The Guardian
Rhino breeder to auction 500kg of horns in South Africa
John Hume to take advantage of court ruling allowing domestic sales of horns, despite international ban
A rhino breeder in South Africa is planning an online auction of rhino horns to capitalise on a court ruling that opened the way to domestic trade despite an international ban imposed to curb poaching.
The sale of rhino horns by breeder John Hume, to be held in August, will be used to “further fund the breeding and protection of rhinos”, according to an auction website.
Continue reading...Hard Brexit could halt Heathrow expansion plans, experts say
National Infrastructure Commission says UK must maintain ties with EU to save key projects such as third runway and HS2
A hard Brexit would be a “calamity” that would spell the end for the Heathrow expansion, according to the chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission.
While the airport has argued that Brexit makes its third runway ever more important, Andrew Adonis said private investment in infrastructure would be off the table unless Britain could maintain ties with the EU.
Continue reading...Macron meets Schwarzenegger and vows to stop oil and gas licences
In a dig at Trump’s climate change inaction, French president welcomes the green campaigner and says there will be ‘no new exploration licences’
The new French government has sought to further burnish its green credentials with the announcement it is to stop granting licences for new oil and gas exploration.
In his first major intervention since Emmanuel Macron’s election victory, the ecological transition minister, Nicolas Hulot, told the broadcaster BFMTV there would be “no new exploration licences for hydrocarbons”.
Continue reading...Tanzania presses on with hydroelectric dam on vast game reserve
Stiegler Gorge dam on the Selous park, a world heritage site listed as ‘in danger’, will cause irreversible damage, say conservationists
Plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam in the heart of one of Africa’s largest remaining wild areas have dismayed conservationists who fear that the plans will cause irreversible damage to the Selous game reserve in Tanzania.
After many years of delays and false starts, last week the president of Tanzania, John Magufuli, announced that he would be going ahead with the Stiegler’s Gorge dam on the Rufiji river. Magufuli, nicknamed “the Bulldozer”, was elected in 2015 in part on his record of successful road and infrastructure building. The dam will provide 2,100MW of electricity to a country that is currently extremely undersupplied: Tanzania, with a population of approximately 53m to the UK’s 65m, has just 1,400MW of installed grid capacity compared to the UK’s total grid capacity of 85,000MW.
Continue reading...New study confirms the oceans are warming rapidly | John Abraham
Although there’s some uncertainty in the distribution among Earth’s ocean basins, there’s no question that the ocean is heating rapidly
As humans put ever more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the Earth heats up. These are the basics of global warming. But where does the heat go? How much extra heat is there? And how accurate are our measurements? These are questions that climate scientists ask. If we can answer these questions, it will better help us prepare for a future with a very different climate. It will also better help us predict what that future climate will be.
The most important measurement of global warming is in the oceans. In fact, “global warming” is really “ocean warming.” If you are going to measure the changing climate of the oceans, you need to have many sensors spread out across the globe that take measurements from the ocean surface to the very depths of the waters. Importantly, you need to have measurements that span decades so a long-term trend can be established.
UK on track to miss carbon emissions target due to stalled energy policy
Survey by Energy Institute finds industry professionals think policy is ‘on pause’ and warn Brexit is ‘material concern’
The UK’s ambitious target of slashing carbon emissions by more than half within 13 years is at risk because of government dithering on energy policy, industry professionals have warned.
A survey by the Energy Institute, the professional body for the energy sector, has found that four fifths of its members believe the UK is currently on track to miss the 2030 goal.
Continue reading...Eyes on the sky on a sultry solstice night
Comins Coch, Aberystwyth Beech leaves moved silkily in the warm wind as though breathing, the only other sounds the stream and distant sheep
Long after midnight, with the temperature well above 20C and humidity high, I gave up attempting to sleep and checked what the night sky might offer in compensation. With the moon yet to rise, the village was in darkness, swathed in a murky blanket of haze that all but obscured the mountains to the east. Looking up, a few stars were just visible above the beech trees – whose leaves moved silkily together in the warm wind as though breathing, the only other sounds those of the stream and a few distant sheep.
Continue reading...Changing the course of history for Kenya's wildlife
Kenya’s wildlife numbers are plummeting. Reconnecting people to nature is key to the solution.
On May 31st Kenya celebrated the inauguration of the first phase of the new high-speed rail link from Mombasa to Nairobi. Now Kenyans can travel between the two largest cities quickly and cheaply. Accelerated movement of cargo and people will mean more trade, more income generation, and therefore, more jobs, and that’s good for our youthful nation.
Much less widely reported were results of studies by Dr Joseph Ogutu and colleagues at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which reveal that Kenya’s wildlife numbers are plummeting. Some of our most treasured animals, such as hirola, rhinos, cheetah, lions, and giraffe, are being pushed to the brink of extinction.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef valued at $56bn as report warns it's 'too big to fail'
Deloitte Access Economics report says reef underpins 64,000 jobs and contributes $6.4bn to economy each year
A new report has valued the Great Barrier Reef at $56bn and warns of vast economic consequences for Australia unless more is done to protect it.
The Deloitte Access Economics report says the world heritage-listed reef underpins 64,000 direct and indirect jobs, and contributes $6.4bn to the national economy each year.
Continue reading...The return of the giant hogweed: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Guardian on 1 July 1967
MACHYNLLETH: When a friend wrote recently and added a PS, “How’s that plant?” I knew that he meant the giant hogweed I described in this diary a year ago and which brought in more letters than anything I have ever mentioned. Last year’s plants duly disappeared but this year one has come up in a different place. It sowed itself at a path edge and for several weeks looked harmless enough. But suddenly it stretched out huge arms all round and now the path is quite blocked. Meanwhile its main stem is shooting up with equal speed and will soon be expanding massive umbels. I see it through the window as I write.
Related: Giant hogweed; digging deeper into the history of a 'killer weed'
Continue reading...Experts capture blue shark after Mallorca beach sighting
Animal was first spotted near Cala Major and Can Pastilla, with lifeguards ordering swimmers out of the water
Experts have captured a blue shark whose presence in shallow waters off the coast of Mallorca caused panic over the weekend and led to the evacuation of beaches on the Balearic island.
Related: Mysterious ghost shark caught on film for the first time
Continue reading...As Trump moves to privatize America's national parks, visitor costs may rise
Some are concerned that the proposed privatization of some public park services would drive up costs for visitors and fail to raise enough for repairs
America’s national parks need a staggering $11.5bn worth of overdue road and infrastructure repairs. But with the proposed National Park Service budget slashed by almost $400m, the Trump administration says it will turn to privatizing public park services to address those deferred maintenance costs.
“I don’t want to be in the business of running campgrounds,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said at a meeting of the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association in Washington this month. This came after Donald Trump proposed cutting the Interior budget by 13%.
Continue reading...The eco guide to performance wear
You’d expect mountain climbers to be great champions of the environment, but their high-performance clothing is a chemical nightmare
There’s a long-standing rivalry between surfers and climbers as to who is the greenest. For my money, surfers have the edge. They’ve influenced environmentalism at large, making their issues – sewage and plastic – ours.
Greenpeace has found noxious chemicals in the air around outdoor clothing shops
Continue reading...Crisis in Britain’s coastal villages as local fishing communities fight for survival
It is hard to think of a more faithful depiction of the English fishing village than the scene that greets the visitor to Porthleven in Cornwall: the early summer sun glints off the water, holidaymakers throng the quayside restaurants, enjoying the fresh fish unloaded by the fishermen toiling in their boats.
Yet some argue that things are not what they seem. They say that none of the fish sold at the restaurants or cafés offering “fresh local fish” is caught by the town’s fishermen. Instead it is brought in by van from wholesalers in Newlyn, 15 miles away. And of the boats bobbing in the water, only three are commercial fishing boats. Of those, one fisherman is retiring this year and the other two are ready to call it a day.
Continue reading...'Rewilding' Australia: not only do we need the outback, the outback needs us
Even in vast natural ecosystems, the fate and condition of nature lies in the hands of the people who live on, know, respect and manage that land
Only a small number of vast natural landscapes remain on Earth – wild regions where ecological processes function normally and movements of wildlife remain largely unfettered by the fragmentation of habitats. These few places include the Amazon basin, the boreal forests of Canada, tundra of Siberia, the Sahara Desert, and the Australian Outback.
It has become increasingly apparent to modern science what Indigenous people have understood for centuries: that even in these large, natural ecosystems, the fate and condition of nature lies in the hands of the people who live on, know, respect and manage that land.
Continue reading...Anti-poaching drive brings Siberia’s tigers back from brink
In February, Pavel Fomenko was told that the body of a young female tiger had been discovered underneath a car parked outside the town of Luchegorsk, in eastern Russia. Fomenko – head of rare species conservation for WWF Russia – took the corpse for examination where he uncovered the grim details of the animal’s death.
Related: The Siberian tiger protector - in pictures
Continue reading...The Siberian tiger protector - in pictures
Photographer Antonio Olmos travelled to the Russian far east to document the work of Pavel Fomenko, a man of the wilderness and tiger protector with the World Wildlife Fund
You can become a tiger protector with the WWF here
Continue reading...New Orleans mayor: US climate change policy cannot wait for Trump
- Mitch Landrieu says cities will lead as federal government is ‘paralysed’
- NYC’s de Blasio backs push as Miami Beach shows anti-sea rise work
US cities will lead national policy on climate change after the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, working to reduce emissions and become more resilient to rising sea levels, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans said at an annual meeting in Florida.
Related: The fight against climate change: four cities leading the way in the Trump era
Continue reading...Quarter of England’s rivers at risk of running dry, finds WWF
Freedom-of-information data reveals threat of drought that would devastate wildlife, with government slow to act on water management
A quarter of England’s rivers are at risk of running dry, with devastating consequences for wildlife, according to data obtained by WWF under freedom of information rules.
Fish are most obviously affected when rivers slow to a trickle, particularly those that migrate upstream such as salmon, trout, eels and lampreys. But animals such as water voles are also harmed, as they are unable to escape predators by fleeing into rivers to reach underwater entrances to their burrows. Birds such as kingfishers, sandpipers and dippers also suffer, as the insects and small fish they feed on die out.
Continue reading...Paris agreement's 1.5C target 'only way' to save coral reefs, Unesco says
First global assessment of climate change impact on world heritage-listed reefs says local efforts are ‘no longer sufficient’
Greater emissions reductions and delivering on the Paris climate agreement are now “the only opportunity” to save coral reefs the world over from decline, with local responses no longer sufficient, a report by Unesco has found.
The first global scientific assessment of the impacts of climate change on the 29 world heritage-listed coral reefs, published on Saturday, found that the frequency, intensity and duration of heat-stress events had worsened with increasing global warming, with massive consequences for the 29 world heritage sites.
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