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Hopes that ministers will make special case for Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland after visit by business secretary

Ministers are believed to be on the verge of a U-turn on their manifesto pledge to halt the spread of subsidised onshore windfarms – on remote Scottish islands, at least.

The business secretary, Greg Clark, visited the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles on Monday to discuss the possibility of government support for turbines off the mainland.

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Diver Keith Brock and his wife capture a rare close-up video of the shark off the east coast of the United States.

The World Wildlife Fund released this footage filmed in March 2017 that shows the view from a camera attached to a whale in Antarctica. Scientists used suction cups to attach cameras to humpback and minke whales, revealing new feeding habits and their social lives. The data gathered will be used to protect whales and their ecosystems

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Nearly every house in this rural 450-acre development of stargazers is equipped with its own domed observatory, and outdoor lights are strictly forbidden. Does it also hold answers for combatting America’s problem with light pollution?

Take a nighttime drive into Arizona Sky Village, in a remote valley in south-east Arizona, and the only thing you can see clearly are the millions of stars twinkling overhead. Beyond the light show, the sky is a deep inky black, and the ground below is nothing but shadows. Dimmed car headlights might pick up spooked jackrabbits hopping through the desert brush, but the village’s unlit houses are all but invisible in the darkness.

That’s the way the residents of this astronomy-loving community like it. The less light, the better their view of the universe.

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Despite talking up the future of the coal sector for years, Rio has been divesting itself of the commodity.

A Coffs Harbour marine park is facing a legal challenge over their claims that the dolphins in their park are "happy and healthy".

New tool maps the potential increase in bike journeys under different scenarios – from routes avoiding hills to adopting e-bikes – revealing health benefits and informing future investment

Chances are you live in a place where less than one in 20 commuters regularly cycle to work. Sometimes people assume this is because England is too hilly, or that most home-to-work distances are too far to cycle. Hilliness and distance do matter. However, new research has found that this is only part of the story. With the right cycling conditions, cycling levels could be much higher than they are now.

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First WI report on food waste finds confusion persists over ‘best before’ and ‘sell by’ dates, with supermarkets potentially contributing to the problem

The Women’s Institute is urging supermarkets to do more to help consumers reduce their domestic food waste, after a survey of its own membership revealed widespread confusion about “best before” and “use by” labelling on packaging.

Its new analysis of products on supermarket shelves found that “once-opened” instructions were often contradictory and often failed to make clear whether they were a guide to food safety or quality.

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For 40 years I hunted elephants and other big game in the forests of Rwanda. This is how I became an ex-poacher

I was born in Kinigi, in Rwanda’s Musanze district, about 65 years ago, and it is still my home. I come from the Batwa community; we are very short people. There are about 400 of us, which makes us the smallest tribe in Rwanda.

We lived in the forests long before the government took them over, and we were known as their keepers. They meant everything to us. I did not even know what a school was. Like my parents, my brother and my two sisters, all I knew was life in the forest.

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The fifth Emissions Reduction Fund auction was held on April 5–6. As forecast in our earlier auction outlook, results are a considerable step down from earlier auction events.

Sandy, Bedfordshire Climate change has boosted the songbirds’ advance northwards, and they seem to fill every copse

In the rising chorus over the past few weeks, one migratory bird has stood out as insistent, persistent, and more variable in its simple song than most books would have us believe.

Chiffchaffs are on the up; climate change has warmed their advance northwards, and here in the south they seem to be filling every copse, every patch of scrubland. They are often heard, but far less frequently seen.

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VSUN looks to household market for vanadium redox flow batteries, and to a local manufacturing facility to help reduce prices.

South Australia says it has received 31 proposals from 12 countries for its proposed emergency back-up gas generator.

The most important impact of the crisis facing Toshiba and Westinghouse is the chilling effect it will have ‒ and is already having ‒ on the nuclear power industry.

Despite the bravado of the fossil fuel apologists, the tide to clean energy is turning. Seven events in the past two months highlight the significant and unstoppable transformation that is occurring in our energy system.

The winning tariff is for 250 MW of solar capacity in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

China’s wind and solar industry is projected to expand fivefold by 2030. So what’s fuelling this historic shift?

Climate change continues its rapid reshaping of the Arctic as yet another month saw sea ice set a record-low mark.

Is building a coal plant in 2017 more trouble than it’s worth?

The Australian government plans to target invasive European carp with a herpes virus, leaving hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carp rotting in the river systems that supply our drinking water and irrigate the fruit and vegetables we eat.

The aim of “Carpageddon” is to return Australian aquatic ecosystems to their pre-carp state by eliminating or reducing the serious pest species.

Carp currently make up 83% of the fish biomass in the Murray-Darling Basin in New South Wales. They alter river and lake habitats in a way that reduces habitability for native species, including five threatened species. They also have a major impact on inland fisheries, with an estimated annual economic cost of A$22 million.

This all makes a substantial argument for releasing a carp killing herpes virus. However, dealing with the aftermath could cost A$30 million for NSW alone.

Cleanup costs could be reduced by introducing viruses to discrete populations. However, if the virus escapes into the Murray-Darling Catchment, we will lose control of the virus spread and carp death will be rapid and widespread.

Without a dedicated cleanup effort, the sudden influx of millions of dead fish could permanently pollute our waterways. A potential solution is to recruit nature’s cleaners to do our work for us – scavengers like turtles and crayfish. They could save us from carcass-choked rivers and wetlands, but only if we can protect them from endangerment and extinction.

Turtles and crayfish are our unlikely saviours

Carp carcasses are normally eaten by scavengers, a process that’s vital to the food web (the system of what eats what in a given environment). In fact, the majority of dead fish are consumed by scavengers.

As such, simply removing the carp carcasses may reduce the overall amount of nutrients in the ecosystem. This would destabilise the food web, especially for scavengers such as turtles and crayfish who rely on them.

Instead, these scavenging species can provide crucial biocontrol. They would eat any decomposing flesh in our water systems, particularly in areas we can’t easily access with nets, boats and trucks. They would maintain the quality of our waterways in three ways:

• Slow the spread of bacteria that break down dead fish, keeping water safe to drink and limiting deoxygenation that could devastate native fish species;

• Digest carp directly into basic nutrients (fertiliser) that is more readily absorbed by plants and primary producers;

• Semi-permanently store carp nutrients in their slow to decompose shells and exoskeletons, preventing or limiting toxic algal blooms caused by excess nutrients in water.

Our unlikely saviours are also dying

Threats to crayfish include agricultural and urban expansion, recreational fishing, pollution from surface runoff and insecticides, and introduced species such as trout and cane toads.

Consequently, native crayfish are declining, with nearly 80% of Spiny Crayfish recognised as threatened. However, yabbies have expanded their range.

Turtles on the other hand, are in sharp decline throughout the Murray Catchment and elsewhere in Australia. A recent gathering of turtle experts in Canberra discussed major threats to turtles, and ways to protect them.

The meeting addressed major causes behind the 2% annual mortality rate of adult turtles that is leading the species to rapid extinction. Cars and foxes kill a significant number of adult turtles every year, and foxes destroy more than 95% of turtle nests in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Changes to the hydrology of the Murray Catchment may also impact turtles. Some species require permanent wetlands, while others prefer to move between temporarily flooded wetlands and more permanent waters.

Following modern water management, some temporary wetlands are permanently flooded or gone and some permanent wetlands are dry.

All of these threats together may cause turtles to become functionally extinct in the near future, meaning they cannot play their significant role in the ecosystem anymore.

How can we help conserve the turtle population?

Such a sudden decimation of carp has potentially catastrophic consequences. But it may also be an excellent opportunity to recognise the importance of turtles and prioritise their conservation.

In a recent study, headstarting was named as the only management tool that could protect freshwater turtles from the multiple threats throughout their life cycle and eliminate all risks of extinction.

Headstarting involves rearing eggs or newborn animals in captivity, then releasing them into the wild. It has been controversial for decades, but releasing thousands of little turtles throughout the Murray River just might rescue us from the post-apocalyptic effects of Carpageddon.

Ricky Spencer receives funding from Australian Research Council, North-Central Catchment Management Authority, Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Corporation, Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, Victorian Department of Land, Environment, Water and Planning, Winton Wetlands, Turtles Australia, Inc. and Save Lake Bonney Group Inc.

Claudia Santori receives funding from the University of Sydney.

James Van Dyke receives funding from Australian Research Council, North-Central Catchment Management Authority, Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Corporation, Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, Victorian Department of Land, Environment, Water and Planning, Winton Wetlands, Turtles Australia, Inc. and Save Lake Bonney Group Inc.

Michael B. Thompson receives funding from the ARC and the University of Sydney.