The Guardian
Endangered hawksbill turtles tracked in marine park to be opened to fishing
Data confirms that reptiles use Coral Sea as a highway between their nesting beaches and feeding grounds
Critically endangered hawksbill turtles that nest on islands east of Papua New Guinea have been tracked moving across parts of the Coral Sea marine park where the Australian government wants to allow commercial fishing, conservationists have found.
Nine of the turtles were tagged at the privately owned Conflict Islands in early January, with seven swimming across the Coral Sea to the Great Barrier Reef to feed.
Continue reading...Pat Callaghan obituary
My mother, Pat Callaghan, was a champion of urban wildlife who was dedicated to making sure people in towns and cities had access to green spaces. With the help of many others she ran “urban safaris” to demonstrate that the environment is not just a matter for rural areas. As chair of Staffordshire Wildlife Trust (1995-2007) she also helped to promote and shape new ideas about conservation.
Pat, who has died aged 86, had a background in radio broadcasting – she worked on the Countrywise programme for BBC Radio Stoke – and her communication skills allowed her to forge many partnerships. She worked tirelessly to foster links between environmental projects, agricultural organisations and grassroots community groups. She also helped to establish the National Forest, a project to plant trees across 200 square miles of central England.
Continue reading...Revealed: industrial-scale beef farming comes to the UK
Investigation uncovers about a dozen intensive beef units, despite assurances that US-style practices would not happen here
Thousands of British cattle reared for supermarket beef are being fattened in industrial-scale units where livestock have little or no access to pasture.
Research by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has established that the UK is now home to a number of industrial-scale fattening units with herds of up to 3,000 cattle at a time being held in grassless pens for extended periods rather than being grazed or barn-reared.
Continue reading...Trump administration refuses to consider that 97% of climate scientists could be right | Dana Nuccitelli
Even though smart climate policies could save tens of trillions of dollars
Last week, the Washington Post obtained a White House internal memo that debated how the Trump administration should handle federal climate science reports.
The memo presented three options without endorsing any of them: conducting a “red team/blue team” exercise to “highlight uncertainties in climate science”; more formally reviewing the science under the Administrative Procedure Act; or deciding to just “ignore, and not seek to characterize or question, the science being conducted by Federal agencies and outside entities.”
Continue reading...Rescuers help 'distressed' 10m humpback whale entangled in nets at Bondi – video
The whale was found entangled in netting off the Sydney beach on Tuesday afternoon. Passengers on a whale-watching cruise spent several hours trying to help, and succeeded in cutting some of the netting before the operation had to be abandoned at nightfall
Continue reading...Country diary: the hedgerows are full of fairytale gifts
Barton-le-Willows, North Yorkshire: Just weeks ago we were sledging on these hills. Now the branches are laden again, this time with floral snow
The wedding invitation says no gifts. After so long together they wish for nothing but our company. But in 17 years of friendship with this couple, we’ve shared adventures and foolery, elation and loss; we’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve raised children. So the occasion merits a token, at least. I decide to forage for something.
Our local hedgerows are peaking. As I select primroses, forget-me-nots, stitchwort and sprigs of blossom to adorn the wedding cake, the earworm I’ve hosted for days starts up again: Andy Williams singing It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Christmas bells and all. It’s weirdly apt in a year when the weather has played merry hell with seasonal succession. Just weeks ago we were sledging on these hills. Birdsong greeted blizzards, the first cuckoo called in icy drizzle, and our swallows bowled in over another boreal blast. Now the branches are laden again, this time with floral snow.
Continue reading...New Zealand 'marine heatwave' brings tropical fish from 3,000km away
Out-of-place Queensland groper seen off New Zealand coast after water temperatures soared
Rare tropical fish from Australia have been spotted in New Zealand waters after a record-breaking hot summer and warm ocean temperatures lured the creatures across the Tasman sea.
The Queensland groper, also known as the giant grouper, is the aquatic emblem of the state and was spotted swimming around the wreck of the HMNZ Canterbury in the Bay of Islands on Sunday, more than 3,000 kilometres away from its usual cruising spots on the coral reefs and estuaries off the Queensland coast.
Continue reading...Land-clearing wipes out $1bn taxpayer-funded emissions gains
Official data shows forest-clearing released 160m tonnes of carbon dioxide since 2015
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More than $1bn of public money being spent on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by planting trees and restoring habitat under the Coalition’s Direct Action climate policy will have effectively been wiped out by little more than two years of forest-clearing elsewhere in the country, official government data suggests.
The $2.55bn emissions reduction fund pays landowners and companies to avoid emissions or store carbon dioxide using a reverse auction – the cheapest credible bids win. The government says it has signed contracts to prevent 124m tonnes of emissions through vegetation projects – mostly repairing degraded habitat, planting trees and ensuring existing forest on private land is not cleared.
Continue reading...Dutch government appeals against court ruling over emissions cuts
Judges ordered a 25% carbon emissions cut by 2020 in the first successful lawsuit against a government’s climate policy
The Dutch government has launched a bid to overturn a landmark climate ruling, arguing that judges in The Hague “sidelined democracy” when they ordered a 25% cut in carbon emissions by 2020.
Government plans for a lesser 17% cut in CO2 pollution were deemed unlawful three years ago, in the first successful lawsuit against a government’s climate policy.
Continue reading...National parks are more than natural | Letters
Michael Gove needs to be careful in his choice of vocabulary about national parks (England may get more national parks after Gove announces review, 28 May). His review suggests that it is part of a process to enhance protection of “natural” landscapes and habitats. But our English national parks and all areas being considered for designation are equally cultural landscapes created by some 10,000 years of human presence, also needing protection. He should beware the fashionable concept of “natural capital” without balancing it with one of “cultural capital”. And he should be aware that our existing parks are the least democratic part of the English local government system, having no directly elected members. New designations balancing nature and culture, and with direct elections, might be welcomed – otherwise our special landscapes will be no better off.
Tom Greeves
Chairman, The Dartmoor Society
• Michael Gove should develop and support the people who live and work in areas with poor-quality green infrastructure. While supporting and developing statutory designated sites is laudable, it is unlikely to offer direct positive benefits for urban and suburban dwellers not within easy access of such sites. Biodiverse habitats are not restricted to statutory designated sites and should be developed and nurtured as community assets providing recreation, education, physical and mental health benefits, and climate regulation. Failure to develop and set aside green spaces in our towns and cities shows the unwillingness of public authorities to invest in spaces which do not give an easily quantifiable cash return, despite progress in including natural capital assets in an economic framework.
Ann Sharrock
Stockport
Invisible scum on sea cuts CO2 exchange with air 'by up to 50%'
Scientists say the findings have major implications for predicting our future climate
An invisible layer of scum on the sea surface can reduce carbon dioxide exchange between the atmosphere and the oceans by up to 50%, scientists have discovered.
Researchers from Heriot-Watt, Newcastle and Exeter universities say the findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, have major implications for predicting our future climate.
Continue reading...EU challenges UK to 'race to the top' on plastics reduction
Brussels proposes ban on plastic straws and cutlery and calls out Brexiter Michael Gove
Brussels has challenged the UK’s environment secretary, Michael Gove, to try to outdo it in an environmental “race to the top” as it proposed a ban on plastic straws, cutlery, plates, cotton buds and balloon sticks.
Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s first vice-president, directly addressed Gove, a fervent Brexiter, as he unveiled details of the planned prohibition, along with measures designed to reduce the use of plastic takeaway containers and drinking cups.
Continue reading...Huge rise in food redistribution to people in need across UK
Charity FareShare is feeding almost a quarter of a million people a week with food that would otherwise go to waste – a 60% rise since last year
The UK’s largest food redistribution charity is helping to feed a record 772,000 people a week – 60% more than the previous year – with food that would otherwise be wasted, new figures reveal.
One in eight people in the UK go hungry every day – with the most needy increasingly dependent on food banks – yet perfectly good food is wasted every day through the food production supply chain.
Continue reading...Hand mowing begins as mist still hangs above the meadow – Country Diary, 1 June 1918
1 June 1918: It was a small field, hand-mown; swathes were heavy, deadening the sweep of scythes, but tall wild parsley, oat-grass spiked almost like corn
Surrey
The morning sun was yet red on the horizon and mist hung above the lower meadows when the first mowing of grass began. Scent came across the lane fresher and sweeter than the odour from the thorns. It was a small field, hand-mown; swathes were heavy, deadening the sweep of scythes, but tall wild parsley, oat-grass spiked almost like corn, and thicker fescue all lay low, while the larks went up singing. In the wood hard by other birds started together, finches on the lower branches, throstles on the high boughs; a jay cluttered where the grove is thick, a cuckoo called, then, showing as big as a hawk, flew to the other side. The air was so slight as not to sway even the light stems of birch trees; when a bird settled after flying the bough was set in motion like a swing, and there was so much flitting to and fro that the trees everywhere, even oaks in full leaf, were visibly alive.
Related: Scythe talking: The tool that could revolutionise your garden
Continue reading...Honduran villagers take legal action to stop mining firm digging up graves for gold
Families face pressure to decide the fate of their relatives’ grave, dividing the community of Azacualpa where as many as 350 bodies have already been exhumed
Nothing is sacred in the path of gold miners in northwestern Honduras – not even the dead.
A transnational mining company, Aura Minerals, has been digging up graves in the 200-year-old cemetery near the community of Azacualpa, La Union, to clear the way to dig for gold.
Continue reading...Flash floods in Maryland leaves main street underwater – video
Flood waters and heavy rain has completely submerged the main street of the historic Ellicott City in Maryland. Authorities were assessing the damage after the flood waters swept away parked cars on Sunday.
Continue reading...Return of the bison: herd makes surprising comeback on Dutch coast
Endangered species can thrive in habitats other than forests, paving way for their return
Eighty years after they were hunted to extinction, the successful reintroduction of a herd of wild European bison onto the dunes of the Dutch coast is paving the way for their return across the continent.
The largest land-living animal in Europe was last seen in the Netherlands centuries ago, and was wiped out on the continent by 1927. Despite successful efforts to breed the species again in the wilds of Poland in the 1950s, and renewed efforts in the last decade in western Europe, the European bison remains as endangered as the black rhino.
Continue reading...Halogen light bulbs could disappear from Australian stores within two years
Manufacturers will act early on September 2020 ban as LED already the preferred option
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Halogen lights will disappear from Australia within two years, as the industry and federal government pivot towards more efficient and environmentally-friendly LED lighting.
A ban on halogen bulbs, which use four times the energy of LED globes, was announced last month at a meeting of state and federal environment ministers.
Continue reading...Government advisers call for emissions fund to end investment in 'junk credits'
Revealed report finds tens of millions going into projects that don’t create new emissions reductions
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Independent experts advising the Turnbull government have called for changes to the Coalition’s Direct Action climate policy to prevent tens of millions of dollars of public money going to projects that would have gone ahead anyway.
The recommendation is in a review of the $2.55bn emissions reduction fund, the central plank of Direct Action, which pays landowners and companies to avoid emissions or sequester carbon dioxide in plants at the lowest cost. The fund is supposed to support projects that would reduce Australia’s carbon pollution below what it would otherwise have been.
Continue reading...Wild horses and a hemp parade: Sunday's best photos
The Guardian’s picture editors bring you a selection of photo highlights from around the world
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