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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.

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.

Playful gelada and inquisitive sea lions are among our pick of images from the natural world this week

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.”

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

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?

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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:

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

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.

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.

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.

Four mines operated by Glencore and Anglo could be prosecuted or even shut down, minister tells state parliament

Four underground Queensland coalmines operated by Glencore and Anglo American could be prosecuted or even shut down for failing to properly monitor dust levels.

Anthony Lynham, the state’s mines minister, has named and shamed the companies in parliament, warning that they risked severe penalties for failing to meet monitoring obligations designed to protect workers from dust-related diseases such as black lung.

Court decision is blow to Vinod Khosla and other wealthy landowners seeking to buy renowned beaches, making public land private

A California court has ordered a Silicon Valley billionaire to restore access to a beloved beach that he closed off for his private use, a major victory for public lands advocates who have been fighting the venture capitalist for years.

An appeals court ruled Thursday that Vinod Khosla, who runs the venture capital firm Khosla Ventures and co-founded the tech company Sun Microsystems, must unlock the gates to Martins Beach in northern California by his property.

EXCLUSIVE: Unprecedented scientific expedition funded by private tourism company is designed to unlock secrets of surviving coral

A scientific research expedition funded by the tourism industry will undertake the first significant underwater study of remote northern sections of the Great Barrier Reef, which were severely damaged by recent coral bleaching.

Nonprofit organisation Great Barrier Reef Legacy will launch a 21-day research trip on a 32-metre charter boat, offering at least 10 free spaces to scientists, including Charlie Veron, known as “the godfather of coral”.

Former defence force chief decries Australia’s response to climate challenge as a ‘manifest failure of leadership’

Military and climate experts, including a former chief of the defence force have warned that Australia faces potential “disastrous consequences” from climate change, including “revolving” natural disasters and the forced migration of tens of millions of people across the region, overwhelming security forces and government.

Former defence force chief Adm Chris Barrie, now adjunct professor at the strategic and defence studies centre at the Australian National University, said in a submission to a Senate inquiry that Australia’s ability to mitigate and respond to the impacts of climate change had been corrupted by political timidity: “Australia’s climate change credentials have suffered from a serious lack of political leadership”.

Noway’s role as the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporter undermines its efforts to cut emissions at home, says NGO report

Norway’s plan to ramp up oil and gas production in the Arctic threatens global efforts to tackle climate change, according to a new study.

The research says 12 gigatonnes of carbon could be added by exploration sites in the Barents Sea and elsewhere over the next 50 years, which is 1.5 times more than the Norwegian fields currently being tapped or under construction.

Conservationists see only one hope for the saola: a risky captive breeding programme

In 1996, William Robichaud spent three weeks with Martha before she died. Robichaud studied Martha – a beautiful, enigmatic, shy saola – with a scientist’s eye but also fell under the gracile animal’s spell as she ate out of his hand and allowed herself to be stroked. Captured by local hunters, Martha spent those final days in a Laotian village, doted on by Robichaud.

Since losing Martha, Robichaud has become the coordinator of the Saola Working Group (SWG) at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He has dedicated his life to saving this critically endangered species – and believes the best chance to achieve that now is through a captive breeding programme.

Sandy, Bedfordshire As the birdsongs of day fade out, the bat detector stirs into unheard action

The sun had risen over fields of oats and gone down on a prairie of stubble, yet still the skylarks sang. Though the world beneath their wings had been transformed, they continued exulting or lamenting in twilight overtime. I listened to two, three, or many voices intermingling at the fading of the day, but whether they sang in the sky or gave their evening show from the ground, I could not tell.

Other voices came too, though intermittently. Restless flocks of geese seeking rest crisscrossed between land and lakes. Numbering no more than a dozen at a time, they passed low overhead, their wings making a fuzzy buzz. The birds were muted but not mute; single birds made bleating calls that to me were riddled with anxiety at the approach of night.

A new trade analysis reveals the scale of Britain’s role in the international ivory trade

Britain was the world’s largest exporter of legal ivory between 2010 and 2015, a breakdown of records held by the Convention on international trade in endangered species (Cites) has revealed.

Not only did the UK export more ivory than anyone else to Hong Kong and China – which are considered smuggling hubs for “blood ivory” - it also sold on 370% more ivory than the next highest exporter, the USA.