The Guardian

Management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante, downsized by Trump administration in 2017, criticized as ‘a giveaway to fossil fuel’

A new US government plan had cleared the way for coal mining and oil and gas drilling on land stripped from Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante monument by the Trump administration two years ago.

The plan, released by the Bureau of Land Management on Friday, would also open more lands to cattle grazing and recreation and acknowledges there could be “adverse effects” on land and resources in the monument.

Trump drastically shrank the southern Utah monument in 2017, as well as the nearby Bears Ears national monument, in what represented the largest elimination of public lands protections in US history. Some 800,000 acres were removed from the Grand Staircase.

Researchers have introduced three dozen hybrid helmeted honeyeaters into the wild in an attempt to prevent the critically endangered bird from dying out because of inbreeding. On Friday, the juvenile birds were released into the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve, which holds the only wild population of critically endangered helmeted honeyeaters, in an unusual attempt at genetic species rescue. The researchers say that without interbreeding, fertility rates within the 230-strong wild population could drop so low that the species would not survive.

• With a little help from its relatives: hybrid plan to save helmeted honeyeater from extinction

Only 230 of the sub-species remain in the wild, a population that will become unsustainable without interbreeding

• The Guardian Australia/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll will return in October

• Hybrid helmeted honeyeater introduced to save bird from extinction – video

Researchers have introduced three dozen hybrid helmeted honeyeaters into the wild in an attempt to prevent the critically endangered bird from dying out because of inbreeding.

On Friday, the juvenile birds were released into the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve, which holds the only wild population of critically endangered helmeted honeyeaters, in an unusual attempt at genetic species rescue.

Simon Surtees says the burning Brazilian forest is redolent of the plot of Lord of the Flies; Stefan Simanowitz writes that it’s time ecocide joined genocide as a named crime; while John Charlton despairs at the race in aviation to fly longer and faster

Eliane Brum’s passionate attack on the Amazon clearances is well made (In the burning Amazon, all our futures are now at stake, 23 August). In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the war between Ralph and Jack leads to the burning of the jungle. The boys are rescued by a naval crew attracted by the smoke and flames. But it is worth noting that Golding had to be persuaded by his editor to change the ending, which was considered a bit bleak for the 1950s, when it was written. He would have been quite happy for readers to take in the consequences of their selfishness and stupidity; the destruction of the place where they live. How he must be chuckling now.
Simon Surtees
London

• In 1944, Winston Churchill described German atrocities in Russia as “a crime without a name”. Later that year, the term “genocide” was coined. Today the Amazon rainforest – the lungs of the world – is ablaze, with thousands of fires deliberately lit by land-grabbers keen to clear the forest for logging, farming and mining. This destruction, which has increased massively since Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s deregulated deforestation, threatens an area that is home to about 3 million species of plants and animals and 1 million indigenous people.

State’s highest court rejects attempt to derail project by opponents who want to force developer to reapply for state approval

Nebraska’s highest court lifted one of the last major hurdles for the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday when it rejected another attempt to derail the project by opponents who wanted to force the developer to reapply for state approval.

The pipeline faces intense resistance from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some landowners along the route who worry about its long-term impact on their groundwater and property rights. But in Nebraska, many affected landowners have accepted the project and are eager to collect payments from the company.

Indigenous people in Brazil have vowed to protect their land as large swathes of the Amazon forest continue to burn. The largest rainforest in the world absorbs billions of tonnes of CO2 every year, slowing the pace of global heating. It is also home to about 3m species of plants and animals and a million people.

Endangered white rhinos, breeding cycads and fires in the Amazon rainforest

Jeremy Corbyn pressures UK government to take action against the Brazilian president

Boris Johnson has expressed concern about the fires raging in the Amazon and called for international action to protect rainforests, as his government came under pressure from Jeremy Corbyn to take action against the Brazilian president.

“The prime minister is deeply concerned by the increase in fires in the Amazon rainforest and the impact of the tragic loss of these precious habitats,” Johnson’s spokesperson said ahead of this weekend’s summit in Biarritz, after a call to action from the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Why people should be worried about the blazes and increased deforestation in Brazil

Thousands of fires are burning in Brazil, many of them in the world’s biggest rainforest, which is sending clouds of smoke across the region and pumping alarming quantities of carbon into the world’s atmosphere.

Leo Varadkar says Dublin will vote against EU’s Mercosur pact unless action is taken

Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has said Dublin will vote against an EU trade deal with South American nations unless Brazil takes action to stop the burning of the Amazon.

Varadkar said his government would oppose the Mercosur trade agreement with four Latin American countries – Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – that was clinched in June after two decades of negotation but has not yet been ratified.

Restoration project uses seed-rich hay taken from roadside verges to regrow lost meadows

There is something back to front about the idyllic scene on a meadow south of Norwich. Hay is normally gathered in, but this freshly cut, sweet-smelling grass is being carefully forked across a field.

The hay, harvested from nearby roadside verges, is spread to scatter the seeds contained within it, part of an innovative scheme to restore natural flower-rich meadows and reverse losses. More than 97% of Britain’s wildflower meadows have vanished since the 1930s.

German chancellor ‘convinced of emergency’ but Brazil’s leader accuses European leaders of colonialism

Angela Merkel has backed Emmanuel Macron’s call to put the fires in the Amazon on the agenda at this weekend’s G7 summit, after the French president said the situation amounted to an international crisis.

Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for the German chancellor, told journalists in Berlin on Friday: “The extent of the fires in the Amazon area is shocking and threatening, not only for Brazil and the other affected countries, but also for the whole world.

Experts say international pressure may be only way to sway Bolsonaro government

International pressure may be the only way to stop the Brazilian government from taking a “suicide” path in the Amazon, one of the country’s most respected scientists has said, as the world’s biggest rainforest continues to be ravaged by thousands of deliberate fires.

The large number of conflagrations – set illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – has prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency, created giant smoke clouds that have drifted hundreds of miles, and sparked international concerns about the destruction of an essential carbon sink.

Administration’s move is a ‘head in the sand approach’ that will further imperil creatures threatened by the climate crisis

Life as a sea turtle is already harrowing. Emerging alone from a shell to crawl through a deadly gauntlet of predatory birds, dogs and ants, all for the goal of reaching the ocean, a place where fish swallow you whole and fragments of discarded plastic slowly suffocate you.

Now climate change – in the form of sea level rise, rising temperatures and fiercer storms – is adding further, existential hardships and in the US a recent weakening of endangered species protections by the Trump administration will further imperil sea turtles and other creatures threatened by the climate crisis.

Report says outlook in India is ‘finely balanced and uncertain’ despite resources industry’s high hopes

Thermal coal exporters face “significant risk” that demand from India will decline, a report by the Australian office of the chief economist says.

It also warned of long-term uncertainties in the market considered a “great hope” by miners.

Researchers say the Thomson catchment is missing out each year on the amount of water used by 250,000 people

Logging is causing Melbourne’s main catchment area to miss out on 15,000 megalitres of water each year, equivalent to the amount used by 250,000 people, a peer-reviewed study has found.

If logging in Victoria’s Thomson catchment continues as planned, that number would increase to 600,000 Melburnians by 2060, according to the research from the Australian National University.

Exclusive: Farmers United says ‘we know in our hearts and minds’ experts are wrong about run-off damaging the reef

Queensland cane growers’ groups are backing an opaque front organisation working to undermine Great Barrier Reef consensus science, including publishing claims that “we know in our hearts and minds” that the experts are wrong.

The group, Farmers United, published full-page advertisements in News Corp Queensland newspapers this week.

Jeering activists interrupted a speech by Ricardo Salles on Wednesday at the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week conference in Salvador, Brazil. Booing protesters virtually drowned out Salles' speech during which one activist held a placard reading: 'Don't you get tired of your own lies?' The minister and the government of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, have come under fire for their policies, which activists say are harming the environment

• Brazilian minister booed at climate event as outcry grows over Amazon fires
  

Political storm over rainforest devastation as Ricardo Salles attends summit

The environment minister of Brazil, where wildfires have been sweeping the Amazon rainforest, was booed at a climate event on Wednesday as celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio and Ariana Grande joined an international chorus of criticism.

Videos of Ricardo Salles being booed by demonstrators as he took to the stage at Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week in the north-eastern city of Salvador circulated widely in Brazil. An opposition senator is planning to seek his impeachment at Brazil’s supreme court.

Three protesters found guilty despite intervention of shadow chancellor in their support

Three activists from the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion have been found guilty of public order offences.

Patrick Thelwell, 19, from York; Peter Scott, 66, from Devon; and Samuel Elmore, 26, from Hyde End in Buckinghamshire were charged with offences including breach of section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986, obstructing a highway and obstructing police. However, they were spared jail sentences by a judge, who discharged them on condition that they did not reoffend in the next year.