The Guardian
Climate crisis may be a factor in tufted puffins die-off, study says
Researchers believe 3,150 to 8,500 birds starved in Bering Sea due to loss of prey species
The death of thousands of tufted puffins in the Bering Sea may have been partly caused by the climate breakdown, according to a study.
Between 3,150 and 8,500 seabirds died over a four-month period from October 2016, with hundreds of severely emaciated carcasses washed up on the beaches of the Pribilofs Islands in the southern Bering Sea, 300 miles (480km) west of the Alaskan mainland.
Continue reading...Eco-friendly modes of transport for all | Letters
Christine Benning is right (Letters, 23 May). We need a cheap, mass-market, fully electric car. It is called a Nissan Leaf and is the market leader. Secondhand ones, costing around £10,000, are good value and keep running very well. A £17,000 price gets a more recent one with a longer range. The 2018 model is around £27,000, with a much improved range. The new 2019 one has a range greatly increased again, at £30,000- plus. The new Tesla is half the price of previous models. The Renault Zoe is another popular electric car. If we keep saying they don’t exist, we discourage people from looking. There are plenty available at Nissan garages and online agents.
We bought a two-year-old Leaf in 2017. We are paying a bit over £10,000, plus £2,000 reductions. We get free services for two years. We charge it with renewable electricity, to keep it zero-emissions. We have just had a beautiful holiday in Wales, clocking up 830 miles from Newcastle and back, costing £22 in electricity.
Stephen Emsley
Newcastle upon Tyne
Malaysia cracks down on imported plastic – video
The Malaysian government says the country has become a dumping ground for rich nations as it announces it will send as much as 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste back to the countries it came from. Malaysia became the world's main destination for plastic waste after China banned its import last year. 'We will fight back,' Malaysia’s environment minister, Yeo Bee Yin, said. 'We will fight back. Even though we are a small country, we cannot be bullied by developed countries'
- Malaysia to send up to 100 tonnes of plastic waste back to Australia
- Treated like trash: south-east Asia vows to return mountains of rubbish from west
Cyprus begins lionfish cull to tackle threat to Mediterranean ecosystem
Voracious fish are bleeding into ocean ‘like a cut artery’, says top marine biologist
Cyprus has held its first organised cull of lionfish after numbers of the invasive species have proliferated in recent years, threatening the Mediterranean ecosystem and posing a venomous danger to humans.
“They’re actually very placid,” said Prof Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist, after spearing 16 of the exotic specimens in the space of 40 minutes in the inaugural “lionfish removal derby” off the island’s southern coast. He added: “The problem is they are not part of the natural ecosystem and we are seeing them in plague proportions.”
Continue reading...Bumblebees affected by 2018 extreme UK weather, experts say
Hot summer favoured some rare bees but the spring freeze led to a poor year for 24 species
Last year’s weather extremes, from snowstorms to drought, led to a tough year for many of the UK’s bumblebees, conservationists have said.
But several rare species which emerge late and love hot conditions had a very good year, a report from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust reveals.
Continue reading...33m polluting cars still on EU roads after Dieselgate scandal
Analysis of EU commission figures found diesel cars clean up going at ‘snail’s pace’
More than three quarters of the 43m cars tampered with in the Dieselgate emissions test cheating scandal are still on the road four years later.
It will probably take another two years to recall the remaining 33m vehicles that were tampered with, according to analysis of unpublicised European commission figures which was released last week.
Continue reading...Africa's elephant poaching is in decline, analysis suggests
Researchers still fearful as approximately 10,000 to 15,000 are killed every year
Elephant poaching rates in Africa are declining, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.
The annual poaching mortality rate fell from a high of more than 10% in 2011 to less than 4% in 2017, but the researchers warned that current levels were still unsustainable and could spell trouble for the future of the animals on the continent.
Continue reading...Carping on: how did a small pond become home to 10,000 goldfish?
When you think of goldfish, you probably think of the feeble underlings of the fish world, once upon a time the prize at a funfair, who rarely live beyond a couple of years. However, this might not be quite right.
At the end of March, a wildlife pond near Eastwood in Nottinghamshire was partially drained and cleaned in a bid to encourage the return of native wildlife.
Continue reading...European commission accused of 'deliberately harming climate action'
Study criticising climate impact of EU’s farming policy remained unpublished for a year
Environmentalists have warned that sections of the European commission may be “deliberately harming climate action” after a report into the climate impact of the common agricultural policy (CAP) was quietly published the day after the EU elections.
The study for the EU’s agriculture department was finished almost a year ago but remained unpublished while debate on the CAP’s future rumbled on, leading the environmental group WWF to lodge a freedom of information request for its release.
Continue reading...From sharing showers to native plants: give us your tips on how to save water
Australia faces crippling drought with low rainfall and dwindling dam levels, so it’s time to come up with new solutions
Water supplies across Australia are in dire states as the drought continues to bite. This week, stage one water restrictions were announced in Sydney, to take effect from 1 June, as well as tough new fines for those who flout them.
New South Wales has been in drought since mid 2017, affecting 98% of the state, but drought has affected the whole country. Queensland, parts of South Australia, Northern Territory and northern Western Australia are all in drought, while water storage is down in all states.
Continue reading...Seabirds treble on Lundy after island is declared rat-free
RSPB study shows rats culling favoured nesting of puffins and shearwaters
For years, they were the scourge of seabirds seeking to nest on Lundy.
But since rats were expunged from the island off the coast of Devon 15 years ago, the seabird population has trebled to 21,000 birds.
Continue reading...Greens to use EU election mandate to focus on climate crisis
Green politicians to push agenda urging climate action, social justice and civil liberties
Europe’s Greens, big winners in Sunday’s European elections, will use their newfound leverage in a fractured parliament to push an agenda of urgent climate action, social justice and civil liberties, the movement’s leaders say.
“This was a great outcome for us – but we now also have a great responsibility, because voters have given us their trust,” Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP and the Greens’ co-lead candidate for commission president, told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Treated like trash: south-east Asia vows to return mountains of rubbish from west
Region begins push back against deluge of plastic and electronic waste from UK, US and Australia
For the past year, the waste of the world has been gathering on the shores of south-east Asia. Crates of unwanted rubbish from the west have accumulated in the ports of the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam while vast toxic wastelands of plastics imported from Europe and the US have built up across Malaysia.
But not for much longer it seems. A pushback is beginning, as nations across south-east Asia vow to send the garbage back to where it came from.
Continue reading...Weatherwatch: England is desperate for rain
A dry May seems to please just about everyone, but the continuing drought is worrisome
The soil is cracked and most river flows are classed as “notably low” by the Environment Agency. In other words, in central and eastern England gardeners, farmers and wildlife are desperate for rain. However, weather forecast presenters on radio and television continue to regard sunshine as always being good and rain as a downer.
Over the bank holiday weekend, this was perfectly reasonable with millions of people out enjoying the countryside and seaside, plus all those fetes and shows. But many will have noticed that, for the end of May, the countryside is dangerously dry. Tadpoles have lost the race to mature before ponds dried up and birds are struggling to feed their young.
Continue reading...Warren Entsch declares war on plastic in new Great Barrier Reef envoy role
Veteran Liberal MP is aiming to rid beaches of plastics, micro and nano plastics, but won’t commit to a ban
The Liberal MP Warren Entsch has launched a crusade against single-use plastics as part of his new role as special envoy for the Great Barrier Reef.
Entsch told Guardian Australia he was inspired by the 10-year-old campaigner Molly Steer – who convinced Cairns to phase out single-use plastics – comparing her example favourably with activists who he accused of “frightening the living Jesus out of kids” to recruit school students to climate strikes.
Continue reading...Right whale population decline linked to ocean warming, research says
A report shows that the animal’s food supply shifted, causing them to travel farther for food and moving them closer to shipping lanes
The endangered North Atlantic right whale faces increased odds because its main food supply has shifted due to ocean warming, according to new research.
Related: What’s the future for Sri Lanka’s ‘lost’ population of whales?
Continue reading...Malaysia's last male Sumatran rhino dies
Only one female of the critically endangered species remains in the country
Malaysia’s last surviving male Sumatran rhino has died, wildlife officials have said, leaving behind only one female in the country and pushing the critically endangered species closer to extinction.
Once found as far away as eastern India and throughout Malaysia, the Sumatran rhino has been almost wiped out, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Continue reading...The butterfly effect: how one species’ miraculous comeback could save the planet
The Duke of Burgundy is back from the brink – and the work to conserve it has helped other declining species. Does this mean there is hope in the face of Insectageddon?
Giles Wood pauses on our walk in search of the elusive Duke of Burgundy. “Look at that hideous field of oilseed rape,” he says, peering from the Wiltshire Downs over the Vale of Pewsey. “For an artist, it ruins the summer for two weeks.” No yellow paint, says Wood, can do justice to its “nitrogen-enhanced meconium”. The vast field poses another problem that the painter, environmentalist and one half of Giles and Mary, the upper-crust bohemians from Channel 4’s Gogglebox, is acutely aware of. Despite the acres of nectar-bearing flowers, there are no insects in sight. Wood, who is a butterfly-lover, despairs. “What I really object to is the frequency of spraying [insecticides]. It gets everywhere, even into the fat of seals in the Arctic.”
Wood hopes to show me “the duke” – not one of his posh mates but a small golden insect that seven years ago was hurtling towards extinction in Britain. In 2012, it was found in 160 colonies. This sounds plenty, but 60% of these numbered fewer than 10 butterflies, and the species had vanished from at least 260 sites since 1980. Extinction experts observe how endangered species enter a kind of death spiral in their final years, beset by disease, climatic changes and cruel twists of fate. And the duke – its distribution falling by 84% since the 1970s – was relentlessly spiralling down.
Continue reading...Court battle between Adani and traditional owners hears 'slur' allegation
Some Wangan and Jagalingou people oppose an agreement to extinguish native title over the Carmichael coalmine area
The federal court has heard allegations of “slurs” and “surreptitious” tactics in the latest instalment of a legal battle by a small group of traditional owners against mining giant Adani.
Some members of the Wangan and Jagalingou are appealing a federal court decision, which last year rejected their objections to an Indigenous land use agreement.
Continue reading...The secretive traders fulfilling demand for a Chinese delicacy | Geoffrey Kamadi
Highly prized for its swim bladder – served in soups and stews – the fish could disappear altogether from Africa’s Lake Victoria thanks to the lucrative trade
A thriving trade in fish maw – made from the swim bladders of fish – could lead to the extinction of the Nile perch fish in east Africa’s Lake Victoria.
Demand for fish maw has spawned such a lucrative business enterprise in the region that it is raising concerns of overfishing.
Continue reading...