The Guardian
Tanzania's ghost safari: how western aid contributed to the decline of a wildlife haven
Lions, elephants and hippos have vanished from Kilombero valley after UK- and US-funded projects helped turn a once-thriving habitat into farmland, teak, and sugar plantations
The long road from Dar es Salaam brings you through sparsely wooded hills and fields to the narrow northern neck of the Kilombero valley. There’s a bend in the road, then the land opens out, suddenly, in front of you.
Along the west side lie the steep-faced Udzungwa mountains, one of the last pristine rainforests in Tanzania. The Kilombero river runs through the red soils of the valley, flooding in November or December and subsiding by June. Down the longer eastern flank rise the Mahenge mountains, and beyond them, invisible, unfurls the vast territory of the Selous game reserve, one of the largest remaining chunks of African wilderness.
Continue reading...The eco guide to optimism
OK, the Sixth Mass Extinction may be upon us, but there are still some reasons to be cheerful
Let’s begin with the bad news. First, Earth Overshoot Day – the point at which the world consumes more natural resources than the planet can renew throughout the year – shifted forward this year to 2 August, putting humanity in the red for longer.
We are starting to unlink greenhouse gas emissions from production and consumption
Continue reading...The war on food waste has a new weapon: a £99 fridge camera
The world’s first wireless fridge camera goes on sale in the UK next month aimed at helping households slash food waste by being able to check exactly what they have in their refrigerator at any time.
As well as taking selfies to be sent to the user, the Smarter FridgeCam and app will also monitor use-by dates and send out automatic top-up reminders to buy more milk, for example. It will also encourage people to eat what they already have – typically festering at the back of the fridge or in the salad box – by suggesting recipes.
Continue reading...Asia’s Harry Potter obsession poses threat to owls
The Harry Potter phenomenon has broken publishing and cinema box-office records and spawned a series of lucrative theme parks. But wildlife experts are sounding the alarm over a sad downside to JK Rowling’s tales of the troubled young wizard. The illegal trade in owls has jumped in the far east over the past decade and researchers fear it could endanger the survival of these distinctive predators in Asia.
Conservationists say the snowy owl Hedwig – who remains the young wizard’s loyal companion for most of the Harry Potter series – is fuelling global demand for wild-caught birds for use as pets. In 2001, the year in which the first film was released, only a few hundred were sold at Indonesia’s many bird markets. By 2016, the figure had soared to more than 13,000, according to researchers Vincent Nijman and Anna Nekaris of Oxford Brookes University in a paper in Global Ecology and Conservation. At around $10 to $30, the price tag is affordable to most middle-class families.
Continue reading...Elephants unchained: 'The day has gone by when this was entertainment'
As our understanding of the minds of our fellow species improves, will we increasingly look back at the way we have treated them in horror and repulsion?
- Photographs by Karine Aigner
Water streams off the edges of her giant ears, runs in rivulets down the wrinkles of her slate-grey skin. She presses her whole head into the hose’s force, the spray welling into her mouth. As she drinks, she rubs her skin against the steel fence, her eyelids drooping luxuriously, her trunk relaxing. If ever I’ve seen a captive elephant happy, it’s Flora this morning.
There are no people laughing or pointing here at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. There are no infants crying, no children arguing. The public are not allowed into the sanctuary, whose unofficial motto is, “Allow elephants to be elephants”: give them the freedom of choice, the freedom of large areas to explore, the freedom from human gawkers (apart from via the online elecams) while still providing the kind of care that comes with a zoo.
Continue reading...A rare jewel of a beetle emerges from the Ouse ooze
River Ouse, North Yorkshire Once so prolific it was turned into sequins, the endangered tansy beetle is clinging on at its Yorkshire hang-out
Sequins are a popular way to bring ethereal pizzazz to an outfit. But back before synthetic bling was mass produced in every shade of fabulous, the source of such dazzle could be ethically dubious but more iridescent still. For Victorian fashionistas a statement collar or cape might have been adorned with the wingcases of thousands of tansy beetles.
Related: York's flood meadows get site of special scientific interest status
Continue reading...World Elephant Day is a reminder of our moral duty to care for nature
Paula Kahumbu: Ending ivory trafficking should be at the heart of a new vision for Africa’s development
Today a life-sized ice sculpture of an African elephant will be placed in Union Square in Downtown Manhattan. Over the course of the day, this massive ice sculpture will gradually melt, symbolizing the alarming rate in which African elephants are continuing to disappear at the hands of poachers.
The event is one of many being organised across the world on 12 August to celebrate World Elephant Day. It is part of the campaign #DontLetThemDisappear launched by Amarula Trust in partnership with the Kenyan NGO WildlifeDirect to raise global awareness of the plight of Africa’s elephants.
Sadiq Khan criticised for backtracking on pledge for London public energy company
Mayor is letting down Londoners by leaving out a manifesto pledge to create a not-for-profit energy company from his new environment strategy, say green groups
Campaigners have condemned the mayor of London’s new environment strategy for falling short by failing to announce the establishment of a publicly owned energy company for Londoners, one of his manifesto promises.
Sadiq Khan published his environment policy on Friday, which aims to turn the capital into a zero waste and zero emissions city by 2050 and ensure that more than half of the city is covered in parks and green spaces in the same time frame.
Continue reading...Ivory, fossil fuels and flesh-eating sea creatures – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...Grouse moors 'to blame for Scotland's disappearing raptors'
As estates gear up for Glorious Twelfth, wildlife crime expert talks of direct link between grouse moors and persecution of birds of prey
Grouse moors are to blame for persecuting endangered birds of prey in the Scottish Highlands and Uplands, according to a wildlife crime expert.
Ian Thomson, the head of investigations at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland, said data from 77 birds of prey that had been satellite-tagged showed a direct correlation between dead and disappeared birds and grouse moors.
Continue reading...Rustler steals 40,000 bees in Britain's biggest hive heist in years
Only an experienced beekeeper could have pulled off raid in Anglesey ‘without getting stung to smithereens’, police say
An experienced beekeeper is suspected of stealing 40,000 bees from Anglesey in one of Britain’s biggest bee rustling cases in years.
Only someone with a bee suit and veil could have pulled off the heist on Paul Williams’s hive in Rhydwyn “without getting stung to smithereens”, police said.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Playful gelada and inquisitive sea lions are among our pick of images from the natural world this week
Continue reading...Al Gore: Trump has failed to knock Paris climate deal off course
Former US vice president says the US will meet its climate commitments in spite of Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the global agreement
Donald Trump has failed to knock the Paris climate agreement off course despite his efforts to derail it, according to the former US vice president Al Gore.
“The US will meet its commitments [on emissions] in spite of Donald Trump,” he said in London, where his new film An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power was released on Friday. “Every other country has pledged [to combat climate change]. I think the psychological message is that the train has left the station. The signal sent to investors, businesses, individuals and civil society is extraordinarily powerful.”
Continue reading...Giant pipe sections wash up on Norfolk coast – video
A section of pipe almost half a kilometre long has washed up on the north Norfolk coast after breaking free from Norwegian tugs bound for Algeria. Another length of pipe beached earlier this week, and 10 more have been located and secured at sea
Pipe sections up to half a kilometre long wash up on Norfolk beach
Continue reading...Where global warming gets real: inside Nasa’s mission to the north pole – podcast
For 10 years, Nasa has been flying over the ice caps to chart their retreat. This data is an invaluable record of climate change. But does anyone care?
Subscribe via Audioboom, iTunes, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Acast & Sticher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter
Continue reading...The year Trump was elected was so hot, it was 1-in-a-million | Dana Nuccitelli
The odds of 2014, 2015, and 2016 naturally being as hot as they were are about the same as the odds you’ll be struck by lightning this year
2014, 2015, and 2016 each broke the global temperature record. A new study led by climate scientist Michael Mann just published in Geophysical Research Letters used climate model simulations to examine the odds that these records would have been set in a world with and without human-caused global warming. In model simulations without a human climate influence, the authors concluded:
Continue reading...The Transcontinental bike race: 2,400 gruelling miles across Europe – in pictures
Hundreds of riders race from Belgium to Greece, with no set route, facing extreme heat and often on only a few hours sleep a night
Continue reading...All slaughterhouses in England to have compulsory CCTV
Cameras are part of a series of measures to improve animal welfare and enforce laws against cruelty
All slaughterhouses in England will be fitted with compulsory CCTV under plans to be unveiled on Friday by environment secretary Michael Gove, as part of a series of measures to bolster welfare standards and enforce laws against animal cruelty.
Continue reading...Britain spent 'twice as much on overseas fossil fuels as renewables'
Nearly half of £6.1bn energy spending in developing countries from 2010-14 went on oil, coal and gas-fired schemes, data shows
The UK has spent more than twice as much overseas support on fossil fuels projects as on renewable ones so far this decade, according to research commissioned by the Catholic aid agency Cafod.
The Overseas Development Institute, which analysed the figures, found that 46% of Britain’s £6.1bn energy spending in developing countries between 2010 and 2014 went on oil, coal and gas-fired schemes, compared with 22% for renewable energy projects.
Continue reading...Government loan to Adani will create ‘billion-dollar ghost train’, Senate told
Public governance specialist raises concerns over the way the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility is conducting itself
If the federal government funds a rail link to Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine, it will become known as the “government-funded billion-dollar ghost train”, an expert in public governance has told the Senate.
Thomas Clark, a professor at the University of Technology Sydney, who has decades of experience in public and corporate governance, appeared before a Senate inquiry into the operation and governance of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (Naif), which is considering a $900m loan to Adani’s rail link.
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