The Guardian
Experts fear impact of China lifting trade ban on tiger and rhino parts
Burden of enforcement will hit poorer nations already struggling to cope, say conservationists
China’s decision to loosen a 25-year ban on the trade of tiger bones and rhino horn will put pressure on poor foreign nations as well as endangered global wildlife, according to experts on the illegal trade in animals.
Government officials in Beijing say the introduction of quotas for these body parts to be used in traditional Chinese medicine will allow them to manage legal demand, but conservationists say the move will cause more conflict in African and Asian countries that are trying to limit the illegal supply.
Continue reading...Adani yet to sign royalties deal despite claiming to be close to financing mine
Exclusive: slimmed-down Carmichael plan calls into question eligibility to delay royalties payment
The Adani mining company has still not signed a royalties agreement with the Queensland government, despite its claims to be just weeks away from green-lighting the Carmichael mine.
This week, Adani’s Australian mining head, Lucas Dow, gave a series of interviews claiming the company was close to financing a slimmed-down, $2bn integrated Carmichael mine, rail and port proposal.
Analysts say the strategy is to get the mine into production while spending as little upfront cash as possible. Guardian Australia understands it relies heavily on vendor financing agreements, in which payments to contractors and suppliers are effectively withheld for several years.
Adani now insists it can start Carmichael for a fraction of the investment previously required. But Queensland government sources say the slimmed-down plan calls into question Adani’s eligibility to delay payment of royalties.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A Bengal tiger, oystercatchers and a new species of butterfly are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...GDT European wildlife photographer of the year 2018 – in pictures
A hunting wolverine, rainbow lake and delicate ice trees are among the winning images selected by the Society of German Nature Photographers. The photographers explain how they captured their prizewinning shots
Continue reading...Summers could be entirely powered by clean energy by 2050
Demand for the rest of the year and lower solar output will still keep energy firms in business
British summers could be entirely powered without fossil fuels by the middle of the century without breaking the economics of the energy market, according to a report.
But while wind, solar and nuclear power would provide nearly 91% of the country’s electricity by then, up from about 50% today, gas power stations are still expected to be needed during winters.
Continue reading...Electric food – magic bullet or magical thinking? | Letters
George Monbiot makes a strong case for how our ecosystem might survive (Electric food – the new sci-fi diet that could save our planet, 31 October). He thinks it is imperative that we eliminate meat in favour of plant-based agriculture. He also wants us to explore the possibility of using electricity instead of photosynthesis to convert sunlight into food. Since this would be 10 times more efficient, farming and fishing need take up much less space and biodiversity could flourish.
But I must protest at the absurdity of his claim that the destruction of forests and wetlands along with “the slaughter of predators and the massacre of turtles … is done at our behest”. The felling of rainforest in Brazil is no more done at my behest, even if (knowingly or unknowingly) I happen to buy toiletries or food containing palm oil, than is the laundering of dirty money because I have a mortgage with a high street bank.
Continue reading...Hornets, billionaires and other ‘migrants’ | Brief letters
Mark Cocker (Country diary, 30 October) enthusiastically describes European hornets mingling with other insects. I hope he is aware of the recent invasion into this country from Europe of the very similar, but slightly smaller Asian hornet. This dangerous insect, originally from China and becoming common in France, kills other insects and predates on honeybees. It has destroyed many colonies in France and is a threat to our native honeybee. Report sightings to alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk
Maggie Dann
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
• Oxford Dictionaries defines “migrant” as “a person who moves from one place to another, especially in order to find work or better living conditions”. That description hardly applies to a Thai billionaire who bought Leicester City football club (Leicester City’s owner: why isn’t it OK to say he was a migrant, 31 October). Was Roman Abramovich a migrant until we revoked his visa?
Steve Mason
Hornchurch, Essex
'More and more' Tories turning against fracking, says MP
Lee Rowley says many colleagues have concerns as opposition builds to loosening of planning rules
A growing number of Tory MPs are turning against fracking, according to one MP with a drilling site in his constituency.
Lee Rowley, who chairs the new all-party parliamentary group looking into the impact of shale gas, told the Guardian he was seeing increasing numbers of colleagues with worries about fracking.
Continue reading...Minor earthquakes emerge as major threat to UK fracking
Protests and court cases have failed but the government’s rules on tremors could wreck shale gas economics
Protests, legal challenges and planning rejections have failed to stop the return of fracking in Britain, but the government’s regulations on earthquakes are fast emerging as the biggest threat to the nascent shale gas industry.
The energy company Cuadrilla has been forced to stop work twice in four days – on Friday last week and on Monday – due to minor earthquakes occurring while it was fracking. The tremors breached a seismic threshold imposed after fracking caused minor earthquakes in 2011.
Continue reading...Democrats have no broad climate plan even as they prepare to win the House
The party is wary of wading into a tough political fight, despite an intensifying environmental crisis
Democrats don’t have a plan to address climate change comprehensively – or even to a significant degree – if they regain control of the US government in the near future, despite criticizing Republicans as the party of pollution.
After failing to get conservatives on board to limit planet-warming gases through legislation or regulation, Democratic leaders in Washington are now wary of wading into another tough political fight, despite an intensifying environmental crisis.
Continue reading...Five countries hold 70% of world's last wildernesses, map reveals
First map of Earth’s intact ecosystems shows just five nations are responsible for most of them – but it will require global action to protect them
Just five countries hold 70% of the world’s remaining untouched wilderness areas and urgent international action is needed to protect them, according to new research.
Researchers from the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have for the first time produced a global map that sets out which countries are responsible for nature that is devoid of heavy industrial activity.
Continue reading...Labor to propose new environmental laws to enforce biodiversity and conservation
Bill Shorten’s government would, if elected, create a national environment protection authority and a new environment act
A Labor government would bring in new federal environment laws and strong independent agencies including a national environment protection authority (EPA) to enforce them, under a draft policy platform signed off by the ALP national executive.
Developed by a 60-member policy forum chaired by the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, and the outgoing party president, Mark Butler, the platform is the basis for debate at Labor’s national conference in Adelaide next month.
Continue reading...Hydrogen gas trial in western Sydney could unlock $1.7bn in renewable exports
Chief scientist estimates Australia could reap benefits from hydrogen technology
Australians will soon power their homes with hydrogen in a five-year trial that scientists say could open the door to the widespread use of a new form of renewable energy.
Within two years, gas company Jemena and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) plan to mix a small amount of hydrogen into the domestic gas grid in western Sydney.
Continue reading...Couple fell to deaths from Yosemite cliff while taking selfie, brother says
Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy of India apparently set up their camera near popular overlook with no railing
An Indian husband and wife who fell to their deaths from a popular overlook at Yosemite national park in California were apparently taking a selfie, the man’s brother said Tuesday.
Park rangers recovered the bodies of Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, on Thursday about 800ft (245 meters) below Taft Point, where visitors can walk to the edge of a vertigo-inducing granite ledge that doesn’t have a railing.
Continue reading...Is planting trees the best thing you can do for your health and the planet?
‘What’s all this tree-planting for?” I was asked when I began writing about restoring a piece of land I had bought in Somerset as a wood-cum-orchard. The truth is, I just love trees. And I am not alone. “As I get older, all I really long for is to plant trees,” Prince Charles says in a forthcoming BBC documentary in which he is filmed in the wood he planted on the day Prince George was born. I, too, love to be among trees, and want to leave young ones behind when I die. This is why I planted them, and continue to plant them.
We have inherited mature and wonderful trees in our cities, towns, villages, gardens, cemeteries, woods and countryside. They were planted, or self-sown, years, even centuries ago. We take them for granted, ignore the creatures living among them, remain in ignorance of the good trees are doing us (cleaning the air, for instance) and cut them down for new developments. Yet we retain a feeling of affection for the idea of them, which may account for the reaction the government faced in 2010 when it sought to sell off publicly owned woods, and for the wide support the Woodland Trust attracts.
Continue reading...No picnic: Americans face encounters with black bears as population rebounds
Largely relieved of pressure from deforestation and hunting, bears are increasingly coming into contact with people
The swift rebound of bear populations in the US is presenting a growing number of Americans with a major challenge – what to do about the enormous hirsute neighbors that are breaking into their homes, gorging on their food and guzzling their cans of soda?
Black bears, largely relieved of pressure on their numbers from untrammeled deforestation and hunting, are increasingly coming into contact with people in places where the two species haven’t interacted in many decades.
Continue reading...Conservationists to target 'middle Australia' in election climate push
ACF aims to pour resources into three marginal seats to inflict electoral pain on major parties for policy failures
The Australian Conservation Foundation will target three marginal seats in Victoria and Queensland in a bid to push “middle Australia” to demand more action on climate change, its chief executive has said.
Kelly O’Shanassy made the comments at the National Press Club on Tuesday, unveiling the environmental group’s election action plan to break the political deadlock over climate change.
Continue reading...WWF report warns annihilation of wildlife threatens civilisation – video
The 2018 Living Planet report from the WWF has found that a shocking 60% of the earth's mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have been lost since 1970. The findings have led the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
• Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
Continue reading...Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
The huge loss is a tragedy in itself but also threatens the survival of civilisation, say the world’s leading scientists
Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.
Continue reading...Australia's east coast named as 'deforestation front' in WWF Living Planet report
Assessment underscores threat to koalas and other native species
• Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
Australia’s east coast has been compared to the Amazon as a “deforestation front” in a new global report by the World Wide Fund for Nature that underscores the threat to populations of koalas and other native species.
The Living Planet report, produced by WWF every second year for the past 20 years, says global populations of vertebrate species have declined 60% since 1970. But koala numbers have disappeared at a much faster rate – more than 20% a decade – to the extent they could disappear from the wild in New South Wales by 2050.
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