on clean energy goals

The government should discourage personal vehicle use and reward energy-efficient homebuilding to meet its legally binding target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, MPs have said

In a scathing parliamentary report, the cross-party science and technology select committee said recent Conservative governments have promised more but done less on the climate crisis, which has left several gaping policy holes that need to be filled.

There are tens of thousands of pythons in the Florida wild, attacking animals and damaging ecosystems – and the quest to stop them has become a collective crusade

On a Thursday afternoon in St Petersburg, Florida, Beth Koehler crouches over a cairn terrier named Ginger, trimming intently as fur collects around her feet. On Koehler’s arm is a scratch – red, jagged and freshly acquired, though not in the way one might expect of a dog groomer.

“There was no way I could pin the head,” Koehler says, referring to the snake that was partly responsible. She had grabbed hold however she could, which made it “pissed”: “It decided to coil up and just throw itself at me.” Startled, Koehler had fallen backwards, cutting herself on a vine – an injury far preferable to the bite of a Burmese python.

Queensland Labor gearing up to criminalise activism is only a taste of the kind of intimidation that’s likely to come

“Even though I was the one who had been assaulted, I was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. […] I will never forgive or forget what came next. I was ‘verballed’ by the police who manufactured the most incredible statements about the whole thing.”

That was Peter Beattie, who would later become ALP premier of Queensland, detailing his treatment by police during anti-apartheid protests against the South African rugby team in July 1971.