Bees stung by ‘climate change-linked’ early pollination
Climate change could be affecting pollination by disrupting the synchronised timing of flower opening and bee emergence from hibernation, suggests new US-based research. Declining numbers of bees and other pollinators have been causing growing concern in recent years, as scientists fear that decreased pollination could have major impacts on world food supplies.
Previous studies have focused [...]
Britain’s bumblebees at risk of extinction because of inbreeding
The University of Stirling study found that isolated populations of a rare bumblebee on a remote Scottish island are more susceptible to disease because of a lack of genetic diversity. The research could have implications for other rare insects and animals struggling to survive in nature reserves or zoos.
Conservationists said that the results showed the [...]
Congolese chimpanzees face new ‘wave of killing’ for bushmeat
They are some of the most myusterious apes on the planet that according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. But according to an 18-month study of remote human settlements deep in the Congolese jungle, chimpanzees are being subjected to a “wave of killing” by bushmeat hunters.
The scientists who [...]
Forest carbon stores may be massively overestimated
Rainforests may store much less carbon than we thought. It could be time to dramatically revise our estimates following the discovery that apparently similar forests hold vastly different amounts of the stuff. The finding is important because there are plans for governments worldwide to compensate tropical countries for rotecting their forests as “carbon sinks” to [...]
Migratory birds decline in UK due to low African rain
Photo:ALAMY
Ornithologists have found that species including the turtle dove, willow warbler, tree pipit and redstart are struggling to find enough food in the weeks before they set off in the spring to fly to the UK. The scientists believe that years of poor rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced supplies of the seeds, fruits and [...]
A climate warning from the deep
Photograph: British Antarctic Survey
Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks and other surfaces, reveal a disturbing aspect about Antarctica that has critical implications for understanding the impact of climate change.
British Antarctic Survey researchers have found the dispersal of these minute [...]
Road to cut off Serengeti migration route
Look out wildebeest, here come the cars. Tanzania’s government plans to build a commercial road in the north of Serengeti National Park, cutting through the migratory route of 2 million wildebeest and zebra. The road would cut the animals off from their dry-season watering holes, causing the wildebeest population to dwindle to just a quarter [...]
Ellen MacArthur: ‘I can’t live with the sea any more’
The round the world record holder explains why she has turned her back on the sea to crusade for the planet.
Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/sailing/7966301/Ellen-MacArthur-I-cant-live-with-the-sea-any-more.html
which concludes: Though she loves children – the Ellen MacArthur Trust is dedicated to helping those with cancer – she says it is “not in her mind” to start a family of her own. [...]
Fears for wildlife under threat in UK waters
2-minute video report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11128089
Friends of the Earth urges end to ‘land grab’ for biofuels
Photograph: Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters
European Union countries must drop their biofuels targets or else risk plunging more Africans into hunger and raising carbon emissions, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE). In a campaign launching today, the charity accuses European companies of land-grabbing throughout Africa to grow biofuel crops that directly compete with food crops. Biofuel companies [...]
China: Rare earth export cuts protect environment
China’s decision to slash export quotas of rare earth elements was a necessary step to protect the country’s environment, commerce minister Chen Deming said following criticism from Japanese officials. “Mass extraction of rare earth will cause great damage to the environment and that’s why China has tightened controls over rare earth production, exploration and trade,” [...]
Good Companies Guide: easing the planet’s growing pains will help business to profit
A few diehards in the City still think sustainability is just for sandal-wearers. But how we deal with the major ecological and social challenges facing the world will have enormous implications for the global economy and for the prospects of the UK’s leading companies. It will also have an impact on the pension savings and [...]
The Frozen Zoo aiming to bring endangered species back from the brink
There are only eight northern white rhinoceroses left in the world, but the Frozen Zoo hopes to boost the population. Photograph: Benedicte Desrus / Alamy/Alamy
The inside of a metal box filled with liquid nitrogen and frozen to -173C (-280F) is hardly the ideal habitat for a large African mammal. But, as a test tube is [...]
How James Lovelock introduced Gaia to an unsuspecting world
(James Lovelock is of course one of our patrons)
Photo: Corbis
Once in a generation, perhaps, you get to read a book that will change the way we see the world. But it might take a whole generation to realise by how much. My copy of Gaia is a first edition from 1979: hardback price £4.95 (and [...]
Europe’s coasts: reconciling development and conservation
In some cases it was their sheer beauty that led to development, in others economic potential. Whatever the causes, coastal regions today host almost half of the inhabitants of EU countries with a sea border. They host homes and workplaces, industries, holiday destinations and recreation areas. With an immense variety of habitats, ranging from salt-adapted [...]
Plantation linked to junta is ‘destroying’ Burmese tiger reserve
The site of a village in the reserve that has been razed for cash crops
The world’s largest tiger reserve, in the wilds of northern Burma, is being rapidly eroded as a businessman with links to the junta replaces trees with cash crops, according to a report published yesterday. The Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve in Kachin [...]
Endangered spaces: Can our wildest places survive tourism?
The visitors: tens of thousands of tourists flock to the Galapagos Islands every year. AFP/Getty Images
Eco-tourism. Is this now-fashionable concept basically a contradiction in terms – on a par, as cynics might say, with “business ethics” or “compassionate conservatism”? “Adventure travel” is, of course, a concept as old as the hills, even if some of [...]
Scottish gold mine turned down at Loch Lomond
Photo: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
A proposal to build Britain’s only commercial gold mine in Loch Lomond national park has been refused after councillors decided it would “devastate” the park’s outstanding scenery. Buoyed by record gold prices, the developers had hoped to mine up to five tonnes of gold worth around £110m, and a further 20 [...]
Soaring temps cause mass coral killing in Indonesia: study
A dramatic spike in ocean temperatures off Indonesia’s Aceh province has killed large areas of coral and scientists fear the event could be much larger than first thought and one of the worst in the region’s history. The coral bleaching — whitening due to heat driving out the algae living within the coral tissues — [...]
Protect nature for world economic security, warns UN biodiversity chief
Britain and other countries face a collapse of their economies and loss of culture if they do not protect the environment better, the world’s leading champion of nature has warned. “What we are seeing today is a total disaster,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. “No country has met [...]
Rothschild giraffe added to Red List of endangered species
A male baby Rothschild giraffe with his mother, Nora, at Prague Zoo.
Driven from its wide-ranging west African habitats, the Rothschild giraffe is clearly in peril. Now, its plight has been officially recognised. The world’s largest environment network, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has added it to its red list of endangered species. Named [...]
Increase in ‘warm water’ dolphins off North East England coast
The white-beaked dolphin winters off the North East coast
Warmer seas could be responsible for a change in the type of dolphins spotted off the coast of the North East of England, a survey has suggested. The North East Cetacean Project found an increase in sightings of common, bottlenose and Risso’s dolphins - species associated with [...]
Water meters will save wildlife
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has warned that a third of river catchments were facing damage as a result of too much water being taken out of them. Following a summer which has seen drought and water shortages leading to hosepipe bans in some areas, the charity is calling on the Government and water companies [...]
New monkey species already looks scared
Picture of the day
Meet Callicebus caquetensis: a new species of titi monkey that has been discovered in the Amazon.
The monkey was found in a region called Caquetá, in the south of Colombia, which had been inaccessible for many years due to a violent insurgence.
About the size of a cat, the Caquetá titi has grey-brown hair [...]
Indonesia: APP says audit shows deforestation claim untrue
Indonesian paper firm Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) on Wednesday released an audit it said showed allegations it destroyed rainforest were baseless and invalid.The audit marks the latest chapter in an increasingly bitter dispute between environmentalists and the plantation industry over Indonesian forests, which trap huge amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gases.
French retailer Carrefour said last [...]
Madagascar’s forests plundered for rare rosewood
Rosewood traders turn up in villages on the Masoala peninsula with cash and rice. They want local people to help them find precious rosewood trees in the dense forest, and then to haul the heavy logs out. The illegal trade is irresistible to poor communities. Local people used to make money from tourists who came [...]
New battles in the countryside as ramblers take on owners over access
Campaigners say that many of the growing number of disputes are caused by people with “money and prestige” buying property and refusing to recognise established footpaths. They have also accused owners of increasingly exploiting health and safety laws to block routes. In many cases, landowners argue that they must refuse access to protect themselves from [...]
The world’s first really green oil deal
The Tiputini river on the border of Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park, which is threatened by oil drilling. Photo: EPA
The world’s first genuinely green energy deal is about to be sealed. In a plan which could be a blueprint for saving large tracts of the planet from exploitation, a greater value is being put on a [...]
Recycled Island: plastic fantastic?
An artist’s impression of Recycled Island
A floating city of half a million people on a vast plastic island. Does that sound like Waterworld? The vision could soon be a reality if Dutch conservationists have their way. Recycled Island is a plan to clean up 44 million kilos of plastic waste from the North Pacific Gyre, [...]
Climate change could destroy 80 per cent of rainforest by next century
Lee Foster/Alamy
Rainforests currently hold more than half of all the plant and animal species on Earth. However, scientists say the combined effects of climate change and deforestation may force them to adapt, move, or die. By 2100, this could have altered two-thirds of the rainforests in Central and South America, about 70 per cent in Africa. [...]
New gas pipeline prompts fears for Amazon rainforest
The Arara pole, part of the Urucu oilfield, in the Amazon rain forest, 650km southeast of Manaus, Brazil. Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP
A gas pipeline cutting through 660km of Amazon rainforest will deliver cheaper, cleaner energy to a sprawling industrial city buried in the heart of the jungle. But environmentalists fear the pipe is simply a bridgehead towards [...]
Is Africa’s wildlife being eaten to extinction?
We’ve all heard how the illegal trade in elephant ivory, rhino horn and other high value products is threatening Africa’s wildlife. However, the impact of these products is dwarfed by the trade in bushmeat, defined as meat from Africa’s wild animals traded for human consumption. According to the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, the hunting of [...]
Brazilian company accused of killing 280,000 sharks for fins
Joshua Haviv
A conservation watchdog Monday accused a Brazilian company of illegally fishing 280,000 sharks which were killed to feed Asia’s appetite for sharkfin. The Environmental Justice Institute, a Brazilian group, lodged a suit against seafood exporter Sigel do Brasil Comercio demanding 800 million dollars in environmental damages.
“As we can’t put a value on life, we [...]
Mediterranean marine life in greatest peril, census shows
A dragon fish. Photograph: Dr. Julian Finn/Museum Victoria/PA
Marine life in the Mediterranean faces the greatest risk of damage and death, the Census of Marine Life shows. “Enclosed seas have the risk that, when you impact it and throw chemicals or other garbage into it, it will not go away so easily as it will from [...]
Farmland birds at lowest ever level
Lapwing numbers have falled by 12 per cent in the last year. Photo: Jean-Paul Ferrero
The 19 bird species most commonly found in the British countryside, like wood pigeon, skylark and rooks, have declined by more than 50 per cent since 1966. Conservationists blamed the cold winter and modern farming practices that mean there are [...]
Fears for unique wildlife of Galapagos as UN drops islands’ protected status
One of the iconic species of Galapagos, the marine iguana, Amblyrhynchus cristatus, is found nowhere else in the world and is unique among lizards in that it can live and hunt for food (much of it kelp) in the sea, with the ability to dive down to depths of 30ft. It has spread to all [...]
World’s largest fish under threat of extinction
Giant Mekong Catfish, weighing 292kg that was caught by local fishermen in Chiang Khong, northern Thailand Photo: EPA
The construction of a particular dam in northern Laos would disrupt the migration of four of the world’s top ten largest freshwater species to crucial spawning grounds, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said. In its [...]
Global warming blamed for 40 per cent decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton
A large bloom of phytoplankton - which has been described as ‘the basis of life in the oceans’ - floating in the north-eastern Atlantic, as seen from space
The microscopic plants that support all life in the oceans are dying off at a dramatic rate, according to a study that has documented for the first [...]
Lionfish boom threatens Atlantic ecosystems
They are stunningly beautiful and a big draw for aquariums, but that’s where the attraction ends. The Pacific lionfish has proved so unappealing to sharks and other ocean predators that a population explosion is threatening the delicate ecosystems of a new habitat: the western Atlantic and Caribbean.
Lionfish are relatively minor players in their native waters [...]
Amazon deforestation in dramatic decline, official figures show
Large-scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell dramatically last year, according to official figures released yesterday. Data from satellite sensors making fortnightly detections of only larger areas of forest destruction (greater than 25 hectares) was 1,500km2 between August 2009 and May 2010, compared with 3,000km2 in the same period a year earlier. The Brazilian environment [...]
Kalahari Bushmen to appeal against court ban on well in game reserve
The Kalahari Bushmen are to appeal against a decision by the Botswana high court forbidding them to use a well in the central Kalahari game reserve, one of the driest regions in the world, a spokesman announced today. The Bushmen, Africa’s oldest inhabitants, won a ruling in 2006 against eviction from the game park, hailed [...]
Indonesia survey finds many unaware orangutan protected
A quarter of villagers living near orangutans in Indonesia’s Kalimantan province are not aware the rare primates are protected and say orangutans have been killed in their village, said a new survey released on Wednesday. Only a handful of orangutans are left in the wild, mostly in forests on Indonesian provinces of Sumatra and Kalimantan, [...]
Climate change creating ’super marmots’ that are bigger and more abundant
A marmot in the Rocky Mountains. Photo: Alamy
Scientists claim longer summers have led to marmots - which are ground-dwelling ’squirrels’ - waking up earlier from hibernation, giving them more time to reproduce and gain weight before the next hibernation period. The population is also increasing in size because marmots are reproducing earlier so their offspring [...]
Damselflies in distress forced back to UK by climate change
Photo: Dave Smallshire
Damselflies don’t sound like they’d do anything as dramatic as invading anywhere, and the dainty damselfly sounds like it would do so least of all. But that’s what’s happening in southern England, as several species of these delicate, smaller relatives of the dragonflies cross over from the continent and start establishing populations here. [...]
Protecting wildlife in conflict zones
In Afghanistan’s Wakhan region, a mountainous area bordered by Tajikistan and China, a herd of ibex deftly climbs a steep hillside. Across the valley, a man in Wakhi headdress views them through a spotting scope. His tracking skills are helping …………….. the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) assess ibex numbers.
Of all the places to study wildlife, why [...]
British meat and dairy is destroying rainforests
Photo: Getty
Huge swathes of rainforest are being destroyed every year to grow animal feed for British factory farms, according to new research. More than 350,000 hectares of rainforest, twice the size of the Yorkshire Dales, is being chopped down to grow soy beans, most of which are genetically modified (GM). The animal feed is then [...]
Where have all the kestrels gone?
A female kestrel… the outlook is looking bleak. Photograph: Alamy
Worrying news for anyone who loves the British countryside, the films of Ken Loach or feathery predators. The kestrel – which had a starring role in Loach’s 1969 movie Kes and the Barry Hines novel that inspired it – is in decline, [...]
BP oil cap may not have stopped leak
Government demands answers as engineers detect seepage and possible methane gas leak on seabed of Gulf of Mexico
Fears about the new cap over BP’s damaged Gulf of Mexico oil well have been raised after engineers detected seepage and a possible methane gas leak on the seabed.
Admiral Thad Allen, who is in charge [...]
Found: Sri Lankan primate thought to be extinct for 60 years
The Horton Plains slender loris was pictured in central Sri Lanka by the Zoological Society of London and Sri Lankan researchers. Photograph: London Zoo
A mysterious primate driven to the brink of extinction by Britain’s taste for tea has been photographed for the first time. The Horton Plains slender loris, found only [...]
Poachers kill last female rhino in South Africa’s Kruger park for prized horn
Record levels of poaching is endangering the survival of white rhinoceros in South Africa
The last rhinoceros cow in Kruger park, South Africa, bled to death on Wednesday after poachers hacked off her horn. Photograph: Reuters
Fears are growing for the survival of the rhinoceros as the last female in the popular [...]
Ten British species now have an identity we care about
It’s the most successful exercise in crowd-sourcing I’ve ever seen. We asked our readers to solve a problem, and they’ve done far more than that: they have created something beautiful.
The problem is this: it is hard to persuade people to care about something they can’t pronounce. English species are disappearing [...]
Britons urged to count trees to fight climate change
(Reuters) - A British museum is urging the public to record trees in parks, streets and gardens as part of a three-year survey to uncover how climate change is affecting the environment.
London’s Natural History Museum is enlisting the public’s help to locate, identify and count trees to find out which [...]
Kashmir fears forests will disappear through ‘timber smuggling’
Environmental catastrophe looms as corruption hinders moves to halt illegal trade fuelled by construction boom
High above the village of Nawroz Baba, above the shrine, even above the pastures, is the forest. It stretches to the snowy peaks on the skyline.
Ghulam Rasool Dar, who says he is somewhere between 60 and 70 [...]
Hudson Bay polar bears ‘could soon be extinct’
Polar bears in the Hudson Bay area of Canada are likely to die out in the next three decades, possibly sooner, as global warming melts more Arctic ice and thus reduces their hunting opportunities, according to Canadian biologists.
The animals in western Hudson Bay, one of 19 discrete sub-populations of the species [...]
Don’t cut the countryside!
England’s conservation organisations have joined forces to paint a grim picture of a countryside starved of money by budget cuts.
On the 30th anniversary of the Wildlife and Countryside Link, its members have issued an unprecedented warning about what the future would hold should the Government slash spending on conservation, wildlife-friendly [...]
Tropical butterflies join polar bear on climate threat list
Species in tropical regions could suffer as much impact from climate change as those at higher latitudes. That’s according to scientists at Stanford University, US, who looked at how well animals and plants have evolved to cope with variations in temperature and rainfall.
Doxocopa pavon
“Polar bears have become an icon for [...]
World’s mangroves retreating at alarming rate: study
(Reuters) - The world’s mangroves are being destroyed up to four times faster than other forests, costing millions of dollars in losses in areas such as fisheries and storm protection, a report said Wednesday.
The study commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and The Nature Conservancy said a fifth [...]
Could things for biodiversity go from bad to worse?
Current efforts to protect the world’s biodiversity run the risk of doing more harm than good, warns Krystyna Swiderska. In this week’s Green Room, she says the role of indigenous and local communities in protecting the planet’s genetic resources are being overlooked or even ignored.
My own research… shows the critical [...]
How much damage has the BP oil spill done?
In the months since the start of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico there have been harrowing images of birds coated in oil and dead dolphins, but just what do we know about the scale of the environmental damage done?
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE OIL?
“The good news is that [...]
We must reap the benefits of palm oil, but manage the environmental costs
From the margarine we eat to the wheels on our cars to the shampoo in our showers, palm oil is everywhere. That’s why we must strive to make it sustainable, says Caroline Spelman, secretary of state for the environment
We all like to think we have the power to make our own ethical [...]
Tiger conservation discussed in Bali, Indonesia
Officials from 13 countries are meeting in Bali, Indonesia, to agree on ways to try to double the number of tigers in the world.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) conservation group has warned that a lack of global action could kill off the endangered species.
Hunting and a loss of habitat had cut numbers [...]
Eco warrior’s Pacific journey shows how ‘dumb plastic’ is killing our seas
David de Rothschild set out on a mammoth ocean crossing aboard his recycled yacht to highlight pollution of Earth’s waters – but even he was shocked by what he found
The weather closes in on the Plastiki, above. The recycled plastic bottle boat is due to complete its 7,000-mile voyage in Sydney [...]
Europe’s fishing industry ‘unsustainable’ as stocks drop
Today marks ‘fish dependence day’ – where our appetite for seafood means we have to deplete other countries’ resources
The endangered bluefin tuna, Spain. Photograph: Brian J. Skerry/Getty Images/National Geographic
Europeans are eating more fish while stocks in their own seas continue to deplete, according to a new analysis that highlights the [...]
Mississippi coast faces environmental crisis
Mississippi (Reuters) - Coastal Mississippi is facing its biggest environmental crisis since Hurricane Katrina as oil from a leaking BP well in the Gulf of Mexico fouls its beaches and creeps onto inshore wetlands.
People watched in horror on Thursday as high tides washed oil onto beaches in the southeast of the [...]
Map: Oil spill permeates the Gulf’s most productive environments
According to WRI estimates, the potential damage to marine ecosystem services as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could be up to $875 million for marine ecosystems and up to $60 billion for coastal ecosystems. This map shows the ecosystems most at risk – [...]
Over 25% of flowers face extinction – many before they are even discovered
Scientists say human activity could spell end for a quarter of all flowering plants, with huge impact on food chain
The giant carnivorous plant, Nepenthes attenboroughii, is under threat of extinction - along with 25% of all others on earth. Photograph: Redfern Natural History/PA
More than one-in-four of all flowering plants are under threat [...]
European Parliament prepares to vote on illegal timber ban
Greenpeace urges member states to ensure new timber rules are properly enforced
The European Parliament is set to vote 7 July on regulations banning the import of timber from illegal logging. Photograph: Lester Lefkowitz/Getty Images
The European Parliament is this week set to vote through new regulations that will ban the import of [...]
Dutch courage for climate mainstream
It’s beginning to look like a pattern. An apparent scandal is unveiled that threatens to rock climate science to its very core, a scandal that usually ends in the suffix “-gate”.
Himalaya, Amazon, and Climate itself are just three of the stems that have borne the suffix in recent months.
Sections of the [...]
Conservation can be a weapon against poverty
The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Mexico shows how local people can be paid for protecting their environment, says Daniela Pastrana
“I cut down all of that section,” said Esteban Martínez as he pointed to a rectangle of land cleared of trees in the central Mexican state of Querétaro.
“I used to go after [...]
Calling for an ‘old-fashioned’ green revolution
Using “good old-fashioned” farming techniques will help deliver a sustainable green revolution in Africa, says Tensie Whelan. In this week’s Green Room, she warns that failure to protect biodiversity, water supplies and forests could spell disaster for the continent.
I have seen many ways in which farmers in Africa have increased [...]
How one scientist is battling deforestation in Madagascar
As many of the island’s remaining forests are felled in the wake of a 2009 coup, primatologist Patricia Wright describes how she is helping local residents and international conservation organisations to fight back
Patricia Wright has devoted most of her professional life to working on Madagascar, home to a remarkable collection [...]
How Europe’s agriculture can boost biodiversity
Intensive farming has long been a major cause of biodiversity decline in Europe. The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) new short assessment examines Europe’s efforts to strike a balance between producing sufficient food and maintaining agro-ecosystems that are rich in biodiversity above and below ground.
Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) plays a key role in halting biodiversity [...]
The other oil spill
Early on April 21st 2008, Greenpeace activists dressed as orang-utans stormed Unilever’s headquarters in London. Similar raids took place at the multinational’s facilities on Merseyside, in Rome and in Rotterdam. Furry protesters scaled buildings, occupied production lines and unfurled banners. Many read: “Unilever: Don’t Destroy the Forests”. Dove, one of the company’s best-known brands, was [...]
Conservationists warn of hay meadow decline
“Constable? Turner? Give me a hay meadow any day,” says Tony Bullough as we get our first glimpse of New House Farm. And the National Trust warden has a point - the fields surrounding this small farm are a glorious sight.
Perched in a small valley near the village of Malham, in the Yorkshire Dales, the [...]
Giant salmon will be first GM animal available for eating
Usually Atlantic salmon do not grow during the winter and take three years to fully mature. But by implanting genetic material from an eel-like species called ocean pout that grows all year round, US scientists have managed to make the fish grow to full size in 18 months. They hope that the sterile GM salmon [...]
Galápagos giant tortoise saved from extinction by breeding programme
Photo: Frans Lanting/Corbis
Scientists have successfully reintroduced giant tortoises to a Galápagos island where the species once teetered on extinction, raising conservation hopes for the rest of the archipelago. A survey of Española, the southernmost island, confirmed last week that a pioneering effort to repatriate giant tortoise hatchlings has produced a thriving, reproducing population of more [...]
Greenland wins back right to kill humpback whales
Greenland has won back the right to hunt humpback whales for the first time in a quarter-century after it threatened to leave the world’s top whaling body if other nations reject its ancestral traditions. “We cannot wait any longer,” Ane Hansen, Greenland’s Minister for Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture, said just before the consensus vote by [...]
Good news for heron addicts
Photo: David Featherbe/RSPB/PA
A pair of purple herons have successfully bred in the UK for the first time, conservationists said today. The striking birds breed normally in southern Europe and visit Britain in small numbers each year. But the pair, which have made their home on the Dungeness penindula, Kent, appear to have managed a UK [...]
Migratory species face disaster from climate change, UN-backed report warns
Migratory species face disaster from the effects of climate change unless urgent action is taken, according to the preliminary findings of a forthcoming United Nations-backed report. “Increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation, sea level rise, ocean acidification, changes in ocean currents and extreme weather events will all affect migratory species populations,” said Aylin McNamara, who led [...]
Victory for anti-whaling campaigners
The controversial attempt to scrap the 24-year-old international moratorium on commercial whaling collapsed yesterday, to the delight of anti-whaling campaigners and the frustration of Japan, Norway and Iceland, the three countries which continue to hunt whales in defiance of world opinion. Delegates from the 88 member states of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), meeting in [...]
19 Kids and Counting – Who Cares?
An editorial distributed to 800 U.S. newspapers and magazines by the Cagle Syndication Service.
18 Kids and Counting. That’s the name of a popular “reality” television show about a couple, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, who last fall had 18 children. This week, it was announced that Michelle is pregnant again…so now it’s 19 kids [...]
Nightingale numbers fall by 91 per cent in 40 years
Photo: ALAMY
Britain’s population of nightingales, the world’s most celebrated songbirds, has crashed in numbers by more than 90 per cent, new research has shown.
Although there have been concerns for some time that nightingales are declining, the scale of the fall has come as a shock to researchers at the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), who [...]
Chris Packham: We should embrace a new age of biodiversity
The BBC Springwatch host claims the British public has become worryingly mistrustful and even fearful of the animals that they share the countryside, towns and cities with. He believes that misguided fears over the health and safety of the nation’s children are partly to blame because they are preventing youngsters from experiencing wildlife for themselves. Packham’s [...]
Basking shark sightings increase in UK
Sightings of Britain’s largest fish, the basking shark, have increased in recent weeks in British waters, according to the Marine Conservation Society. Forty sharks have so far been reported around the coast. The most are off Devon and Cornwall but they have also been spotted in Scottish and Irish waters. The sharks have even been [...]
Whale poo helps offset carbon footprint
Photo: AP
Southern Ocean sperm whales offset their carbon footprint by defecating, scientists said on Wednesday, releasing tonnes of iron a year that stimulates the growth of phytoplankton which in turn absorb carbon dioxide. Each whale releases about 50 tonnes of iron a year, their natural fertilization stimulating the process of photosynthesis.
An estimated 12,000 sperm whales [...]
Intensive farming ‘massively slowed’ global warming
Fertilisers, pesticides and hybrid high-yielding seeds saved the planet from an extra dose of global warming. That, at least, is the conclusion of a new analysis which finds that the intensification of farming through the green revolution has unjustly been blamed for speeding up global warming.
Steven Davis of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Palo [...]
Failure to protect wetlands puts migratory waterbirds at risk
Efforts to conserve migratory waterbirds are being threatened by the lack of protection of key wetlands used by the birds as they traverse Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia, according to an inter-agency information website launched today with the support of the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP). Migratory waterbirds, such as waders, terns [...]
Saving suburban gardens will make Britain’s housing problems worse
Who could possibly want to destroy gardens? What black-hearted villain could want to rob a street of its flowers and birds in order to build brick boxes? Enough, according to the government, for 180,000 such homes to be built in the past five years, but no longer. The decentralisation minister, Greg Clark, has announced that [...]
UN’s ‘IPCC for nature’ to fight back against destruction of natural world
An endangered Agalychnis annae, commonly known as a blue-sided leaf frog, at the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica Photograph: Kent Gilbert/AP
World governments voted last night to set up a major new international body to spearhead the battle against the destruction of the natural world. With growing concern about the human impacts of destruction of [...]
EU biofuels ‘need to be certified for sustainability’
EU nations are being encouraged to set up certification schemes to ensure biofuels help cut emissions and do not threaten biodiversity. The plans, outlined by the European Commission, would apply to all types of biofuels, including imported fuel. The commission said the schemes would deliver substantial CO2 reductions and help protect forests and wetlands. Environmental groups [...]
‘Worrying’ slump in tree planting prompts fears of deforestation
Planting of new trees has fallen to its lowest level in more than three decades across Britain, leading conservationists said yesterday. Efforts to replace woodland in the United Kingdom, once so densely forested that trees which have sustained human populations for 6,000 years covered 90 per cent of the land mass, have slowed dramatically in [...]
Rare fungus discovered in England for first time
A rare fungus has been sighted in England for the first time. The fungus Multiclavula vernalis, which forms a tiny, orange fruiting body, was found in Hampshire on land used for training by the British Army. Experts from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew confirmed the fungus’s identity. The fungus usually prefers much colder climates [...]
Local councils get immediate powers to end garden grabbing
The song thrush, which has suffered a huge decline, will benefit from gardens not being given over to building plots. Photograph: Rex Features/BYB
The government is announcing new measures to stop the practice of “garden grabbing” which has seen swathes of urban green space swallowed up by new housing developments. The decentralisation minister Greg Clark is [...]
Snake populations ‘declining worldwide’
Photo: Getty Images
Distinct populations of snake species on three continents have crashed over the last decade, raising fears that the reptiles may be in global decline. The pattern across eight species was alarmingly similar despite their geographical isolation. The uniform nature of the decline pointed to a common cause such as climate change, according to [...]
Support for U.S. climate regulation growing
A growing number of Americans want the United States to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as the largest oil spill in U.S. history helps boost interest in petroleum alternatives, a poll by two universities found on Tuesday. About 77 percent of 1,204 Americans polled support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, up 6 percentage points from [...]
Ban calls for greater awareness of the value of oceans to humanity
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged governments and citizens across the global to acknowledge the enormous value of the world’s oceans to humanity and ensure that pollution of the bodies of water by human activity is brought under control. “The diversity of life in the oceans is under ever-increasing strain. Over-exploitation of marine living resources, climate [...]
Give decision makers access to the value of nature’s services
Decision makers need access to the value of ecosystems. The value of preserving biodiversity outweighs that of destroying them. Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images
It is all too easy to forget in the city-centred 21st century that human wellbeing is utterly dependent on the natural world. To state the obvious, we cannot survive without fresh water, food [...]
Honeybee collapse: Stung from behind
A colony of honeybees at the US Department of Agriculture’s research laboratory. Photograph: Haraz Ghanbari/AP
Beekeeper Eric Olson has lost so many bees in the past few years, he’s had to consider closing shop. But nothing prepared him for what he found when he went out early one November morning to do a final check on [...]
Population growth a threat to biodiversity
The Australian Conservation Foundation has nominated human population growth as a “key threatening process” to Australia’s biodiversity under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act). “The bigger our population gets, the harder it is for us to reduce greenhouse pollution, protect natural habitats near urban and coastal areas and ensure a [...]
Bumblebees on UK pollination ‘rescue mission’ die in hibernation
An “international rescue mission” to tackle Britain’s pollination crisis has suffered a setback after a shipment of bees due to be imported into the country died just days before their release. Natural England, the government’s countryside agency, chose the short-haired bumblebees from New Zealand because they were originally from the UK, but have since become [...]
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