The Guardian

The largest shark nursery to have been found in Irish waters has been discovered among cold-water coral reefs 200 miles west of Ireland. A remotely operated vehicle surveying the deep ocean floor revealed thousands of egg cases deposited on coral skeletons at depths of up to 750 metres 92,500ft).

• Ocean floor rover finds large shark nursery in Irish waters - video

Starlings, a goldfinch, flamingos and winners of wildlife photography awards are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

District court judge Brian Morris rules Trump administration did not consider environmental consequences before pushing ahead

A federal judge has ordered a temporary halt to construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, ruling that the Trump administration didn’t properly consider the environmental consequences before pushing ahead with the enormous oil project.

Related: 'Treating protest as terrorism': US plans crackdown on Keystone XL activists

Experts describe discovery of blackmouth catsharks as ‘David Attenborough stuff’

The largest shark nursery to have been found in Irish waters has been discovered among cold-water coral reefs 200 miles west of Ireland.

A remotely operated vehicle surveying the deep ocean floor revealed thousands of egg cases, popularly known as “mermaid’s purses”, deposited on coral skeletons at depths of up to 750 metres (2,500ft).

In the latest from our series on biodiversity, the Blue Hill chef says we’ve got sustainable agriculture wrong. It’s not a question of sacrifice, but deliciousness

“How does it taste?” says Dan Barber, regarding me expectantly in the garden of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, his restaurant in the Hudson Valley just north of New York. I am gnawing the crust of a large piece of bread that has been grown from Barber Wheat, a hybrid seed developed by Barber and his partners to be nutrient dense, high in yield and – a radical thought in seed breeding, apparently – full of flavour. (Whereas clapped out old seeds might yield 30 bushels an acre, Barber Wheat will stretch to 95). The bread is simultaneously light, and dense, and intricate in flavour in such a way that I can’t think of a single word to do it justice. Barber, who at 49 has the manic energy of someone for whom no plate of food will ever live up to the ideal in his head, looks at me gloomily. “That’s the whole problem with food writing,” he says.

There are bigger problems in the food world. With the possible exception of “financial regulation”, there can be few more deadly phrases to the casual reader than “sustainable agriculture”, a heavy-weather issue most of us recognise as increasingly important but nonetheless killingly dull. This is where Barber, who set up his restaurant in 2004, is hugely persuasive, a charismatic leader who, if you talk to him for an hour while walking around the kitchen and bucolic surroundings of Stone Barns, will have you genuinely excited about crop rotation, and soil conditions, and the fact that the food industry is a dying behemoth reliant on low-yield, agronomically risky seeds that produce ever more tasteless and nutrition-less food.

Herds of cows provide meat and dairy for influential purveyors, but environmentalists say they despoil the landscape

An hour north of San Francisco lie two-dozen dairy and meat farms that have produced some of the most beloved artisanal brands in northern California – along with a farm-fresh, locally sourced foodie ethos that has become globally influential.

All the dairies in Point Reyes are organic, and the beef is grass-fed. They are models of sustainable farming, providing the raw ingredients for cheesemaker Cowgirl Creamery, the Straus Family Creamery, and Marin Sun Farms meats, to name a few.

Japanese firm’s NuGen arm behind plans for plant in Cumbria to wind up next year

Toshiba is to wind up its nuclear arm, which was leading a project to build a new power station in the UK.

The decision by the Japanese firm’s board is a huge blow to plans for a nuclear plant at Moorside in Cumbria.

Pacific Explorer cruise ship spilled liquid food waste into reef’s protected waters

Carnival Australia has been compelled to provide a “$2.1m undertaking” after spilling 28,000 litres of liquid food waste into the Great Barrier Reef’s protected waters.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority detained the Pacific Explorer cruise ship on its way back to Sydney in early September until it paid the amount, which was equal to the maximum fine available, an AMSA spokesman said on Thursday.

Redeployment of 400 staff jeopardises vital work protecting wildlife and overseeing recycling, pollution and flood prevention

Hundreds of staff who protect biodiversity and enforce environmental regulations in the UK have been redeployed to work on Brexit.

The raid on staff from the Environment Agency, which is responsible for enforcing rules on recycling, air pollution and protecting the country from flooding, and Natural England, which protects habitats and species, has been condemned by MPs.

Berejiklian government urged to acknowledge ‘the extensive, serious and potentially irreparable damage’ the horses are causing

Dozens of Australia’s top scientists are demanding the New South Wales government repeal legislation that abandoned the culling of feral horses in the Kosciuszko national park.

In Canberra on Thursday 145 scientists met to hear evidence of the damage feral horses are causing to the park, the worst of which includes the destruction of nesting habitat of critically endangered corroboree frogs.

The Chinese megacity of 12 million people is crowded, polluted, and vulnerable to flooding. A rooftop garden is using plants to make stormwater work for the city, and to improve the livelihoods of residents

Surfer, 43, in hospital after attack at Shelly beach near Ballina on Wednesday morning

A man has used his surfboard to fend off a shark after being attacked in waters off Ballina on the New South Wales north coast.

The 43-year-old was bitten on his calf at Shelly beach about 7am on Wednesday and is being treated at Lismore hospital, NSW police said.

Action launched in Liverpool against Anglo-Australian mining company after 2015 tragedy that killed 19 people

The worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history has triggered one of the biggest legal claims ever filed in a British court.

The Anglo-Australian mining company BHP Billiton is being sued for about £5bn by Brazilian victims of the Samarco dam collapse in Mariana three years ago.

The cost of bacon and sausages would double if the harm they cause to people’s health was taken into account

Taxing red meat would save many lives and raise billions to pay for healthcare, according to new research. It found the cost of processed meat such as bacon and sausages would double if the harm they cause to people’s health was taken into account.

Governments already tax harmful products to reduce their consumption, such as sugar, alcohol and tobacco. With growing evidence of the health and environmental damage resulting from red meat, some experts now believe a “sin tax” on beef, lamb and pork is inevitable in the longer term.

The presence of wind turbines can reduce the number of birds and lizards in an area, a new study has found. Should we start tearing the farms down?

Name: wind turbines.

Age: Early examples date to the 7th century.

Plans for a road through wildlife-rich areas break EU laws and send a worrying message ahead of Brexit, say MEPs

Government plans to build an Oxford-Cambridge motorway over some of the UK’s most biodiverse nature reserves break EU laws and should be put on hold, according to a cross-party group of MEPs.

Up to a million homes could be built in the planned conurbation link-up which would carve across some of the UK’s richest floodplain habitats such as the Otmoor Basin and Bernwood forest.

Renewable capacity has tripled in past five years, even faster growth than the ‘dash for gas’ of the 1990s

The capacity of renewable energy has overtaken that of fossil fuels in the UK for the first time, in a milestone that experts said would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

In the past five years, the amount of renewable capacity has tripled while fossil fuels’ has fallen by one-third, as power stations reached the end of their life or became uneconomic.

The 33-year-old was bitten in Cid Harbour in the same waters where two tourists were mauled in September

A man who was attacked by a shark in Cid Harbour in the Whitsundays has died in hospital.

The 33-year-old Victorian man had been on a charter boat with friends on Monday and had gone paddle boarding and then swimming, police said, before he was bitten about 5.30pm.

Upper layer above northern hemisphere should be completely repaired in 2030s

The ozone layer is showing signs of continuing recovery from man-made damage and is likely to heal fully by 2060, new evidence shows.

The measures taken to repair the damage will also have an important beneficial effect on climate change, as some of the gases that caused the ozone layer to thin and in places disappear also contribute to warming the atmosphere. Phasing them out could avoid as much as 0.5C (0.9F) of warming this century.

Rare sighting in the Canadian Arctic leads to concern they could become trapped as winter approaches

A rare sighting of sperm whales in the Canadian Arctic is the latest sign of a quickly changing ecosystem, say scientists.

Brandon Laforest, a marine biologist with the World Wildlife Fund, and guide Titus Allooloo were working on a project monitoring the effect of marine traffic on the region’s narwhal population when they spotted the pair of large whales just outside Pond Inlet, a community at the northern tip of Baffin Island in September.