The Guardian

With huge numbers of infections in slaughterhouses, workers and environmentalists must join forces for change

To anyone who has breathed country air thick with aerosolised manure or learned how the global expansion of pasture for feed crops drives deforestation, it might seem obvious that capitalism is unable to sustainably manage animal life. Yet the meat industry struggles to handle human life too.

Workers in factories strain to make thousands of cuts of meat every shift, leading frequently to repetitive motion injuries. Processing lines move so quickly that some workers must wear nappies because there are too few toilet breaks. There is not enough time to cover a cough – a potentially deadly indignity during a pandemic. Even before the outbreak, the meat industry pushed limits of animal and human biology.

Wildlife group puts up wooden shapes to remind drivers to slow down as hedgehog declared vulnerable to extinction

“Ghost hedgehogs” are starting to appear on roadsides in Dorset to highlight the plight of hedgehogs killed by fast-moving vehicles.

The hedgehogs, made of white-painted wood, are being put up by the Dorset Mammal Group after one small village, Pimperne, reported more than 20 squashed hedgehogs on its roads in just one year.

European Environment Agency calls for strong action to protect most vulnerable in society

Cutting air pollution and improving green spaces in cities would immediately improve the health of the poorest people in society, a report from Europe’s environmental watchdog has found.

Environmental factors inflict greater damage on the health of those in poverty, who already suffer a disproportionately greater burden of disease, than on the better-off, according to the European Environment Agency. Measures that reduce air pollution and give people greater access to parks and similar amenities are well within the reach of governments.

Sussan Ley says conditions of export licence for shark fins and other products have not been met

Environment minister Sussan Ley has moved to revoke the export of shark fins and other seafood products from a Queensland government fishery over inaction on reforms to protect threatened species.

Ley has written to Queensland’s fisheries minister, Mark Furner, saying the state had not met the conditions of its export licence for the East Coast Inshore Fin Fish Fishery, which would be revoked from 30 September.

Report calls for more support if plan to plant 100m hectares of vegetation is to be realised

The world’s most ambitious reforestation project, the Great Green Wall of Africa, has covered only 4% of its target area but is more than halfway towards its 2030 completion date, according to a status report.

More funds, greater technical support and tighter oversight will be needed if the plan to plant 100m hectares of trees and other vegetation is to be realised, say the authors of the study, which was unveiled on Monday at a meeting of regional ministers.

Campaigners say expansion is a betrayal as government had pledged to phase out cull

The government’s badger cull is being expanded to 11 new areas of England including parts of Oxfordshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire so that more than 60,000 badgers can be killed.

Conservation groups said the expansion was a betrayal of trust after the government this year pledged to phase out the badger cull, intended to reduce bovine TB in cattle, after a scientific review cast doubt on its efficacy.

The brown bear, a master escapologist, is now back in its north Italian wildlife enclosure

A brown bear nicknamed Papillon for its propensity for escaping from its enclosure has been captured by rangers in the Italian province of Trento after 42 days of freedom.

Codenamed M49, the 149kg (23st) bear fled from the Casteller centre on 27 July after climbing over its enclosure, which had been reinforced following previous escapes.

Discovery of early bony fish casts doubt on accepted ideas about evolutionary history of vertebrates

The partial skull of an armoured fish that swam in the oceans over 400m years ago could turn the evolutionary history of sharks on its head, researchers have said.

Bony fish, such as salmon and tuna, as well as almost all terrestrial vertebrates, from birds to humans, have skeletons that end up made of bone. However, the skeletons of sharks are made from a softer material called cartilage – even in adults.

From blockading printers to meditating outside Barclays, the climate crisis campaign has drawn a variety of participants

Thousands of Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists and supporters have been staging “die-ins”, preventing copies of newspapers from being distributed and meditating outside banks over the past week in a series of actions aimed at highlighting the worsening ecological crisis.

At printing plants in Merseyside and in Hertfordshire on Friday evening, many trucks carrying newspapers were unable to deliver to shops. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, accused XR of seeking to limit the public’s access to news amid suggestions that the environmental group could subsequently be treated like an organised crime group by the authorities.

Researchers estimate the new calf, which was seen ‘swimming vigorously alongside its mother’, was born last week

An orca who became famous around the world in 2018 when she carried her stillborn calf aloft in the water for 17 days has given birth to a healthy baby.

The not-for-profit Center for Whale Research spotted the baby, dubbed J-57, “swimming vigorously alongside its mother”, named Tahlequah, on Saturday in waters near the border between the US state of Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. They estimate that the calf was born on Friday.

Conservation groups warn Australia’s natural world heritage sites are ‘under more pressure than ever before’

Australian conservation groups have written to the UN’s peak environmental heritage body urging it to oppose the Coalition’s bid to devolve the approval process for projects to state and territory governments.

In a letter to the director general of Unesco, the 13 groups warn of the “alarming moves … to weaken legal protection for Australia’s 20 world heritage listed properties” through changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

Exclusive: John Dargavel says his professional body ‘damaged and demeaned’ all foresters by dismissing links between logging and bushfire risks

A veteran Australian forestry scientist has launched a blistering attack on his professional association after it used the retraction of a scientific paper to dismiss links between logging and increased bushfire risks.

In an open letter to the Institute of Foresters Australia seen by Guardian Australia, Dr John Dargavel said the institute’s reaction “damages our standing” and “demeans all foresters in the public eye”.

Climate group criticises move by UK government as Labour condemns newspaper protest

Extinction Rebellion has described government moves to treat the climate crisis protest movement as an organised crime group as “ridiculous.”

The group said associating it with the state’s definition of a crime gang as “characterised by violence or the threat of violence and by the use of bribery and corruption” was an insult to the thousands of ordinary citizens who supported its cause.

Hundreds of campers descended on the Devon national park this summer as the UK’s Covid lockdown eased

The scene could hardly be more idyllic. A broad grassy bank next to a clear, burbling river. Downstream from the stone bridge, herons patrol the shallows, while deer, wild ponies and cattle trot down the hillside in the early autumn sunshine for a drink.

This spot at Bellever in the heart of Dartmoor was very different at the height of the summer, when hundreds of “fly-campers” descended from across the UK with tents, gazebos, music systems, fairy lights and generators to grab a taste of post-lockdown freedom.

Our diet should be shaped by what works for the land, argues the farmer-author

As a farmer, I’m supposed to hate vegans and environmental activists, but that’s nonsense. Even when I don’t agree with everything they say, I share their wish to make the world a better place and their concern about the state it’s in today. In an age of increasingly apocalyptic news about the natural world, we are frequently warned that the things we are buying and eating are driving ecological collapse. Sensible and thoughtful people everywhere are asking the same question: what should I eat?

It is a good question and an important one that speaks of a growing public awareness of our footprint on Earth and our wish to do less harm, individually and collectively. But as a farmer I know that that question masks another, far deeper one, that we must all ask ourselves: how should we farm?

The dramatic drop in insect populations is to be highlighted by David Attenborough

We were in Cornwall for a fortnight at the end of last month, driving back to London on the bank holiday. Unpacking the car, I found myself crouching to peer at the front numberplate with my phone torch. I’m old enough to remember when long summer journeys left windscreens and headlights stippled with insects. Looking at the car last week, though, there was no evidence of that one-time carnage, hardly a squished bug to be seen.

Whether they are recycled, upcycled or sold with a charity donation, here is our top pick of ethical earrings for those with style – and a clear conscience

Misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories thrive when people are stressed and alone. At this moment democratic society desperately needs strong journalism

• This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

I have always worked with facts. I have sifted them for relevance, assembled them to make sense of things, and used them to construct an argument or to disagree with another point of view. Facts are, for journalists, the essential ingredient, like flour for bakers or clay for sculptors. So I recall very clearly how disconcerted I felt when I first sensed they were turning to liquid and sliding through my hands.

It was during Tony Abbott’s campaign against the Labor government’s carbon pricing scheme – the policy he dubbed a “great big tax on everything”. There were, for sure, some factual arguments that could have been deployed against that policy, or alternative ideas that could have been raised. The then opposition leader opted for neither of these methods. Instead, he travelled the country saying things that were patently nonsensical. But most news outlets reported them uncritically, and this firehose of nonsense proved impossible to mop up.

Climate campaigners stage a range of public events over five days despite Covid restrictions

More than 600 people have been arrested during five days of climate crisis protests in central London, police have said.

Environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR) reignited its efforts to highlight the dangers of climate crisis this month after they were largely placed on hold by the coronavirus pandemic.