The Guardian
Across Dartmoor on horseback: Country diary 50 years ago
Originally published in the Guardian on 17 June 1967
DARTMOOR: The best way to see the country of the high moorland is, I am now convinced, from horseback. A docile eight-year-old mare carried me for three hours over Holne Moor and along the thickly wooded valley of the Dart and provided a morning of great delight. Early in the ride, descending from the moor to the river valley, we started a buzzard from the heather. The bird rose into the air and crossed the valley in gracious soaring and gliding. The silhouette of the buzzard is particularly appropriate to its function as a bird of prey – a menacing dark brown shape with broad wings upturned at the tips. Its loud mewing call which echoed in the confined valley was an eerie warning to small creatures on the ground.
Related: Dilemma on the moor: The truth about pony slaughter on Dartmoor
Continue reading...With particles, size really matters
Engineers call them nano-particles, and close to congested roads and busy airports, we inhale them in astonishing numbers
In 1996, the Scottish scientist Anthony Seaton put forward a new theory about the health problems from modern air pollution. Throughout our evolution, we have always lived with dusts, but Seaton suggested that the problems from modern air pollution were due to the sheer number of tiny pollution particles that we are now exposed to.
Related: Time for the oil industry to snuff out its flares
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The world’s biggest companies, from Starbucks to Victoria’s Secret, use prisoners to work on their products. Is it helpful work experience or sheer exploitation?
We are all, at heart, ethical consumers. I’ve never met anyone actively looking for a dose of slave labour with their teabags, window frames or underwear.
71% of companies surveyed in 2015 believed their supply chains might contain some form of slavery
Continue reading...Salmon farmers ‘put wild fish at risk’ in fight to kill off sea lice
Salmon farmers have been accused of playing dirty by using fish caught in the wild to clean lice from Scottish fish farms. Marine conservation experts say that shipping tonnes of English-caught wrasse a year – to tackle lice infestations in salmon pens north of the border – is endangering natural stocks. English anglers have also warned wrasse is becoming harder and harder to find in local waters.
However, salmon farmers have rejected the charge. They say the use of wrasse as a “cleaner” fish is part of a long-term plan to replace chemicals – which are currently administered to pens to control lice infestations – with sustainable, biological controls.
Continue reading...All the colours of the machair
South Uist The dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another wildflower species comes to the fore on land left to lie fallow
The continuation of traditional crofting methods ensures that the island’s machair is still celebrated for the spectacular profusion of wildflowers that occurs in the summer. Yellows, whites, purples and blues are all present, though the dominant hue will change gradually, as first one then another species comes to the fore on the land left to lie fallow. But where, after their period of rest, different areas are put back under cultivation, there are other changes in colour.
This spring the grassland down at the end of the track that reaches the sea came under the plough, its green replaced by an expanse of pale open ground. Stretches of machair ready for planting are nothing like prepared fields seen elsewhere in Britain.
Continue reading...Beached whale on New South Wales coast to be euthanised
Marine mammal experts make ‘really tough decision’ after rough sea conditions hinder rescue attempts
• Australian volunteers help keep animal breathing – video
A juvenile humpback whale that has been beached on the New South Wales mid-north coast for more than a day will be euthanised.
Rough sea conditions had put a hold on attempts to rescue the whale on Sataurday.
Renewable power boost, climate denial and spiders – 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...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A stalking tiger, playful long-eared owl chicks and a rare dormouse are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...What happens in the team car during a cycling race?
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“I need a bike change”. The urgent call comes after about 45km.
Another rider has hit Audrey Cordon-Ragot’s rear wheel in women’s Tour de Yorkshire and the radio crackles with her call for a replacement to be brought forwards. The Wiggle High5 team’s directeur sportif, Donna Rae Szalinski, has her foot on the accelerator and a hand on the horn, beeping a warning at the other support cars as she zips up the right hand side at 70kmh to deliver a new bike.
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The highly anticipated Finkel review on the future of the national electricity market was released on Friday. Its weak emissions target breaks Australia’s Paris commitments, but the review may well end the deadlock on carbon emissions that has plagued politics for over a decade
Continue reading...Nine of world's biggest fishing firms sign up to protect oceans
Voluntary initiative marks first time companies from Asia, Europe and US have joined together to stop overfishing, illegal catch and use of slave labour
Nine of the world’s biggest fishing companies have signed up to protect the world’s oceans, pledging to help stamp out illegal activities, including the use of slave labour, and prevent overfishing.
The initiative will be announced on Friday, as part of the UN Ocean Conference this week in New York, the first conference of its kind at which member states are discussing how to meet the sustainable development goal on ocean health.
Continue reading...Beached whale: Australian volunteers help keep animal breathing – video
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Continue reading...Fight to save huge humpback whale stranded on NSW beach
Rescuers will try to refloat the 9m-long juvenile, which weighs up to 18 tonnes, at Sawtell on Saturday morning
Rescuers are working to save a young humpback whale that washed onto a beach on the New South Wales mid-north coast on Friday. The animal, which is nine metres long and weighs around 18 tonnes, would remain beached at least until the high tide arrives in the evening, experts said.
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Continue reading...Let's expose everyday climate denial. Here's how
Trump’s climate stance is blatant and extreme but just as damaging is the daily denial that goes unchallenged, from airport expansion to pub patio heaters. A first step to change is to call it out #DailyClimateDenial
You know things are bad when it takes Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris agreement for climate change to be discussed during the UK election. His climate denial is of the extreme and obvious variety: pages were removed from the Environmental Protection Agency website explaining its causes and consequences when he came into office.
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Alan Finkel’s emissions target breaks Australia’s Paris commitments
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Less than two weeks ago, Alan Finkel told the Senate his landmark report would help Australia meet the commitments it made in Paris to reduce its economy-wide emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
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Continue reading...Sticky solution: aphids' honeydew suits the bees
Langstone, Hampshire Bees scouting the hawthorn unrolled their tongues to mop up the sticky fluid excreted by the greenfly
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Continue reading...Leading Indigenous lawyer hits back at Marcia Langton over Adani
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Continue reading...The Paris climate agreement, Nicaragua and Donald Trump | Letters
We welcome your excellent coverage of President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement (Anger at US as Trump rejects climate accord, 2 June). However, there are references to the US joining Syria and Nicaragua in rejecting the agreement. Presented out of context, this comparison is flawed. Syria didn’t sign because of the catastrophic civil war. Nicaragua refused to sign because it believes the agreement is too weak to address the enormity of the consequences of climate change, particularly in vulnerable developing countries.
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Continue reading...Brazilian tribal leader tours Europe to plead for help to stop killings and land grabs
Guarani-Kaiowá leader Ladio Veron is seeking international support to end violence against indigenous people and environmental destruction under the Temer administration, reports Mongabay
Ladio Veron, leader of Brazil’s indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá people, is touring Europe and making a desperate international appeal to halt attacks and killings, land theft and environmental destruction that his people say have become a hallmark of Brazil’s Temer administration.
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Continue reading...