The Guardian
Above and below the Great Australian Bight – a photo essay
The Rainbow Warrior III has spent the past two months sailing Australia’s southern waters, bolstering the fight to protect the bight
The ship sets sail and we brace our legs against the swell, sweeping and mopping around the cabins. Countering the tilt we work quickly and silently, trying not to wake any crew who had been on watch the previous night. Not even celebrities and photographers are spared the daily 8am chores, the ship’s third mate, Amrit Bakshi, tells us later, laughing.
Continue reading...Trevor, world's loneliest duck, dies on Pacific island of Niue
Mallard who lived in a roadside puddle is found dead after being attacked by dogs
Trevor the duck, whose tale of loneliness on the tiny Pacific island nation of Niue made him a local celebrity and captured headlines last year, has died.
He was found dead in the bush after being attacked by dogs, according to a social media page dedicated to the drake.
Continue reading...Lions have adapted to hunt seals and seabirds in Namibia, study finds
Desert lion population learning to hunt marine life to survive harsh conditions on Skeleton Coast
Lions in Namibia have turned to hunting seabirds and seals in the face of scarce food resources in the arid desert landscape, new research has found.
The desert lions, which are found exclusively within the Skeleton Coast region of Namibia, are the only lions known to target marine life. Among the creatures they have been recorded eating are fur seals, flamingos and cormorants.
Continue reading...Liberia's eco-vigilantes score arresting success in struggle to end illegal fishing
For years, Liberia fought a losing battle against the foreign vessels plundering its coastline. Then a bold new approach sent fines – and arrests – soaring
Petty officer George Kromah, of the Liberian coastguard, slings his AK47 across his back before disappearing over the side of the Sam Simon, joining his colleagues in the rib below. The boat roars off, quickly followed by a second, speeding through the choppy Atlantic swell in pursuit of a suspected illegal fishing vessel that has crossed into Liberia’s territorial waters from Sierra Leone.
Kromah and his fellow officers are on the frontline of the little nation’s ill-matched crackdown on fisheries crime – which Interpol has linked with the trafficking of drugs and people, as well as fraud and tax evasion.
Continue reading...More dead fish surface on the Darling River at Menindee – video
Footage submitted by Menindee tourism operator Rob Gregory shows thousands of dead fish floating on the surface of the Darling River after the third major fish kill in a matter of weeks. Gregory identifies 'masses and masses' of carp, 'all struggling next to dead bony bream'
Peers and MPs receiving millions in EU farm subsidies
Analysis by Guardian and Friends of the Earth raises questions about impartiality in post-Brexit reform
Dozens of MPs and peers, including some with vast inherited wealth, own or manage farms that collectively have received millions of pounds in European Union subsidies.
An analysis by the Guardian and the environmental group Friends of the Earth identified 48 parliamentarians who claimed £5.7m in farming subsidies under the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available.
Continue reading...Cane toads wouldn't have made it: inside CSIRO's biocontrol program
In tightly controlled Queensland laboratories, scientists are testing foreign bugs as a way to manage invasive species
Wading through Paraguayan wetlands last year, the CSIRO scientist Raghu Sathyamurthy was on the lookout for an aquatic plant called cabomba. Or more specifically, for the eggs of a tiny weevil known to feast on this underwater legume.
Cabomba isn’t particularly conspicuous in the wetlands around Asunción, but back in Australia, it’s choking waterways along the east coast and is one of 32 weeds classed as nationally significant.
Continue reading...Secret filming shows sick cows slaughtered for meat in Poland
Undercover film raises fears of serious health risks from major EU exporting country
Undercover footage that appears to show extremely sick cows being smuggled into a Polish slaughterhouse and sold on with little or no veterinary inspection has raised alarm about standards in one of the EU’s largest meat exporters.
Covert footage in a slaughterhouse in the central Polish region of Mazovia appears to show cows so sick that they are unable to stand up being dragged out of trucks and into the slaughterhouse using a winch, with ropes tied around their horns or legs.
The slaughter of sick cows appears to take place at night with no veterinary officials on site, another contravention of basic standards. Workers at the slaughterhouse appear to remove evidence from the carcasses such as pressure sores and tumours that indicate that the cows have been sick and lying on their side for days on end.
Continue reading...The diet for a healthy planet: what should environmentalists eat?
What we consume has implications for pollution and deforestation – so we asked four leading experts how to transform our diets to be better to ourselves and the planet
If you live on planet Earth, you have probably taken a moment to evaluate your diet in the new year. And, if you’re like most of us, you’ve probably broken whatever overly ambitious promises you made to yourself by this time. But what you eat has effects beyond the desired improvement to your waistline.
The World Resources Institute, a not-for-profit environmental research group, said Monday that humanity is not on track to meet Mission 2020, the parameters laid out to prevent catastrophic global warming and irreversible environmental damage.
Continue reading...Sydney's water desalination plant switched back on as dam levels drop
Plant to operate for first time in seven years, but the finished product will not be flowing out of city’s taps until at least April
Sydney’s desalination plant has officially been switched on, returning it to operation for the first time in seven years.
But the plant’s finished product will not be flowing out of the city’s taps until at least April.
Continue reading...Warming world gets older, wiser, richer activists hot under the collar
A growing number of older protesters are standing up and fighting for the environment
When Audrey Cooke first spoke to her family about her retirement plans, they had one condition: “Don’t get arrested.”
The 72-year-old retired Melbourne schoolteacher’s husband died of pancreatic cancer nine years ago. She has two young grandchildren. And she is now a full-time climate activist.
Continue reading...Real Junk Food Project turns supermarket waste into tasty meals
London cafes bring people together while tackling the UK’s food waste problem
Mothers with toddlers at their ankles sit beside elderly men and women out for a welcome bit of company on a Monday lunchtime. Plates are piled with steaming pasta, couscous salad and warm bread rolls as the chefs wipe sweat from their foreheads in a galley kitchen next door.
This is a bustling local restaurant in an affluent area of south-west London, but there is one big difference from the many fashionable cafes that line the streets of this London “village”. The food has all been saved from the bin.
Continue reading...Death Valley playas damaged by offroaders during shutdown
There are tire marks etched into delicate playas and plains that can take centuries to recover
Delicate desert ecosystems in Death Valley have been damaged by off-roaders, another dismaying impact of the US government shutdown on national parks.
“People come here to this pristine desert landscape,” said Laura Cunningham, who heads Western Watersheds Project, a not-for-profit conservation organization. She and her husband, a retired Death Valley park ranger, live close to the park and headed out to the desert last week to assess new damage. “There are so few places where we have a beautiful natural vista. And now people are off-roading on it.”
Continue reading...How social media is inspiring children to save the natural world
Six years ago, I wrote with a certain amount of sadness a rather gloomy report for the National Trust entitled Natural Childhood. It highlighted the barriers standing in the way of engaging young people with nature: primarily dangers from traffic, parental fears of “stranger danger”, and a growing aversion to exposing children to any form of risk. I concluded that we faced the very real danger of a “lost generation”, who might never engage with the natural world.
Young people were, and still are, we’re told, disconnected from nature, staring at screens when they should be out in the wild. But what I hadn’t predicted back then is that it is these screens that are now enabling our children to join forces to save the natural world. The rise of new technology – especially social media – has allowed a new generation to connect with those who share their interests in a way that I never could have believed possible when I wrote Natural Childhood. As one young ornithologist recently told me: “I thought I was the only birder at my school, but on Facebook I found half a dozen others in my local area.”
Continue reading...'I want you to panic': 16-year-old issues climate warning at Davos – video
Greta Thunberg, a Swedish climate activist, has told world leaders: ‘I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act.’ In an impassioned warning to act now on climate change, Thunberg told her audience at Davos: ‘Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t’
Continue reading...'Our house is on fire': Greta Thunberg, 16, urges leaders to act on climate
Swedish school strike activist demands economists tackle runaway global warming. Read her Davos speech here
Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire.
According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%.
Continue reading...Cod stocks on course to crash if ocean warming continues
Barents Sea is key source of UK cod imports and could see temperature rises of over 6C
Fish fingers and cod and chips are under a far greater threat from carbon emissions than previously thought, according to a recent study that has grave implications for food security.
The North Atlantic cod stock in the Barents Sea is likely to first rise and then crash, possibly to almost zero before the end of the century if climate change isn’t addressed, says the scientific paper, published by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme.
Continue reading...The Week in Wildlife – in pictures
Tiger poachers, goldfinches and playful baby elephants feature in this week’s gallery
Continue reading...What caused the death of a million fish in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin? – video
Up to a million fish, including 100-year-old Murray cod, have died in one of the biggest environmental catastrophes to hit the river. Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin river system is the life blood of much of Australia's agriculture industry and supports thousands of communities through Queensland, New South Wales, ACT and South Australia. An outbreak of blue-green algae, a severe drought and allegations of water theft are some of the factors believed to have left the river with very little oxygen.
Deadly rabbit virus threatens UK brown hare population
Cases confirmed in Dorset and Essex with public urged to report sick or dead animals
The first cases of rabbit virus have been confirmed in hares in the UK, highlighting a major new threat to the UK’s rapidly dwindling brown hare population.
Two cases of the deadly rabbit haemorrhagic disease type 2 have been confirmed in Dorset and one in Essex, so it may already be taking hold in the wild, but more testing will be needed to determine its spread.
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