Environment | The Guardian

Video shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park in south-western NSW

Exclusive: Old Faithful' was captured after Queensland authorities deemed him a problem crocodile', but Rinyirru Aboriginal Corporation says the government is mistaken

Trial of Nick Gratwick, 68, who schemed to rape children as young as six, exposes previous role among green protestersA man who schemed to rape children as young as six was revealed at his trial to have been a police informer who spied on environmental activists.Nick Gratwick, 68, was found guilty on Friday of 38 abhorrent" paedophile offences, including plans over the last two years to pay to rape or sexually assault children in the UK and abroad. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Trial that has produced 13 hatchlings could help other threatened species avoid extinctionThe slow-motion pitter-patter of tiny giant tortoise feet has been worryingly rare in recent years, but that looks set to change thanks to the first successful hatching of the species with artificial incubation.One week after the intervention, the 13 babies are building up their strength on a diet of banana slices and leafy greens in Seychelles, which is home to one of the last remaining populations of the tortoise. Continue reading...

Tariffs have caused a Chinese exit from the soybean market - and midwestern farmers are waiting on a solutionAt the Purfeerst farm in southern Minnesota, the soybean harvest just wrapped up for the season. The silver grain bins are full of about 100,000 bushels of soybeans, which grab about $10 a piece.This year, though, the fate of the soybeans, and the people whose livelihoods depend on selling them, is up in the air: America's soybean farmers are stuck in the middle of a trade war between the US and China, the biggest purchaser of soybean exports, used to feed China's pigs. Continue reading...

Biodiversity losses are growing, the IUCN reports as summit opens, but green turtle's recovery reminds us conservation works'More than half of all bird species are in decline, according to a new global assessment, with deforestation driving sharp falls in populations across the planet.On the eve of a key biodiversity summit in the UAE, scientists have issued a fresh warning about the health of bird populations, with 61% of assessed species now recording declines in their numbers. Continue reading...

The best of this week's wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Chris Bowen calls move disappointing' as energy expert says government has delivered a cul de sac not a roadmap'

Prince of Wales's decision welcomed as a means of drawing attention to the event and galvanising talksThe Prince of Wales will attend the crunch Cop30 UN climate summit in Brazil next month, the Guardian has learned, but whether the prime minister will go is still to be decided.Prince William will present the Earthshot prize, a global environmental award and attend the meeting of representatives of more than 190 governments in Belem. Continue reading...

Orsted plans to shrink company after Trump administration causes share price to plunge to all-time lowOne of the world's biggest windfarm developers will cut its workforce by a quarter in the next two years after a series of setbacks for the industry.Danish wind giant Orsted plans to remove about 2,000 positions from its 8,000-strong workforce by the end of 2027 through a combination of redundancies, natural attrition and selling off parts of its business. Continue reading...

Official reports are likely to overlook heat's role in a death. As US temperatures rise, experts say the true toll needs to be countedAmong the autopsy reports that made my heart skip a beat was Hannah Rose Moody.One morning last May, the 31-year-old set out on a favourite desert hike near her home in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was already 91F (33C) when she set off. On Instagram, she told her 50,000 followers: Conquering this trail as a last hurrah before summer hits ... I have like 5 gallons of water with me don't worry ." Continue reading...

Report looks at White House nominees and appointees and agencies dictating energy, environment and climate policyDonald Trump has placed dozens of people with ties to the fossil fuel sector in his administration, including more than 40 who have directly worked for oil, gas or coal companies, according to a new analysis.The report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy and ethics non-profit that has been critical of the Trump administration, alongside the Revolving Door Project, a corporate watchdog, analyzed the backgrounds of nominees and appointees within the White House and eight agencies dictating energy, environmental and climate policy. That includes the Environmental Protection Agency, the interior and energy departments and others. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Government failure to close loophole allows 600,000 tonnes to be shipped abroad each yearA plastic recycling industry potentially worth 2bn and 5,000 jobs is dying in the UK because of government failure to close a loophole that allows 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste to be exported each year.The Guardian can reveal that in the past two years 21 plastic recycling and processing factories across the UK have shut down due to the scale of exports, the cheap price of virgin plastic and an influx of cheap plastic from Asia, according to data gathered by industry insiders. Continue reading...

Competition watchdog agrees to requests from Anglian, Northumbrian, South East, Southern and Wessex to increase charges

Study shows high-magnitude temblor in north-west could set off another in California, causing unrivaled disasterWarnings about the looming threat of the big one" - a catastrophic earthquake that could devastate cities - have stoked fears across the US west coast for decades. But according to a new study, a high-magnitude earthquake in the Pacific north-west could set off a secondary one on California's San Andreas fault, causing an unrivaled catastrophe.The bigger one" would have the potential to wreak havoc up and down the coast at once, researchers say. Continue reading...

Struggling fishers in Hastings say the industry is dying after a deal giving away access to its waters made a tough job impossibleA small flotilla of gaily coloured fishing boats line the shingle beach at Hastings, East Sussex. Behind them are the bulldozers that shunt them into the waves and beyond, in neat rows, are black wooden fishermen's huts and fish stalls, where on a good day teenage daughters, wives and retired skippers sell some of the day's catch.This is the Stade, a Saxon word for landing place" from where wooden boats have set off since before William the Conqueror arrived in 1066.Peter White outside his shed. He has been fishing for 52 years Continue reading...

Labor backbencher is calling for drastic intervention to secure supplies for the east coast

Plant inventories dating back to 1884 and nearly thrown away enable unique time-lapse study of biodiversity in Swiss meadowsFor two years, a team of Swiss researchers crossed the country by train, car and foot, carrying with them a red frame measuring 30 by 30 centimetres. At 277 sites they placed the frame in the grass and counted all of the plant species within it.The scientists were retracing a path set more than 100 years earlier, when two botanists had done the same thing in exactly the same meadows, long before such plant inventories became common. Continue reading...

With global heating on a dangerous trajectory, it would be unforgivable for the prime minister to miss the summit in BelemIn a month, this year's UN climate summit, Cop30, begins in Belem, Brazil - preceded by a key leaders' meeting. It is a crucial moment. The UN's scientists have yet to publish calculations based on the latest round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - as countries' emissions pledges are known. But Brazil'spresident, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has called leaders together because it is already clear that the current emissions pledges are nowhere near enough. The Paris 1.5C threshold was crossed last year. Without stronger action, that temporary breach will become irreversible - with devastating consequences for people and planet.Lula's diplomatic outreach to Donald Trump, who calls the climate crisis a con job", suggests he is trying to bring key players into the fold ahead of Belem. Having heavyweights in the room can make all the difference. Ten years ago in Paris, world leaders' presence proved crucial to securing an ambitious deal. That's why it is important that Sir Keir Starmer attends. He may not be the most powerful world leader, but his presence is a moral and diplomatic imperative. If KingCharles is able to, he ought to go too. Soft power can help to rebuild the spirit of cooperation to keep thehopes in the Paris agreement alive. Continue reading...

Armed criminal groups tear down precious rainforest to capitalise on record gold prices, report findsAn illegal gold rush has cleared 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon and is accelerating as foreign, armed groups move into the region to profit from record gold prices, according to a report.About 540 square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly across the country, Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) and its Peruvian partner organisation, Conservacion Amazonica, found. Continue reading...

Report by joint intelligence committee delayed, with concerns expressed that it may not be publishedThe UK's national security is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away, a powerful report by the UK's intelligence chiefs is due to warn.However, the report, which was supposed to launch on Thursday at a landmark event in London, has been delayed, and concerns have been expressed to the Guardian that it may have been blocked by number 10. Continue reading...

New research finds 90% of marine fish sold by major US retailers are wild-caught, including threatened or endangered species

Firm will instead invest A$2m a year in climate impact fund' supporting renewables and switching to EVsOne of the travel industry's most environmentally focused tour operators, Intrepid, is scrapping carbon offsets and abandoning its emissions targets as unreachable.The Australian-headquartered global travel company said it would instead invest A$2m (980,000) a year in an audited climate impact fund" supporting immediate practical measures such as switching to electric vehicles and investing in renewable energy. Continue reading...

Industrially made foods involve several ingredients and processes to put together, making it difficult to examine their true costIf you look at a package of M&Ms, one of the most popular candies in the US, you'll see some familiar ingredients: sugar, skimmed milk powder, cocoa butter. But you'll see many more that aren't so recognizable: gum arabic, dextrin, carnauba wax, soya lecithin and E100.There are 34 ingredients in M&Ms, and, according to Mars, the company that produces the candy, at least 30 countries - from Ivory Coast to New Zealand - are involved in supplying them. Each has its own supply chain that transforms the raw materials into ingredients - cocoa into cocoa liquor, cane into sugar, petroleum into blue food dye. Continue reading...

Customers on Charge Anytime deal who drive fewer than 700 miles a month say they will be left with higher billsElectric vehicle owners fear they will be left out of pocket after the energy supplier Ovo announced changes to a popular charging deal which could double the cost for some customers.Drivers who have an energy contract with the company can currently charge their vehicles at any time of day or night for 7p a kilowatt hour (kWh), making its Charge Anytime deal the cheapest on the market. Continue reading...

Campaigners say increase in exports mostly to Malaysia and Indonesia is unethical and irresponsible waste imperialism'Britain's exports of plastic waste to developing countries have soared by 84% in the first half of this year compared with last year, according to an analysis of trade data carried out for the Guardian.Campaigners described the rise in exports, mostly to Malaysia and Indonesia, as unethical and irresponsible waste imperialism". Continue reading...

A deterrent is one thing but I want revenge!

How well do you know your Australian birds? Could you identify them from their calls alone? Guardian Australia's resident pelican (not a real pelican) Matilda Boseley took to the streets of Melbourne to test the city's knowledge amid the Guardian bird of the year poll

NZ$180bn worth of housing and $26bn of infrastructure at risk of flooding and storm damage, new government report findsNew Zealand's oceans are warming 34% faster than the global average, with NZ$180bn (US$104bn) worth of housing at risk of flooding, a new report about the nation's marine environment has revealed.The ministry of the environment and Stats NZ's three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains - air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine - to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand's marine environment. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Letter from 170-plus organisations calls on government to drop proposed changes to planning lawPlans to water down protections for national parks such as Dartmoor and the Lake District in a kneejerk bid for growth" will be devastating for nature, more than 170 organisations have told the prime minister.The Treasury is understood to be pushing for a weakening of protections for England's national parks and national landscapes in changes to planning law to make it easier for developers to build houses and infrastructure projects. Continue reading...

Experts call for urgent strategy to end overfishing as report shows just 41% of stocks of species such as cod and mackerel considered healthyThe UK's populations of fish such as cod, herring and mackerel are still being grossly mismanaged" by politicians and overfished, despite hitting unhealthy levels, a study has found.British fish stocks have been under growing pressure for decades, but during the Brexit campaign some politicians promised that leaving the EU would allow the UK to take control. Continue reading...

New research shows massive glaciers in Sierra Nevada projected to melt away by the beginning of the next centuryDeep in California's Sierra Nevada, massive glaciers are disappearing and projected to melt away completely by the beginning of the next century, leaving ice-free peaks for the first time in human history, new research has found.The mountain range's glaciers are older than previously known, dating back tens of thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to an article published last week in Science Advances. Continue reading...

Spotting tawnies is a bit like completing a crossword: it's easier once you are familiar with the patterns, but you can always get stumped

Prof Christian Downie points to the Business Council of Australia and News Corp newspapers as examples of deliberate obstruction

Exclusive: Luis Vayas Valdivieso says he is quitting for personal and professional reasons after reports of pressure behind the scenesThe chair of stalled UN plastics treaty talks, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, is preparing to step down, after accounts of behind-the-scenes pressure from the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep).The move will be announced at a UN meeting on Tuesday, with an official announcement expected by Thursday. Vayas Valdivieso confirmed in an interview with the Guardian that he was resigning and said: There have been some challenges in the process." Continue reading...

Scientists find 10% chance that similar events to the unheard of' temperatures in 2023 could occur each yearThe unprecedented marine heatwave of 2023 was in line with climate modelling, research shows, as scientists warn such events will become more frequent.The unheard of" heatwave off the UK and Irish coasts during a summer of 40C temperatures raised concerns that fish, shellfish and kelp would not be able to survive. Continue reading...

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called environment department bureaucrats weak' - though later withdrew the remark

Young people in Whitehaven on England's north-west coast rely on the power plant for everything from jobs to civic investment. But for those who see their future elsewhere, options can be limited

National Trust gardeners expect vivid hues and bountiful fungi, nuts and berries thanks to recent weather conditionsThe season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is likely to be particularly vivid this year, with the combination of a sun-drenched summer and rainy September causing excellent conditions for autumn colour in many of the UK's loveliest gardens.Experts at the National Trust are predicting a long, gradual wave of reds and yellows, the warm conditions meaning annuals and herbaceous perennials are having a second flush, adding to the bright palette. Continue reading...

Ambler Road project, approved in Trump's first term but blocked by Biden, would harm Native tribes and wildlifeDonald Trump on Monday ordered the approval of a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.The long-debated Ambler Road project was approved in the US president's first term, but was later blocked by the Biden administration after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Indigenous tribes that rely on hunting and fishing. Continue reading...

Record solar expansion and steady wind growth driving world's shift away from fossil fuels in 2025, report findsThe world's wind and solar farms have generated more electricity than coal plants for the first time this year, marking a turning point for the global power system, according to research.A report by the climate thinktank Ember found that in the first six months of 2025, renewable energy outpaced the world's growing appetite for electricity, leading to a small decline in coal and gas use. Continue reading...

Toxic mass chiselled out of Feltham pipes amid campaign to stop people tipping harmful substances down drainsA team of water engineers have spent a month blasting and chiselling a 100-tonne fatberg loose from under the streets of west London.The blockage consisting mainly of wet wipes glued together by congealed fat, oil and grease, was the equivalent in mass of eight doubledecker buses, stuck 10 metres below street level. Continue reading...

Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissionsThe failure of carbon offsets to cut planet-heating pollution is not due to a few bad apples", a review paper has found, but down to deep-seated systemic problems that incremental change will not solve.Research over two decades has found intractable" problems that have made carbon credits in most big programmes poor quality, according to the study. While the industry and diplomats have made efforts to improve the system, it found much-awaited rules agreed at a UN climate summit last year did not substantially address the quality problem". Continue reading...

Marineland's warning comes after Canadian official blocked the transfer of the beluga whales to a theme park in ChinaMarineland has threatened to euthanize 30 beluga whales if Canada's federal government does not provide financial support for the embattled Niagara Falls amusement park. The warning comes after the country's fisheries minister blocked the transfer of the captive whales to a theme park in China.Marineland, an amusement park, zoo, aquarium and forest occupying nearly 1,000 acres (400 hectares) of land in Ontario, has endured mounting scrutiny over allegations the animals are living in poor conditions. The park, which once saw millions of visitors, did not open for the summer season and is winding down its operations in anticipation of a sale. In February, a lawyer for the park said it was planning to expeditiously" remove the remaining animals still on the grounds. Continue reading...

The trajectory is only up, in terms of insured costs,' professor of climate risk warns

Critics say move to axe Bill Clinton's roadless rule' that protected key old-growth forests will be devastating to environmentIn 1999, Bill Clinton ascended one of the highest summits in Virginia to announce that the last, best unprotected wild lands anywhere in our nation" would be shielded by a new rule that banned roads, drilling and other disturbances within America's most prized forests.But today, this site in George Washington national forest, along with other near-pristine forests across the US that amount to 58m acres, equivalent to the size of the UK, could soon see chainsaws whir and logging trucks rumble through them amid a push by Donald Trump to raze these ecosystems for timber. Continue reading...

Local community group says whatever the cause kids shouldn't be in the water' with dead fish

You can now vote in the 2025 Australian bird of the year poll. Guardian Australia's Matilda Boseley explains how voting works, while remaining surprisingly neutral about her bird of choice

It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I realised birds could have a powerful significance even for people who weren't bird-nerds like me

Over 80% of Wayne national forest classified as suitable for logging, drawing concern from localsIn the Appalachian foothills outside Athens, Ohio, more than 20,000 acres of forest land was mined for coal in the early 20th century, destroying miles upon miles of pristine woodlands.By the 1930s, the federal government had to step in, taking it out of private hands and establishing the Wayne national forest in an attempt to prevent further degradation. In the decades since, maple, oak and other hardwood trees have taken over, returning to nature a region previously better known for extraction. Continue reading...