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National Environmental Science Programme
Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit 11-12 November
Water Purchase Tender in the Queensland Lower Balonne now open
Hairy, scary and lethal: how dangerous are Britain’s household spiders?
Spiders are in the news again. It happens this time every year. Why? Because now is the time for spiders, in their more-or-less annual life cycle, to reach maturity – in other words, their maximum adult size. And yes, some of them can seem very big. They especially grow large when they have had plenty to eat and, being insect predators, they have grown fat on the full and wholesome menu of all those flies and bugs that nice, warm, sunny 2014 has delivered in such abundance.
First, a key fact: all spiders are venomous. That’s how they catch their insect prey, by injecting venom down hollow fangs into their struggling victims. But they don’t really bite humans. We are much too big and taste foul. Think about it. The largest garden spider, seemingly the size of a ping-pong ball hanging ponderously in its web, just cannot get its delicate jaws open wide enough to bite even the daintiest finger. It would be like a human vainly trying to bite a giant pumpkin. Of Britain’s 600 different spider species, just half-a-dozen can open their mouths wide enough, and have fangs long enough to deliver a venomous nip. Despite tabloid horror headlines, it feels like a wasp sting. Even a mild cat scratch can become infected and ooze pus. Deaths from spider bites still hover around the zero mark.
Continue reading...Revamped lorry designs could avoid hundreds of cycling deaths – study
Lorries should have longer cabs, rounded noses and expanded glazed areas to increase visibility, Loughborough team says
Revamping lorry designs to overhaul blind spots in current models could save the lives of hundreds of cyclists and pedestrians every year, according to a new report by Loughborough University.
Lorries are responsible for over half of all cyclist deaths in London, a third across the UK as a whole, 43% of cycling fatalities in Belgium and 38% in the Netherlands.
Continue reading...Draft conservation advice for the Posidonia australis seagrass meadows of the Manning-Hawkesbury ecoregion ecological community
Rewilding Britain: bringing wolves, bears and beavers back to the land
Introducing extinct species to the landscape is called rewilding and advocates enthuse about the benefits. But opponents fear the impact could be devastating
A pair of highland ponies nibble grass as two kestrels swoop across the path. Up a rock face across this windswept valley deep in the Scottish highlands, a golden eagle is hunting for prey, its movements tracked by a GPS tag. Nearby are Scottish wildcats among the bracken – Europe’s rarest cat, with fewer than 400 left – plus red squirrels, black grouse, the occasional pine marten, shaggy highland cattle adapted to the harsh environment here, and, like much of the highlands, plenty of deer. Wild boar and moose roamed this corner of Sutherland until recently.
But if Paul Lister, the estate’s multimillionaire owner and the heir to the MFI fortune gets his way, two species not seen on this land for centuries could soon be added to the list: wolves and bears. Alladale estate, which Lister prefers to call a “wilderness reserve”, is one of the most ambitious examples of so-called “rewilding”, the banner under which a growing number of people are calling for the reintroduction of locally extinct species to landscapes. Bringing back species such as wolves, beavers and lynx, rewilding advocates say, can increase the diversity of other flora and fauna, enable woodlands to expand and help reconnect people with nature.
Continue reading...Release of the Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: March 2014
Release of the Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: March 2014
25th Anniversary Landcare Grants now open
Queensland East Coast Inshore Fin Fish Fishery
Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review - Website launched
Draft Conservation advice for the Central Hunter Valley eucalypt forest and woodland complex
Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan
Richard Branson failed to deliver on $3bn climate change pledge
New book by Naomi Klein claims that Virgin founder gave less than a tenth of cash promised to develop low carbon fuel
Naomi Klein: the hypocrisy behind the big business climate change battle
Richard Branson has failed to deliver on his much-vaunted pledge to spend $3bn (£1.8bn) over a decade to develop a low carbon fuel.
Seven years into the pledge, Branson has paid out only a small fraction of the promised money – “well under $300m” – according to a new book by the writer and activist, Naomi Klein.
Continue reading...Cost Recovery Implementation Statement
The Finalised Priority Assessment List has now been published
Public consultation: draft assessment bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth and Victoria
BP's reckless conduct caused Deepwater Horizon oil spill, judge rules
Judge’s ruling that BP bears 67% of blame for Deepwater Horizon disaster could nearly quadruple amount of civil penalties
BP bears the majority of responsibility among the companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a federal judge ruled Thursday, citing the energy giant’s reckless conduct over the disaster in a ruling that exposes it to billions of dollars in penalties.
BP plc already has agreed to pay billions of dollars in criminal fines and compensation to people and businesses affected by the disaster, the worst-ever US oil spill. But US district Judge Carl Barbier’s ruling could nearly quadruple what the London-based company has to pay in civil fines for polluting the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 spill.
Continue reading...Reserves and parks not enough to protect nature – David Attenborough
Broadcaster calls for radical new approach to conservation, urging people to use all spaces from gardens to roadside verges to help wildlife
Nature reserves and national parks are not enough to prevent a catastrophic decline in nature, David Attenborough has told politicians, business leaders and conservationists, saying that every space in Britain from suburban gardens to road verges must be used to help wildlife.
Britain’s leading commentator on wildlife called for a radical new approach to conservation which did not bemoan the past but embraced the changes brought by climate change and a rapidly growing human population.
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