The Guardian

Aigas Field Centre, Beauly, Highlands I am struck by the way the willow expresses the richness entailed in a drawn-out death

Just 10 minutes down the valley from this outstanding educational institute is the largest goat willow in Britain. The veteran is tucked away at the roadside amid a line of alders and so sunk in a deep and almost subaquatic gloom that you could easily miss it. A visit also requires a minor girding of loins to brave the midge-laden atmosphere, although meeting the tree on intimate terms is worth any amount of insect nuisance.

Rising temperatures are set to wipe out half of Ethiopia’s coffee-growing areas, with loss of certain locations likened to France losing a great wine region

Global warming is likely to wipe out half of the coffee growing area in Ethiopia, the birthplace of the bean, according to a groundbreaking new study. Rising temperatures have already damaged some special areas of origin, with these losses being likened to France losing one of its great wine regions.

Ethiopia’s highlands also host a unique treasure trove of wild coffee varieties, meaning new flavour profiles and growing traits could be lost before having been discovered. However, the new research also reveals that if a massive programme of moving plantations up hillsides to cooler altitudes were feasible, coffee production could actually increase.

Study shows risks have climbed steadily since 1980, and the number of people in danger will grow to 48% by 2100 even if emissions are drastically reduced

• South-west heat wave: tell us how you’re keeping cool

Nearly a third of the world’s population is now exposed to climatic conditions that produce deadly heatwaves, as the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere makes it “almost inevitable” that vast areas of the planet will face rising fatalities from high temperatures, new research has found.

Climate change has escalated the heatwave risk across the globe, the study states, with nearly half of the world’s population set to suffer periods of deadly heat by the end of the century even if greenhouse gases are radically cut.

Over the next few years, Sango Wildlife Conservancy in Zimbabwe is donating 6,000 animals to rewild a war-torn park across the border in Mozambique. Sango’s owner says it couldn’t have happened without revenue from big-spending trophy hunters.

Call it Noah’s Ark on lorries: on Sunday, dozens of trucks rolled over the Zimbabwe savanna carrying elephants, giraffe, African buffalo, zebras, and numerous other large iconic mammals. Driving over 600 kilometers of dusty roadway, the trucks will be delivering their wild loads to a new home: Zinave National Park in Mozambique. The animals are a donation from Mozambique’s Sango Wildlife Conservancy – a donation that owner, Wilfried Pabst, says wouldn’t be possible without funds from controversial trophy hunting.

“In remote places and countries with a weak tourism industry and a high unemployment rate, it is very difficult – or almost impossible – to run a conservancy like Sango without income from sustainable utilization,” Pabst said.

Bedgebury Pinetum, Kent As if wanting us to appreciate more fully the weird loveliness of its song, the nightjar flew towards us

We found the nightjar on the edge of a young conifer plantation, just before 10pm. The weather rumbled ominously in the background as dusk settled around us, the trees soughing and shushing in the breeze. Willow warblers carolled in the canopy and a fat woodcock roded over.

Luke lit a cigarette, I slapped at midges. We saw the nightjar before we heard him (which is unusual). Just enough light to see white wing patches, plumage like wave ripples on sand. He flew over, tentative, circling, standing on the handle of his tail and clapping his wings a few times, before arrowing off into the trees.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 21 June 1917

Surrey
The soil responds quickly now to every genial touch. Meadows and clover fields which, after they had been cut and the hay gathered, appeared brown and sere two days ago were this morning, after a spell of rain, as green almost as in spring. The foot sank among rich young leaves and blades along the ditch side below, where wild pink roses have opened as if by some quick stroke or call. On the very top of flowering brambles yellowhammers perched, preening their feathers, and started a little song the last note of which drew out longer than the others. There was a pause and a spell of silence until the song was run through again, the heads of the birds bobbing yellow in the sunshine all the while.

With a rising wind at evening, grey clouds, almost black, came sweeping up the down, scattering the white fruit of dandelions. In the distance they seemed heavy and low enough to envelop you in darkness, but presently it was nothing but a slightly damp flicker wafting across your face. Higher the sky was a clear blue, with long thin flecks depending, which scarcely moved, and in the middle distance swifts circling, diving, now going higher with a tireless flutter of wings, then gliding as they pleased without apparent sign of any kind of power. No matter which way you turn now there are always swifts, and within a few minutes a pair will come down with sharp but sweet cries as they dash above and around. Another and yet another two or three will join them, until, waywardly, all shoot up towards the sky again. So many are they that a lark, strong as his singing is, seems lonely.

With its unusual name and even more unusual habits, the hoatzin is a clear frontrunner for the title of the world’s most bizarre bird

We left Romero Rainforest Lodge just before sunrise, heading down the Manú River and into the unknown. The sickly-sweet scent of uvos – a mango-like fruit – wafted across the murky waters, hanging heavy in the humid air.

As dawn broke, birds started to appear out of nowhere. Flocks of sand-coloured nighthawks lived up to their name, hawking acrobatically over the surface of the water to seize unseen insects with their broad bills. As the sky began to lighten, they were joined by black skimmers: elegant, tern-like birds whose huge bill is longer at the bottom than the top, as we could see when one kept pace with our speedboat. Overhead, pairs of gaudy blue-and-yellow macaws flew high over the rainforest, as if in slow motion.

Thanks to new legislation, NOAA will be able to boost its ability to predict major weather-related events, such as hurricanes, droughts, floods and wildfires – and improved forecasts could have significant business impacts

Sainsbury’s has launched a new ‘Fairly Traded’ tea range. Well and good, but the fear is they may seek to swerve Fairtrade’s tough regulations

We know the drill. An appealing product gets listed by a major retailer, becomes well loved by consumers only for that retailer to replace it with an own-brand version.

Sainsbury’s says its new system is up to date, focusing more on climate change

New Forest South Only on private land can we experience a sense of remoteness that was once commonplace here

Small heath butterflies flirt among the delicate pink flowers of sea-spurrey. A solitary meadow brown flashes past, wind-driven and quickly lost against the muddy crust of dried-out estuarine pools.

There’s bright blue sky overhead, but the spinnaker-ballooning yachts out in the Solent lean over on a choppy white-tipped sea. Oystercatchers hunker down in the gulleys above which three forest ponies graze. Their movement disturbs a group of shelduck sheltering in a dip that bob fleetingly into sight.

Museum Victoria collects gelatinous fish, spiny crabs, scarlet sea-spiders, nightmarish cookie cutter sharks and plenty of rubbish

• Gallery: Deep sea discoveries: sea pigs, a dumbo octopus and glow-in-the-dark sharks

There’s no sunlight four kilometres below the waves but there is light.

It comes from a sea cucumber that emits a faint glow from its sticky skin, attracting fish and crabs that try to take bites out of its side. The skin is both a lure and a trap, marking incautious predators with a sticky glowing dot, an “eat me” sign to any passing larger predators.

Images of bizarre deep sea creatures found in May and June by the research ship Investigator as it travelled along the Australian coastline to the Coral Sea. The scientists aboard the ship mapped the sea floor to a depth of 4,000 metres and collected more than 1,000 different marine species, about a third of which were new to science and half of which showed some kind of bioluminescent quality

• Voyage to the sea floor: expedition returns with fascinating finds

Interview with anthropologist José Proaño on dangers to indigenous peoples in “isolation” posed by timber trade

Three NGOs in Ecuador marked the UN’s World Environment Day last week by releasing a report alleging that illegal loggers are operating in the famous Yasuní National Park in the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse places in the world. The loggers are crossing the border from Peru and mainly extracting cedar from territories used by indigenous peoples living in “isolation”, according to the NGOs.

The report focuses on a reconnaissance trip made in May which documented illegal logging in the park, as well as “massive” commercial hunting and the abandonment of premises supposedly run by the Environment Ministry and military. The trip was made, the report states, after several government visits to the region in recent years which confirmed that illegal loggers and hunters were operating, but led to almost no action being taken to stop them. On one occasion illegal wood was confiscated, but it was recovered by Peruvian loggers, it is claimed, in a “possible violent attack against [an Ecuadorian] military post.”

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

A great white pelican, a slow loris and wildebeest on migration in the Masai Mara are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

Beaches in the remote Arctic islands were found to be more polluted than European ones due to plastic carried from much further south

Beaches on remote Arctic islands are heavily polluted with plastic, a new expedition has found, demonstrating that the region is the dumping ground for waste carried northwards on the Gulf Stream.

The shorelines of islands in the Svalbard archipelago and of Jan Mayen island were found to be littered with much more plastic waste than on European beaches, despite tiny local populations.

Human activity is worsening the problem in an already rainy area, and there could be damage worthy of a disaster movie if a storm hits the industrial section

Sam Brody is not a real estate agent, but when his friends want to move home they get in touch to ask for advice. He is a flood impact expert in Houston – and he has plenty of work to keep him busy.

The Texas metropolis has more casualties and property loss from floods than any other locality in the US, according to data stretching back to 1960 that Brody researched with colleagues. And, he said, “Where the built environment is a main force exacerbating the impacts of urban flooding, Houston is number one and it’s not even close.”

The world’s largest unbroken intertidal system and a haven for migratory birds on the Dutch coastline is at risk of sinking out of existence

The world’s largest unbroken intertidal system of sand and mud flats could sink beneath the waves by the end of the century due to sea level rise and subsidence caused by gas drills funded by Barclays and other international banks.

The Unesco world heritage site at the Wadden Sea on the Dutch coast stretches over 10,000 sq km. Its saltmarshes, sandy shoals, dunes and mussel beds host millions of migratory birds every year, as well as thousands of basking seals.

Fabrice Monteiro travelled to the most polluted places in Africa and created terrifying characters who roamed their midst dressed in eerie debris. They are spirits, he says, on a mission to make humans change their ways

Bleaklow, Derbyshire So sleek, quick and nimble, with butter-gold speckles on its back, this bird is a shy jewel of the moors

The sombre northern flank of Bleaklow has three Black Cloughs, differentiated with admirable directness as Near, Middle and Far. Clough is a northern word, likely Old Norse in origin, for a cleft in a hill.

The overall effect is familiar enough – bleak, desolate, country. But look more closely and the contrasts are spectacular.