The Guardian

Nations back first restrictions on global trade in parts, as well as ban on saiga antelope horn

The world’s tallest animal has gained further protections after the world’s nations voted to end the unregulated international trade in giraffe parts.

There are fewer giraffes alive than elephants and their population has plunged by 40% since 1985 to just 97,500. Scientists have called it a “silent extinction”. However, the bitter debate at the 183-nation summit of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) exposed anorth-south divide in Africa.

Conservationists hope release of six eaglets on Isle of Wight will mirror Scotland success

White-tailed eagles are gracing the skies of southern Britain for the first time in 240 years after six eaglets were released on the Isle of Wight.

The huge birds, which are fitted with satellite tags, are expected to disperse along the south coast of England in a scheme backed by the environment secretary, Theresa Villiers, who welcomed the return of the “majestic” species.

There have been more than 72,000 fire outbreaks in Brazil so far this year, up 84% on the same period in 2018, according to the country’s National Institute for Space Research. More than half were in the Amazon. It followed reports that farmers were feeling emboldened to clear land for crop fields and cattle ranches because the new Brazilian government was keen to open up the region to economic activity. The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, instead accused environmental groups of starting fires

• Jair Bolsonaro claims NGOs behind Amazon forest fire surge – but provides no evidence

Cycad in Isle of Wight produces outdoor male and female cones for first time on record

An exotic plant has produced male and female cones outdoors in Britain for what is believed to be the first time in 60m years. Botanists say the event is a sign of global heating.

Two cycads (Cycas revoluta), a type of primitive tree that dominated the planet 280m years ago, have produced cones on the sheltered undercliffs of Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight.

‘Microseismic event’ measuring 1.55ML on Richter scale stops Preston New Road operations

Cuadrilla was forced to halt fracking at its shale gas site near Blackpool in Lancashire on Wednesday night after triggering the largest tremor recorded at the location.

The tremor closed down operations at the Preston New Road site shortly after it was detected at 8.46pm.

A strict conservation programme is helping protect the tiny country’s marine ecosystems, despite the growing threat of steadily warming waters

Why Belize is a world leader in protecting the ocean

All photographs by Tony Rath

The city has been on stage-one water restrictions since May, and the outlook for spring is for more dry conditions

Sydney’s dam storage levels have dropped below 50% for the first time in more than a decade.

Storages dropped to 49.7% on Thursday, a 0.4% decline on the previous week.

Scathing report says Tory governments have held back progress on clean energy goals

The government should discourage personal vehicle use and reward energy-efficient homebuilding to meet its legally binding target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, MPs have said

In a scathing parliamentary report, the cross-party science and technology select committee said recent Conservative governments have promised more but done less on the climate crisis, which has left several gaping policy holes that need to be filled.

There are tens of thousands of pythons in the Florida wild, attacking animals and damaging ecosystems – and the quest to stop them has become a collective crusade

On a Thursday afternoon in St Petersburg, Florida, Beth Koehler crouches over a cairn terrier named Ginger, trimming intently as fur collects around her feet. On Koehler’s arm is a scratch – red, jagged and freshly acquired, though not in the way one might expect of a dog groomer.

“There was no way I could pin the head,” Koehler says, referring to the snake that was partly responsible. She had grabbed hold however she could, which made it “pissed”: “It decided to coil up and just throw itself at me.” Startled, Koehler had fallen backwards, cutting herself on a vine – an injury far preferable to the bite of a Burmese python.

Queensland Labor gearing up to criminalise activism is only a taste of the kind of intimidation that’s likely to come

“Even though I was the one who had been assaulted, I was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. […] I will never forgive or forget what came next. I was ‘verballed’ by the police who manufactured the most incredible statements about the whole thing.”

That was Peter Beattie, who would later become ALP premier of Queensland, detailing his treatment by police during anti-apartheid protests against the South African rugby team in July 1971.

Experts find no proof minuscule particles are a threat to health but say more research is needed

Microplastics are increasingly found in drinking water, but there is no evidence so far that this poses a risk to humans, according to a new assessment by the World Health Organization.

However, the United Nations body warned against complacency because more research is needed to fully understand how plastic spreads into the environment and works its way through human bodies.

A sense of futility haunts us all, so I sought to distill in as few words as possible what could be done by us as a people. Writing them, I felt my despair lift

In 1971, the Liberal Billy McMahon – routinely judged the worst Australian prime minister ever, an achievement not to be underestimated in a nation where the worst routinely rule – created a new portfolio: Environment, Arts and Aboriginal Affairs. Nobody wanted the job: given it, Peter Howson observed that he was responsible for “trees, boongs and poofters.”

What’s changed with our conservative rulers over the last half century? On the evidence of the shame the prime minister, Scott Morrison, visited on all Australians last week at the Pacific Islands Forum, not very much. There he successfully pressured Pacific leaders to remove from the final forum communique and climate change statement all references to coal, to limiting warming to less than 1.5C, and to setting out a plan for net zero emissions by 2050.

Morrisons is trialling a higher charge for single-use bags, but experts says all non-essential plastic must be phased out

It is a fairly hefty price hike, but it could pay off. Morrisons is increasing the price of its plastic bags to 30p, having already upped them to 20p earlier this year. The supermarket is trialling the charge in some of its Welsh stores, with money being “reinvested in plastic reduction programmes”, says a spokeswoman.

The 5p charge for single-use plastic bags that was introduced in Wales in 2011, then Northern Ireland and Scotland before England finally caught up in 2015, has been considered a success. The seven main supermarkets in England gave out 6bn fewer bags between in the first six months of the charge than in the corresponding period a year before. However, last year supermarkets sold 1.18bn of the thicker “bags for life”, prompting fears people were using these as single-use bags instead. The Environmental Investigation Agency has said bags for life should cost £1, rather than the 10p many supermarkets still charge.

An $87m corridor will extend over Highway 101 to reconnect the ecosystem and possibly save mountain lions from extinction

Engineers in southern California are hard at work designing the biggest wildlife corridor in the world, to extend over US Highway 101 to the north-west of Los Angeles.

The corridor will connect different parts of the Santa Monica Mountain chain, which is crucial to the future of mountain lions – but it will help other species as well. The $87m bridge has entered its final design phase and is on track to open in 2023.

London protests were disruptive but made rational case, officer tells court where three activists are on trial

A senior Scotland Yard officer giving evidence at the first group trial of Extinction Rebellion activists behind mass protests in central London said the demonstrators had provoked “soul searching” and proved articulate and rational as they made their case.

The protests, in April this year, had found support even among the public facing severe disruption from the demonstrations, he said.

UK supermarket guarantees market for unwanted offspring of dairy cows on suppliers’ farms that might otherwise be slaughtered immediately

Morrisons is guaranteeing a market for all male calves born on its dairy suppliers’ farms in a bid to stop them being killed at birth.

A Guardian investigation last year revealed an estimated 95,000 male dairy calves were being slaughtered on-farm as farmers couldn’t afford to keep them, in a practice known as the dairy industry’s “dirty secret”.

The retailer’s new policy – coming into force in October – ensures they are neither shot or exported. Instead farmers will be required to rear the calves to a certain weight until 15–40 days of age, at which point they will be bought by the beef-rearing company Buitelaar.

Related: Dairy’s ‘dirty secret’: it's still cheaper to kill male calves than to rear them

In 1958, my father-in-law, Simon Gourlay, who has died aged 85, bought 200 acres of pasture and started farming near Knighton, on the English-Welsh border. He converted the dilapidated house and surrounding farmland into a warm family home and later developed the five-acre garden, which was subsequently opened to the public for the National Garden Scheme.

In the late 1970s, he joined the National Farmers’ Union as a delegate and he rose to become NFU president in 1986. During his five-year term of office, he was a moderniser and actively promoted women in farming. He was knighted in 1989 for services to farming.

For thousands of years the Nenets people have migrated with their reindeer herds across the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic. In October 2016, Alegra Ally travelled to north-west Siberia to join a family and document their way of life as autumn turned to winter

New Path – A Window on Nenets Life by Alegra Ally is published by Schilt

Team of NYU scientists study shifting landscape of country one member calls ‘the end of the planet’

Documents obtained by the Guardian suggest interior secretary is promoting effort tied to his former firm

The US interior secretary, David Bernhardt, is promoting a fossil fuel project for which his former employer, a lobbying firm, is a paid advocate, e-mails obtained by the Guardian suggest.

Experts sayBernhardt is probably violating ethics guidelines issued by the Trump administration with the stated goal of “draining the swamp”. Based on these rules, Bernhardt should be recused from specific issues involving a former client for at least two years.