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British stalkers say they are helping nature, but still celebrate the bloody slaughter

An alliance that brought together conservationists, African leaders, taxidermists, recreational hunters and the patron saint of upskirters, Christopher Chope MP, is recovering, its protests having last week failed to prevent the progress of Henry Smith’s hunting trophies (import prohibition) bill towards enactment.

These trophies being – incomprehensibly for anyone whose love of animals does not express itself in killing them – the dead animal’s body parts, brought home for display or sale. A recent US Humane Society investigation at a Safari Club International convention found, for instance, “elephant skin luggage sets ranging from $10,000 to $18,000 and jewellery made from leopard claws”.

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Cyclone Gabrielle has sparked a nationwide debate about climate change and vulnerable homes.

Research into critically endangered orange-bellied parrot finds 1mm difference in length of one feather is enough to reduce survival rate by 2.7 times

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Breeding in captivity can alter birds’ wing shapes, reducing their chances of surviving migratory flights when they are released to the wild, new research suggests.

A study of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot has found that in captive-bred birds, those with altered wing shapes had a survival rate 2.7 times lower than those born with wings close to an ideal “wild type” wing.

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From elephants to tigers, study reveals scale of damage to wildlife caused by transformation of wildernesses and human activity

The total weight of Earth’s wild land mammals – from elephants to bisons and from deer to tigers – is now less than 10% of the combined tonnage of men, women and children living on the planet.

A study by scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, published this month, concludes that wild land mammals alive today have a total mass of 22m tonnes. By comparison, humanity now weighs in at a total of around 390m tonnes.

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Drone footage filmed above a stretch of the Darling-Baaka River near the Australian town of Menindee showed millions of dead fish blanketing the water on Saturday. The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries said the deaths were related to low oxygen levels after the extreme flooding in the region in January had receded. It is the latest in a series of large-scale fish deaths that have prompted questions about the management of water levels in the Murray-Darling Basin

• ‘The smell is next level’: millions of dead fish begin to rot
• ‘Unfathomable’: millions of dead fish blanket river near Menindee

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Ancient breeds will act as ecosystem engineers to convert commercial pine plantation into a wild wood

The UK’s first wild bison in millennia have been joined by iron-age pigs, Exmoor ponies and longhorn cattle as the rewilding project moves forward in creating a rich and natural new habitat.

The Wilder Blean project in Kent is deploying the animals to replicate the roles played by mega-herbivores when bison, aurochs and wild horses roamed prehistoric England. The animals will be closely monitored as they transform a former commercial pine plantation into a wild wood.

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The Wildlife Trusts warn letting dogs loose in nature reserves in spring and summer can cause damage and disturbances to animals and plants

From scaring endangered birds on their nests to the mountain of excrement they produce each day, dogs with irresponsible owners are a growing problem in UK nature reserves, say conservationists, who are urging owners to keep their pets on a short lead.

The Wildlife Trusts, which operate more than 2,300 nature reserves across the country, say loose dogs are a leading cause of plant and animal disturbances in UK reserves and their waste carries diseases for wildlife, with growing evidence that the 3,000 tonnes of faeces and urine produced by dogs each day disturbs the balance of ecosystems at levels that would be illegal on farmland.

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

A group of Paraguay senators has put forth legislation that would set up a national carbon offset registry and help track the transfer of credits abroad, with the country required to hold back a portion of these units to meet its own Paris Agreement target.

Financial players boosted their net long California Carbon Allowance (CCA) holdings but shed RGGI Allowances (RGA) over a two-week stretch into early March, while compliance entities offloaded permits across North American carbon markets, data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed this week as the agency continued publishing backlogged Commitments of Traders (COT) reports.

Clean fuel producers and one high-profile electric car manufacturer this week expressed their support for more stringent GHG reduction targets in an upcoming California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rulemaking, but industry groups opposed a proposed phase-out of avoided methane crediting, according to public comments.

California and Quebec will offer slightly fewer carbon allowances at the May auction compared to the first 2023 sale last month, according to a government notice published Friday.

A summary of legislative, regulatory, and policy action on carbon, clean fuel standard, and clean energy markets at the US federal and subnational levels this week, including a sponsorship memorandum for a Republican-led Pennsylvania low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS).

The Nova Scotia government has approved several changes to its outgoing cap-and-trade programme to provide emitters with compliance pathways, including giving millions of free permits to the Canadian province’s utility and letting entities purchase more allowances than usual, according to a government order seen by Carbon Pulse.

EU legislation for a certification scheme for voluntary carbon removals should also give clarity on whether removals should be included in the EU ETS, a handful of the bloc's environment ministers said this week. 

Key mountain habitats are disappearing more quickly due mostly to logging and wildfires.

Since 2001, 7% of the habitat has been lost globally due to logging, wildfires and agriculture, scientists report

An area of mountain forest larger than the state of Texas has been lost since 2001, with the amount disappearing each year accelerating at an “alarming” rate, a study warns.

Scientists found 78m hectares (193m acres) of mountain forest have been lost across the world in the past two decades, which is more than 7% of all that exists. The main drivers of loss were logging, the expansion of agriculture and wildfires.

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A new carbon project developer has raised $2 million in seed funding from trading and supply chain logistics company Kemexon, and opened offices in Mexico City and Geneva.

European carbon prices rose for the first time in a week on Friday, peaking after the daily auction cleared at the smallest discount in nearly two weeks amid the strongest participation in four months, even as traders described a market taking a rest after some of the most volatile trading in months.

House of Lords to rule on divisive legislation that would stop import of endangered animals’ body parts

MPs have voted to support a controversial ban on importing hunting trophies from thousands of species into the UK, preventing British hunters from bringing the body parts of lions, elephants and giraffes into the country.

A private member’s bill put forward by the Conservative MP Henry Smith and backed by the government received the support of parliament on Friday morning after years of divisive debate on the issue. MPs from across the political spectrum spoke in favour of the legislation before it passed.

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