The Guardian
Myth, mystery and the tide of change: Jasmin Vardimon's Medusa – in pictures
In her new show, the choreographer Jasmin Vardimon uses the Greek myth of Medusa to explore womanhood and our ecological future. Tristram Kenton photographed the rehearsals in Sitges
Continue reading...Anti-pollution activists stage protest at Volkswagen's UK headquarters
Campaigners and doctors set up ‘sick bays’ to highlight diesel emissions health risks
Doctors and anti-pollution activists have blockaded the UK headquarters of Volkswagen as the campaign to highlight the country’s air pollution crisis gathers pace.
Hundreds of staff were prevented from getting into VW’s head office in Milton Keynes by doctors and other medics who, with Greenpeace activists, set up “sick bays” at entrances to highlight the damage VW diesel vehicles are doing to people’s health.
Continue reading...The Australian mining threat to South Africa's Wild Coast – photo essay
Thom Pierce visited the people of Xolobeni to photograph them and the postcards he will post on their behalf to the Australian mining company putting at risk their way of life
Xolobeni is a cluster of rural communities on the eastern coast of South Africa. Tourists know beautiful and rugged area as the Wild Coast. The people of Xolobeni are mostly self-sufficient, living off the land and fishing in the sea, and often only travelling the two hours to the closest shops once a month to buy sugar, oil and other basic provisions.
Continue reading...Beards, prayers and steam rollers: Sunday's top images
Our picture editors choose the best photos from the past 24 hours
Continue reading...The poachers and the treasures of the deep: diving for abalone in South Africa
The seafood delicacy can sell for £420 a plate in China. As demand outstrips legal supply, divers from the poor suburbs of Cape Town are making up the shortfall
A muscular, bald man moved through the kelp, hunting forbidden shellfish. His scuba rig bubbled and hissed. He was nearly 100 metres from the seashore and 20 metres below the surface, which was grey and flat like a lake. The water was clear, giving far range of sight. Below him the seafloor spread out until it blurred into nothingness.
It was dangerous territory, but Shuhood (not his real name) accepted the risks. For more than a decade he’d been an abalone poacher, lifting a marine snail worth hundreds of pounds per kilo in Asia from reefs around South Africa. The first time he’d used scuba gear, without training, he’d almost drowned, held down by his weight belt and a mesh bag stuffed with abalone. Another day, his air hose broke underwater, and he blacked out as he swam up to the surface. One night the skipper of a boat he was working on ran him over while fleeing a police patrol vessel, and Shuhood was almost chopped by the propellers. Months later, a poacher was decapitated in a similar incident off Robben Island.
Continue reading...How Guatemala is sliding into chaos in the fight for land and water
At 9am on 9 May, Luis Arturo Marroquín walked out of a shop in the main square of the small town of San Luis Jilotepéque in central Guatemala. Eyewitnesses say a black Toyota Hilux pick-up then drove up and, in full view of passersby, two men wearing hoods shot Marroquín repeatedly in the back.
The vehicle sped off but was identified and, within hours, police had stopped and reportedly questioned the men and found the weapons. But since then, no arrests have been made or charges levelled and the investigation has stalled.
Continue reading...Paul Nicklen: ‘If we lose the ice, we lose the entire ecosystem’
The photographer has been documenting life at the poles for years. He is determined to safeguard these fragile habitats
When he was four years old, Paul Nicklen’s family moved to Kimmirut on Baffin Island, northern Canada; a village so remote that supplies are delivered once a year, by boat. The Nicklens were one of only two non-Inuit families in the tiny community, and with no telephone, radio or TV, Paul’s childhood was spent on the ice, in the company of native fishermen and in awe of the visual majesty of the region. “I learned how to freeze,” he says. It is a skill that has helped him to become one of the world’s foremost photographers of polar wildlife.
“If you want to shoot the best photography of a particular ecosystem, you have to be comfortable wherever you are,” says Nicklen. “If that’s 150ft deep under the ice, you can’t be sitting there fighting for survival. You need to free up your mind.” Wearing a rebreather to avoid producing bubbles, he stays submerged for up to six hours, submitting himself to the same conditions inhabited by his favourite species. To Nicklen, the Arctic is not a forbidding, alien landscape, but a spiritual home: “I’m far more comfortable around bears than, say, on the streets of New York.”
Continue reading...World Orangutan Day: palm oil awareness still key, activists say – video
Palm oil plantations continue to threaten this endangered species. Global standards for minimising consumption of palm oil varies wildly from country to country. Australian conservation groups have been pushing for legislation to mandate the labelling of palm oil on food ingredient lists for almost a decade. Currently, generic terms such as ‘vegetable oil’ or 'vegetable fats’ can be used instead. The EU enforced palm oil labelling in 2014 and is now trying to pass a ban on using palm oil in EU biofuels – a move the UK is seeking to block
Continue reading...Drought funding to get $1.8bn government boost
Sixty councils across Queensland and NSW to be handed $1m each and amount farmers can borrow in low-interest loans to double
The federal government will announce a $1.8bn funding boost to help farmers battling the worst drought in more than 50 years.
Sixty drought-affected councils across western Queensland and New South Wales will be handed $1m each to spend on anything from trucking in drinking water to building new community facilities.
Continue reading...Britain has last chance to save endangered birds and animals
RSPB boss warns of a devastating loss of wildlife if three new parliamentary bills do not rein in UK farming practices
Ministers may have only 12 months to rescue Britain’s degraded environment and to save its endangered birds and animals. That is the stark conclusion of Michael Clarke, chief executive of the RSPB, who has warned that parliamentary bills – to be published over the next year – will have to make crucial changes to the way our farms and fisheries are run if the wildlife and landscape of the nation are to be rescued from their dangerously depleted condition.
“We are on a cusp, and if we fail to act decisively we will pay the price in coming years,” Clarke told the Observer last week.
Continue reading...'Clearly wrong': Labor says new documents show Coalition's reef grant failure
Government’s claims that it did extensive due diligence for funding to foundation don’t add up, says opposition
The Labor party says the government’s claims that it conducted extensive due diligence for a $443.8 m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation are “clearly wrong”, following revelations the department of environment and energy warned there were “significant” risks the grant would delay on-the ground projects.
Documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws showed no mention by the environment and energy department of the record grant until 12 April, three days after a meeting between the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and the foundation’s chairman, John Schubert.
Continue reading...UK public backs tough action on plastic waste in record numbers
Size of consultation response could lead to ‘latte levy’ and other fiscal measures in budget
An unprecedented number of people have backed tough action against plastic waste in a government consultation that could pave the way for a series of fiscal measures in the autumn budget.
The government will say response is evidence that there is broad public support for reducing single-use plastic waste through measure such as a “latte levy” on coffee cups, similar to the plastic bag charge, and tax incentives for recycling.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef grant risked delaying action, government was warned
Exclusive: Giving $444m dollars to small foundation could delay on-ground work, documents reveal
The government was warned that there was a “significant” risk that on-the-ground projects for the Great Barrier Reef could be delayed because of a $443.8m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, documents reveal.
The documents, obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information laws, also show the environment department and the office of the environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, discussing a $5m “reef islands” grant, but do not contain any mention of the much larger grant until after the 9 April meeting where it was offered.
Continue reading...Blow for EPA as court blocks bid to slacken safety rules for chemical plants
‘Capricious’ EPA forbidden from delaying the enforcement of chemical safety rule drawn up by Obama administration
A federal court has blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to delay safety regulations for chemical plants – the latest in a string of recent legal setbacks for the administration in its attempts to reverse environmental standards.
Related: Weedkiller found in wide range of breakfast foods aimed at children
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
An anaesthetised polar bear, a surprising pine marten and a potty-mouthed parrot are among this week’s images
Continue reading...World is finally waking up to climate change, says 'hothouse Earth' author
Report predicting spiralling global temperatures has been downloaded 270,000 times in just a few days
The scorching temperatures and forest fires of this summer’s heatwave have finally stirred the world to face the onrushing threat of global warming, claims the climate scientist behind the recent “hothouse Earth” report.
Following an unprecedented 270,000 downloads of his study, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said he had not seen such a surge of interest since 2007, the year the Nobel prize was awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Continue reading...Older than dinosaurs: last South African coelacanths threatened by oil exploration
Just 30 of the prehistoric fish known to exist, raising fears oil wells will push it to extinction
Bright blue, older than dinosaurs and weighing as much as an average-sized man, coelacanths are the most endangered fish in South Africa and among the rarest in the world.
Barely 30 of these critically-endangered fish are known to exist off the east coast of South Africa, raising concern that a new oil exploration venture in the area could jeopardise their future.
Continue reading...Adani: Indigenous group loses bid to block Carmichael coalmine
Court rules in favour of mining company and orders Indigenous group to pay costs
The federal court has ruled in favour of Indian mining company Adani over a native title group seeking to block its Carmichael coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.
Members of the Wangan and Jagalingou people have been fighting against the mining company, claiming they did not give permission for the $16.5bn mine to go ahead.
Continue reading...Shark nets to be removed from all NSW north coast beaches
Minister says nets will stay between Newcastle and Wollongong but be removed further north after trial
There are calls for shark nets to be pulled from all New South Wales beaches after the state government announced it was removing the controversial mesh on the north coast following public opposition.
On Friday the state primary industries minister, Niall Blair, said locals were unhappy about recent trials of the nets, which had proved to be less effective at catching target sharks and harmed more marine life than Smart drumlines.
Continue reading...Most-polluting woodburner fuels due to get the chop
Michael Gove plans to phase out house coal to curb harmful emissions
Michael Gove is due to confirm plans to ban the sale of the most-polluting fuels for domestic woodburners in an attempt to cut harmful emissions.
The sale of traditional house coal will be phased out, under proposals set out in the government’s draft clean air strategy in May, and expected to be confirmed by Gove’s department on Friday.
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