The Guardian
Don Hinrichsen obituary
My friend Don Hinrichsen, who has died aged 72 after suffering from kidney cancer, was an environmental journalist and author.
In the 1980s he was editor-in-chief both of Ambio, a journal of the human environment published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and then editor of the World Resources Report, published by the World Resources Institute in collaboration with the World Bank and the UN.
Continue reading...Liz Howe obituary
The ecologist Liz Howe, who has died aged 59 from cancer, helped produce a modern environmental Domesday Book – Habitats of Wales: A Comprehensive Field Survey, 1979-1997. For 10 years from 1987 she managed a series of survey teams that mapped vegetation across lowland landscapes, complementing similar work in upland areas. Since its publication in 2010, the resulting volume has provided a foundation stone on which to base conservation management, its value as a stable evidence base growing with the passage of time.
The survey information collected under Liz’s watch has proved essential in assessing the conservation value of particular areas and how they can be managed, as well as a basis for identifying potential sites of special scientific interest. It has also helped to define tracts of land that are suitable for public access under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act.
Continue reading...New move to ban shooting of hares in breeding season
Experts warn numbers are collapsing as 300,000 are killed for sport every year
The nation’s deep affection for the hare, once a common sight in fields, is recorded in prose, pub names and poetry. Writers including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Ted Hughes have paid tribute to the UK’s fastest land mammal, while any English county will boast at least one pub with the word hare in its name. But now a failure to revive numbers after a century of decline from an estimated four million to under 800,000 has triggered moves to protect hares during their breeding season.
Former agriculture minister George Eustice is introducing a private member’s bill that would make it illegal to shoot hares from February to September. “England and Wales are among the few remaining European countries that do not have a modern close season on shooting hares during their breeding season, which is a terrible oversight,” Eustice said.
Continue reading...Hundreds protest against plans to drill in Great Australian Bight
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says most South Australians do not want oil drilling in Great Australian Bight
Hundreds of people have gathered on an Adelaide beach to protest against Norwegian energy giant Equinor’s plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight.
Attending the Hands Across the Sand protest, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the majority of South Australians don’t want any oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight.
Continue reading...Natural high: why birdsong is the best antidote to our stressful lives
Dawn chorus day is a good time to celebrate the benefits to mental and physical health of birdsong – and fight for beloved species facing extinction
When I hear the first willow warbler of the spring, the first cuckoo, or the first booming bittern on my local patch, I feel an enormous sense of comfort and satisfaction. As the poet Ted Hughes wrote about the annual return of swifts, “They’ve made it again, which shows that the globe’s still working…”
It’s International Dawn Chorus day on Sunday 6 May, and this year the RSPB has released a single of birdsong (currentlyat number 11 in the charts) as part of a campaign to draw attention to the dire situation facing British birdlife. Populations of once-common species such as the house sparrow, starling and swift are falling fast, while the nightingale, turtle dove and grey partridge are rapidly sliding towards extinction in Britain.
Continue reading...Rashes, migraines, asthma: families hit out at London gasworks redevelopment
Parents fear lack of pollution regulation on Southall brownfield site is putting children’s health at risk
The right primary school for three-year-old Ranjan should have been an obvious choice. His grandparents live a short walk from the nearest one, on their road in Southall, west London, and enrolling him there would make life easy for the family. But they are so worried about the “petrol-like” odour from a nearby building site that in September Ranjan will travel to a school more than two miles away.
“He has been so sick for the past year – coughing and with a runny nose – that we worry being near the smell all day would make him ill,” said Ajaib Flora, his grandfather.
Continue reading...The battle to save the world's biggest bumblebee from European invaders | Alison Benjamin
In Chile the beloved native bee is venerated as carrying the spirit of the dead, but its numbers are dwindling as farmers use imported species infected with parasites to pollinate crops
The first time José Montalava saw the world’s largest bumblebee he was six years old and visiting his grandfather’s house in rural Chile. “It was in the tomato patch, a huge, loud, fluffy orange thing buzzing around. I remember trying to grab it, but it kept getting away, although it looked too heavy to fly,” he recalls.
During Montalava’s childhood, these giant golden bumblebees (Bombus dahlbomii) – which can measure up to 40mm and have been dubbed “flying mice” – were a common sight in the town where he grew up in central Chile. “It’s such a striking, charismatic, colourful bumblebee that used to herald spring,” says the 36-year-old entomologist. “Now it’s totally disappeared from my hometown and many other areas.”
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A running hare, fighting ponies and a cat that adopted orphan squirrels
Continue reading...Climate crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists warn
‘We are in trouble if we don’t act,’ say experts, with up to 1m species at risk of annihilation
The world’s leading scientists will warn that the planet’s life support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity when they release the results of the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken.
Up to a million species are at risk of annihilation, many within decades, according to a leaked draft of the Global Assessment Report, which has been compiled over three years by the UN’s top research body on nature.
Continue reading...Deliberate mislabelling of seafood rife in South Korea, researchers find
Report finds more than half of all sushi samples to be wrongly labelled as well as one-third of fresh fish and sashimi
Fraudulent mislabelling of seafood is rampant in South Korea, where one-third of samples in a comprehensive DNA study were found to be mis-sold.
More than half of all sushi samples (53.9%) proved to be wrongly labelled, as did over one-third of fresh fish (38.9%) and sashimi (33.6%) samples, according to a report published this week by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF).
Continue reading...What’s the future for Sri Lanka’s ‘lost’ population of whales?
This is the same sperm whale pod Blue Planet filmed off Sri Lanka – but flocking tourists are making it less of a safe place for these stunning animals
These transcendent, haunting images taken by photographer Andrew Sutton in the waters of the western Indian Ocean come close to understanding something of the magnificent and enigmatic sperm whale, an animal which still remains fairly unknowable to us, for all that we have exploited it for 500 years.
Don’t tell the other cetaceans, but I think sperm whales are the most beautiful mammals on the planet.
Continue reading...Ineos may have to disclose secret details of £2.6bn Antwerp project
Ruling should clarify impact on environment of chemicals plants backed by Jim Ratcliffe
Britain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, and his chemicals company Ineos are facing a backlash over plans to build two chemical plants in Antwerp after a Flanders transparency watchdog ruled that key documents may have to be disclosed.
The Brexit-backing billionaire announced in January that Ineos would invest €3bn (£2.6bn) in two plants at the port of Antwerp. Ratcliffe, the founder and chief executive of the petrochemicals company, said the investment was “the largest of its kind in Europe in more than a generation”.
Continue reading...Queensland delays Adani mine indefinitely, citing fears for endangered finch
Environmentalists hail decision – but it offers company a clear path to approval
The controversial Carmichael coalmine has been delayed indefinitely by the Queensland government, which has ruled that Adani’s proposals to protect the endangered black-throated finch do not meet the miner’s approval conditions.
The decision, made by the state environment department and not by the political arm of government, forces Adani to complete significant additional work before it can begin construction of the mine.
Continue reading...Trump eases regulations adopted after BP Deepwater Horizon disaster
Environmental groups oppose loosening Obama-era regulations as Trump pushes to expand offshore drilling
The Trump administration on Thursday moved to ease safety regulations adopted after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, the worst offshore oil disaster in US history that killed nearly a dozen people and caused massive pollution.
David Bernhardt, the interior secretary, said in a statement the administration was acting to eliminate “unnecessary regulatory burdens while maintaining safety and environmental protection offshore”.
Continue reading...Four charts that show how the UK stacks up on climate change
Emission of greenhouse gases has fallen, but environmental issues are still ‘an emergency’
Should the UK declare a “climate emergency” that would inform public policy and the national budget? The question was been debated in parliament on Wednesday, with the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn declaring the government should “embrace hope” through stronger actions on greenhouse gas emissions, and the environment secretary, Michael Gove, calling the problem of climate change “an emergency”.
Outside parliament, the activist group Extinction Rebellion has brought London motor traffic to a standstill on several occasions, and the youth activist Greta Thunberg has held meetings with leading politicians, including Gove and Corbyn but excluding the prime minister.
Continue reading...Prawn to be wild: cocaine found in all shrimp tested in rural UK county
The recreational drug ketamine also turned up in samples of wildlife examined in Suffolk
Researchers have found cocaine in all samples of shrimp tested in a rural area of eastern England, with ketamine also widespread.
Scientists from King’s College London, in collaboration with the University of Suffolk, made the “surprise” discovery after taking samples from 15 locations across the mostly rural county of Suffolk.
Continue reading...‘This report will change your life’: what zero emissions means for UK
Committee on Climate Change sets out how UK can reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050
“Make no mistake, this report will change your life,” says Prof David Reay at the University of Edinburgh. “If the meticulous and robust expert advice here is heeded it will deliver a revolution in every facet of our lives, from how we power our homes and travel to work to the food we buy.”
The government’s official advisers the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said on Thursday that the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions should fall to zero by 2050, emphasising that the transformation is necessary, affordable and desirable.
Continue reading...‘Do it now’: UK must set zero-carbon target for 2050, say official advisers
Committee says legally binding target is necessary, achievable and could spur global action
The UK government must immediately set a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, its official advisers have said, signalling an end to the nation’s role in driving climate change.
Doing so will be challenging, said the Committee on Climate Change, meaning the end of petrol and diesel cars and gas boilers, less meat on plates, quadrupling clean electricity generation and planting an estimated 1.5bn trees.
Continue reading...Trump administration to roll back rare beetle protections opposed by oil lobby
Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to ‘downlist’ the burying beetle, which would allow drilling in Oklahoma and nearby states
The Trump administration plans to weaken protections for a beetle threatened by extinction from climate change, lifting restrictions on oil and gas drilling in Oklahoma and surrounding states.
The American burying beetle, a shiny black bug covered with orange splotches, feeds it young from carcasses it buries, making it vulnerable to disruptions in soil. The species was listed as endangered in 1989.
Continue reading...MPs endorse Corbyn’s call to declare climate emergency
Environment secretary calls for cross-party approach as Labour leader says vote can ‘set off wave of action’
MPs have endorsed a Labour motion to declare a formal climate and environment emergency, with Jeremy Corbyn hailing the move as a necessary response to school climate strikers and groups such as Extinction Rebellion.
The Labour leader said the decision by the Commons to pass the motion without a vote “can set off a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the globe”. Conservative MPs were told to not oppose the motion.
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