The Guardian

Hutton cited health issues when he announced his decision to quit as president of the anti-mining group Lock the Gate

Drew Hutton, a giant of the Australian environmental movement, has announced his retirement as a leading activist in his 70th year.

Hutton, described by Australian Greens co-founder Bob Brown as the “driving force” for the party’s formation in 1992, cited health issues for his decision to quit last week as president of the anti-mining group Lock the Gate.

Deforestation in the Amazon is increasing amid cuts to protection, putting Norway’s financial aid in jeopardy, says minister

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Norway has issued a blunt threat to Brazil that if rising deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is not reversed, its billion-dollar financial assistance will fall to zero. The leaders of the two nations meet in Oslo on Friday.

The oil-rich Scandinavian nation has provided $1.1bn to Brazil’s Amazon fund since 2008, tied to reductions in the rate of deforestation in the world’s greatest rainforest. The destruction of forests by timber and farming industries is a major contributor to the carbon emissions that drive climate change and Norway views protecting the Amazon as vital for the whole world.

O desmatamento na Amazônia vem aumentando em meio a cortes à proteção do meio ambiente, e colocando o apoio financeiro vindo da Noruega em risco, diz ministro

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A Noruega fez uma clara ameaça ao Brasil de que caso o crescente índice de desmatamento na Amazônia não seja revertido, a ajuda financeira de um bilhão de dólares vai ser reduzida a zero. Os líderes de ambos países se encontram em Oslo, nesta sexta.

A 20% shortfall in migrant workers relied on to pick fruit and vegetables is blamed on Brexit making the UK seem ‘xenophobic’

Farms have been hit with a shortage of the migrant workers that Britain relies on to bring in the fruit and vegetable harvests, according to a series of new reports.

There was a 17% shortfall in May, leaving some farms critically short of pickers, according to a new National Farmers Union (NFU) survey. The decline is blamed on Brexit, with the vote to depart the EU leaving the UK seen as “xenophobic” and “racist” by overseas workers, according to the director of a major agricultural recruitment company.

My friend David Hoyle, who has died in a car accident aged 48, was a social scientist who devoted his life to protecting African forests and natural ecosystems for the biodiversity they harbour, for the local people who depend on them, and to secure their vital role in mitigating dangerous climate change. He worked for numerous NGOs, including VSO, WWF, and WCS, which took him to many African countries as a teacher, field project manager and national director.

The second of three children born to Mike Hoyle, a management consultant, and Marion (nee Knight), a housewife, David grew up in Farnham, Surrey, completed school at Lancing college in West Sussex and read geography at Reading University before doing a master’s in natural resource management at Edinburgh.

So far, 15,696 people have taken part in the 2017 Great British Bee Count, recording 288,341 bees, some of which are pictured here. You have eight days left to join this year’s count which will run until 30 June 2017

• Download the free app to monitor and learn about our endangered bee population and get tips for bee-friendly planting

Environment minister Jan Szyszko has called for Białowieża to lose its heritage status, saying it was granted ‘illegally’

Poland’s environment minister, Jan Szyszko, whom green activists have criticised for allowing large-scale logging in the ancient Białowieża forest, has called for the woodland to be stripped of Unesco’s natural heritage status, banning human intervention.

Białowieża, straddling Poland’s eastern border with Belarus, includes one of the largest surviving parts of the primeval forest that covered the European plain 10,000 years ago. It also boasts unique plant and animal life, including the continent’s largest mammal, the European bison.

Habitat loss, pollution, climate change, over-exploitation and poaching are all threatening a lifeline for local communities

Wildlife-based tourism is growing rapidly worldwide as the number of tourists continues to grow and as we, as travellers, seek out new and more enriching personal experiences with local cultures and wildlife. This is what inspired me to take six months unpaid leave from the grind of legal practice many years ago and backpack around South America with my little sister. Experiencing the natural beauty of places like the Amazon rainforest, Iguazú Falls and Machu Picchu and the local people fighting to protect them was life-changing.

The UN World Tourism Organisation estimates that 7% of world tourism relates to wildlife tourism, growing annually at about 3%, and much higher in some places, like our Unesco world heritage sites. A WWF report shows that 93% of all natural heritage sites support recreation and tourism and 91% of them provide jobs. In Belize, more than 50% of the population are said to be supported by income generated through reef-related tourism and fisheries.

A data map of 25 London cycling corridors could be crucial for future superhighways, but critics say it’s a distraction from getting the job done

Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, once said “in God we trust; everyone else bring data”. London has moved towards the mantra of one man who transformed a city for cycling by using a major data analysis to show where cycling routes could be built to get the greatest number of people on to two wheels.

Transport for London (TfL) has taken census data, cycle counts, surveys and data from the city’s hire bikes to identify future urban development and growth hotspots and collision data. They have created a map of 25 corridors across London, along which the greatest number of cycling trips could be generated.

Move to block EU ban comes despite environment secretary Michael Gove saying, ‘I don’t want to water down’ EU protections

Conservative politicians are trying to stop a complete EU ban on bee-harming pesticides, despite the new environment secretary Michael Gove’s statement earlier this week, in which he said “I absolutely don’t want to water down” EU environmental protections.

Neonicotinoids are the world’s most widely used insecticides but have been banned on flowering crops in the EU since 2013. However, the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) found in 2016 that use of the pesticides on all crops poses a high risk to bees. As a result, the European commission has proposed a ban on all uses outside greenhouses, first revealed by the Guardian in March.

Sandy, Bedfordshire The butterfly rested in the tractor tramline, cryptic wings held erect over its back

The open fields are no place for hot dogs in high summer. At other times dogs scamper along the straight tracks between wheat and barley, sometimes stopping to sniff, squat, or cock a leg, engrossed in a kind of Twitter wee.

But when the sun burns overhead, it toasts cereals and thick coats alike. The dog walkers therefore come early here, and I run earlier still.

Huge and unexplained bloom has fishers racing to save their nets, and scientists hurrying to study the rare animal

A rare, tiny marine creature known as the “unicorn of the sea” has swarmed in its millions on the west coast of America, ruining fishermen’s nets and baffling scientists who are scrambling to find out more about them.

Fishers along the west coast have told researchers that in some places they are unable to catch anything because the pyrosome clusters are so dense and tightly packed. Their hooks, when pulled from the ocean, wriggle with the odd-looking creatures, which are sometimes referred to as “sea pickles” or “fire bodies”.

World-first climate and health framework from 30 health and medical groups calls for recognition of citizens’ ‘right to health’

To save hundreds of lives and billions of dollars, Australia should rapidly phase out coal power stations and establish strong emissions reduction targets, according to a coalition of 30 major health and medical groups.

Related: Australia warned it has radically underestimated climate change security threat

World’s largest banks lent $87bn to oil, coal and LNG companies in 2016 – a 22% drop from a collective $111bn worth of lending in 2015

The world’s biggest banks have reduced their lending to some of the most carbon-intensive sectors of the fossil fuel industry by billions of dollars, marking a potentially seismic shift against coal investment, a new study says.

The report commissioned by environmental groups tracked the lending decisions of 37 banks across Australia, the US, Europe, Canada, China and Japan in the first calendar year since the signing of the Paris climate agreement.

Prominent oceanographers and global leaders write to Australian prime minister and Queensland premier

A group of prominent oceanographers and global leaders headed by renowned marine biologist Dr Sylvia Earle has written to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, urging him to reject the proposed Adani Carmichael coalmine, which it says will have a devastating impact on the Great Barrier Reef.

The letter from the group Ocean Elders argues that if it goes ahead, the coalmine will damage international efforts to mitigate climate change by increasing global carbon emissions.

Normally I would write to complain about such a gendered phrase as “man-made” (Opinion, 17 June). In the case of “man-made climate change” however, I’m inclined to let it pass. On balance it seems likely that rather more men than women do bear responsibility for the changes which are leading our planet to fry. “Anthropogenic” is a much more elegant word though.
Sylvia Rose
Totnes, Devon

• Virginia Cumming (Letters, 21 June) calls out the Daily Mail for inflammatory language. On page 25, Aditya Chakrabortty declares that “Britain still murders its poor” (Opinion, 21 June) Mote and Beam?
J Moorhead
Gorstage, Cheshire

Analysis of world’s lenders reveals many claim green credentials while still financing fuels like tar sands, oil and coal

Some of the world’s top banks are continuing to lend tens of billions for extracting the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels, according to a report of top lenders.

Finance provided for these fossil fuels – tar sands and other unconventional oil and gas, as well as coal and liquefied natural gas – amounted to $87bn for the top 37 banks in 2016. That represented a slump of more than a fifth compared with the $111bn raised the previous year, and was also down on 2014’s total of $92bn.

Former US vice-president says green revolution is bigger than industrial revolution and happening at faster pace than digital revolution

The fight against global warming is one of humanity’s great moral movements, alongside the abolition of slavery, the defeat of apartheid, votes for women and gay rights, according to the former US vice-president and climate campaigner, Al Gore.

The battle to halt climate change can be won, he said, because the green revolution delivering clean energy is both bigger than the industrial revolution and happening faster than the digital revolution.

On behalf of students and alumni from all Ivy-Plus universities, we call on our institutions to join the “We Are Still In” coalition

America’s top universities expend considerable efforts to lead in the rankings, but last week they fell short—missing a critical opportunity to show moral leadership on climate change. If top schools want to lead on climate action, they should join the “We Are Still In” coalition, a collection of states, cities, businesses, and universities promising to support the Paris Climate Agreement.

President Trump’s decision to pull out of the international climate accord was swiftly rejected by local and state officials, as well as members of the business and academic community. Over 1,000 leaders have signed on to the “We Are Still In” pledge—including mayors and governors representing about 120 million people. More than 200 colleges and universities have joined. Leadership from these institutions sends a powerful message to President Trump and the globe: even if the federal government reneges on its international commitments, Americans are stepping up to fill the gap.

Once known as the ‘city of lakes’, urban sprawl has destroyed 85% of Bangalore’s rivers and lakes, while pollution has ruined much of what remains. Like many residents, Lakshmi and her mother struggle to find clean water