The Guardian

In the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, forests have been cleared for mines and the roads that service them. Large companies take what they can and move on, leaving abandoned ponds, toxic rivers and scraps of precious metal left in the ground

• Words and photographs by Guerchom Ndebo in Moku with support from the National Geographic Society

Conservationists and botanists express concern over plans for Qatari-funded upscale resort on Assomption Island

The habitat of the largest giant tortoise population in the world is threatened by a Qatari-funded hotel development that aims to bring luxury yachts, private jets and well-heeled tourists to a remote island in the Indian Ocean, conservationists have warned.

Plans for an upscale resort on Assomption, which is part of the Aldabra island group, are currently under discussion by the Seychelles authorities, and construction is already finished on an airport expansion that would allow bigger aircraft to land on the 11.6-sq-km (4.5-sq-mile) coral island.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says Amazonia suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has flown into the Amazon amid growing alarm over the droughts and wildfires sweeping the rainforest region and others parts of Brazil.

Speaking during a visit to a riverside community near the city of Tefé, the Brazilian president said Amazonia was suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years. He said he had come to discover “what is going on with these mighty rivers” that in some places now resemble deserts.

Rising temperatures causing largest glacier in Dolomites to lose 7-10cm of depth a day, according to scientists

The Marmolada glacier, the largest and most symbolic of the Dolomites, could melt completely by 2040 owing to rising average temperatures, experts have said.

Italian scientists who are monitoring glaciers and the impact of climate emergency, and who took part in a campaign launched by environmentalist group Legambiente, the international commission for the protection of the Alps (Cipra), with the scientific partnership of the Italian Glacier Committee, said on Monday the Marmolada was losing between 7 and 10cm of depth a day.

The Project hopes competition will raise big money for underfunded organisations working to protect beloved species

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Tense competition is brewing between the greater glider and the koala in Australia’s marsupial of the year vote but there are hopes a silky-tailed species that “mates themselves to death” could win over voters and maybe even save it from heading towards extinction.

Network Ten’s The Project launched the competition in collaboration with organisations and charities that work with or help preserve the habitat of marsupials, many of them endangered, in a bid to raise funds for them.

Promise to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ made at Cop28 climate talks has been left out of draft resolutions

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Campaigners have claimed some of the world’s largest economies are turning their backs on a pledge made last year to transition away from fossil fuels.

Ministers from the G20 group of developed and developing countries, including the US, UK, China and India, will meet in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday to discuss the global approach to the climate crisis.

Under the Tories, non-violent climate protesters were jailed for up to five years – and there is little sign that Labour will change tack

• Linda Lakhdhir is the legal director of Climate Rights International

In December 2023 when Stephen Gingell was sentenced to six months in prison for slow marching for half an hour on the Holloway Road in north London, the sentence was considered shocking. Unfortunately, it is far from the exception. In fact, my organisation, Climate Rights International, has spent the past eight months looking into restrictions on climate protests among western democracies and has found that the UK – mostly under the Conservatives – has introduced some of the harshest anti-protest legislation in recent years.

You may remember Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, who were sentenced to multi-year prison sentences in April 2023 for climbing the cables of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge to object to new oil, gas and coal projects. The three-year sentence imposed on Trowland was, at the time, the longest ever for a climate protest in the UK. But, it has since been surpassed. In July, in a case that made international headlines, five fossil-fuel protesters were sentenced to four- and five-year sentences after participating in a Zoom call about staging climate protests on the M25.

Linda Lakhdhir is the legal director of Climate Rights International

European flat oyster is defined as ‘collapsed’ in UK but there are hopes it could return to coastal waters

A box marked “special delivery” arrived about midday at Spurn Discovery Centre, on a remote East Yorkshire peninsula in the Humber estuary.

It is unlikely the postal worker had any idea it contained 300,000 living oyster larvae – tiny pinprick-sized organisms destined to become part of a new oyster reef just off the English coast.

Report says governments in global north increasingly using draconian measures while criticising similar tactics in global south

Wealthy, democratic countries in the global north are using harsh, vague and punitive measures to crack down on climate protests at the same time as criticising similar draconian tactics by authorities in the global south, according to a report.

A Climate Rights International report exposes the increasingly heavy-handed treatment of climate activists in Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.

Record prison sentences for non violent protest in several countries including the UK, Germany and the US.

Preemptive arrests and detention for those suspected of planning peaceful protests.

Draconian new laws passed to make the vast majority of peaceful protest illegal.

Measures to stop juries hearing about people’s motivation for taking part in protests during court cases, which critics say fundamentally undermines the right to a fair trial.

Robots being used to gather sample that will give clues about conditions inside the reactors, a step towards decommissioning plant hit by tsunami in Japan 13 years ago

A difficult operation to remove a small amount of radioactive debris from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has begun, after technical issues suspended an earlier attempt.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said in a statement on Tuesday that its “pilot extraction operation” had started. It will take about two weeks, according to the company.

Latin America was the most deadly region in which to defend ecosystems from mining and deforestation, with Indigenous people among half the dead

At least 196 people were killed last year for defending the environment, with more than a third of killings taking place in Colombia, new figures show.

From campaigners who spoke out against mining projects to Indigenous communities targeted by organised crime groups, an environmental defender was killed every other day in 2023, according to a new report by the NGO Global Witness.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features.

Eels use tail-first technique to back up digestive tract of fish towards oesophagus before coming out of gills

It sounds like the plot of a horror movie – a predator swallows its prey only for the creature to burst out of its captor’s body. But it seems Japanese eels do just that.

Scientists in Japan have discovered that when swallowed by a dark sleeper fish, the eels can escape.

The last time the National Farmers’ Federation marched on Canberra politicians were carefully controlled. This time the agenda looks more useful for politicians than farmers

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In country circles, WhatsApp groups and emails have been pinging. As Tuesday dawns on the first rally endorsed by the National Farmers’ Federation since 1985, there has been a bit of chat about its merits.

The 1985 rally descended on the Hawke government. It numbered 40,000 to 45,000 people and was duplicated at some state parliaments. In Victoria, according to the journalist Martin Flanagan, 30,000 people protested, holding placards such as “farmer the new poor”, “Agricultural Income Deficiency Syndrome” and, my personal favourite, “wife home working”.

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Solar power could enable 400m Africans without water to tap into groundwater aquifers. However, we must ensure smaller projects do not lose out in the rush for new technology

It’s a truly dreadful irony: for many of the 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who lack access to even a basic water supply, there is likely to be a significant reserve in aquifers sitting just a few metres below their feet.

Groundwater – the water stored in small spaces and fractures in rocks – makes up nearly 99% of all of the unfrozen fresh water on the planet. Across the African continent, the volume of water stored underground is estimated to be 20 times the amount held in lakes and reservoirs.

Climate crisis is driving key predators from their homes and threatening an already embattled ecosystem

Sharks are deserting their coral reef homes as the climate crisis continues to heat up the oceans, scientists have discovered.

This is likely to harm the sharks, which are already endangered, and their absence could have serious consequences for the reefs, which are also struggling. The reef sharks are a key part of the highly diverse and delicate ecosystem, which could become dangerously unbalanced without them.

Group praises nearly 70% of UK adults who bought Fairtrade products in past year despite cost of living crisis

Nearly 70% of UK adults have bought Fairtrade products such as bananas, tea or coffee in the past year despite pressure on personal finances, as concern that the climate crisis could push up the price of imported food drives “conscious consumerism”, the charity said.

Against the backdrop of this year’s big spikes in the price of coffee and cocoa, a YouGov poll, commissioned by the Fairtrade Foundation, revealed that 79% of Britons were concerned that climate breakdown could affect the price of food while 69% were worried it could disrupt supply to the UK.

Uluru, the Daintree and Bondi beach among iconic Australian locations that could be impacted if planet hits even 2C of warming by 2050

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South Australia’s wine regions shrouded in bushfire smoke, the Daintree rainforest cut off by flooding and tourists marooned at major airports because of violent storms. This snapshot is the potential chaotic future for Australia’s tourism industry, a new report has warned.

At least half of 178 tourism assets around the country – from national parks to city attractions and airports – are already facing major climate risks, the analysis showed. And as the heat rises, so do the disruptions. Many of the country’s 620,000 tourism jobs will be under threat, according to the report from insurance group Zurich and economic analysts Mandala.

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Exclusive: Government warned ‘unobtainable targets’ being used to dismiss migrant fruit pickers at short notice

• Sacked fruit picker tells of treatment on Kent farm

The number of farm workers seeking help with dismissal after travelling to work in British fields and orchards has soared over the past year, according to research.

The trend is thought to be in part because of pressure to meet picking targets, the challenges faced by farmers trying to stay profitable and an unintended consequence of new laws guaranteeing minimum hours.

Environment minister lambasts opposition leader over vow to overturn her rejection of tailings dam at McPhillamys goldmine

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Tanya Plibersek has accused Peter Dutton of planning to ignore evidence of historical Indigenous cultural practice and trash heritage protection laws to greenlight certain mining projects and companies based on “the vibe”.

The environment minister told Guardian Australia that Dutton’s vow to overturn her determination rejecting the proposed site of a tailings dam at the $900m McPhillamys goldmine development in central-western New South Wales showed he had no respect for research or official advice.

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National species list expands, with orb spider named after Tom Hardy’s Marvel character, Venom, also included

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A laughing frog and an intertidal marine worm named after Sir David Attenborough are among 750 animals, plants and other organisms that have been newly recognised on Australia’s list of species.

The western laughing tree frog Litoria ridibunda, which laughs rather than croaks, the David Attenborough worm Marphysa davidattenboroughi, and the cracking-clay Pilbara marsupial Planigale tealei were added to the Australian National Species List in 2023.