Environment | The Guardian

Researchers are seeing an increase in nests as restrictions keep humans and harmful waste off beachesMarine life researchers in Florida say that coronavirus restrictions keeping humans and harmful waste off beaches are having a beneficial effect on the numbers of endangered leatherback sea turtles in the state.With the summer nesting season barely two weeks old, staff from the Loggerhead MarineLife Center in Juno Beach have already found and marked 76 nests of the world’s largest species of sea turtle on the nine and half mile stretch they monitor, a “significant” increase from the same stage last year. Continue reading...

Ships able to carry 2m barrels chartered for $335,000 a day to store oil unwanted during the Covid-19 pandemicGiant oil tankers are being used to hold record amounts of crude at sea due to a global oversupply that threatens to overwhelm the world’s storage facilities.A record 160m barrels of oil has been stored in “supergiant” oil tankers outside the world’s largest shipping ports following the deepest fall in oil demand in 25 years because of the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...

As the 50th anniversary of Earth Day approaches, we’re partnering with newsrooms around the world to report on solutions to the climate crisis – and drive hopeEven as the coronavirus pandemic terrorizes the world, there’s another global emergency the media can’t afford to stop covering.Fifty years ago this week, the environmental movement staged the first Earth Day demonstration to call attention to environmental degradation and demand reform. In the half century since, climate change has emerged as an existential global threat. Continue reading...

When a bear starts feeding off garbage and loses its fear of humans it is quickly shot but an unlikely conservation partnership may be setting a different pathIn early April, a young grizzly bear swam through the chilly waters off the western coast of Canada in search of food.Related: Groggy grizzly bear caught emerging from hibernation in viral video Continue reading...

BP denied the oil reached Mexico, but fisherman and scientists knew it wasn’t true. Ten years on, Mexican communities haven’t received a cent in compensation

Miners with black lung struggle during the pandemic with layoffs, benefit cuts and the threat of a virus that would almost certainly kill them

The Deepwater Horizon devastated the ecology and economy from Texas to Florida but BP-funded recovery programs are ongoing and the sector is a big employerWhen the explosion ripped through the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, Leo Linder was standing in his living quarters in his underwear. He suddenly found himself facing a fellow rig worker in what had been a separate room because the force of the explosion had blown the walls away.Linder wasn’t to know it at the time but the blast was to trigger the worst environment disaster in US history, with the BP operation spewing more than 4.9m barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling hundreds of miles of shoreline from Texas to Florida, decimating wildlife and crippling local fishing and tourism industries. Continue reading...

Chevron’s treatment of Steven Donziger branded ‘an exceptionally bad case of intimidation’Twenty-nine Nobel laureates have condemned alleged “judicial harassment” by Chevron and urged the release of a US environmental lawyer who was put under house arrest for pursuing oil-spill compensation claims on behalf of indigenous tribes in the Amazon.The open letter signed by scientists, authors, environmentalists and human rights activists said the treatment of lawyer Steven Donziger, whose movements have been restricted for more than 250 days, was one of the world’s most egregious cases of judicial harassment and defamation. Continue reading...

UK food producers find innovative ways to sell produce during lockdown

Sixty birds shot at England training facility in St George’s Park, Staffordshire, despite pledge to enrich local biodiversityAbout 60 greylag geese were shot and killed at the national training centre for England football teams from 2018 to 2019 to “preserve safety” because they were defecating on the pitches.The Football Association said the birds – which it shot after obtaining a licence to kill – also left large amounts of excrement in public areas, and this not only heightened the risk of people slipping over but also raised the possibility of harmful parasites spreading. Continue reading...

Amid lockdown, millions of internet users are tuning in to interactive data-crunching projects

With pest controllers in lockdown and a population surge last year, the vermin are free to wreak havoc in populated areas, and on native wildlife

The pick of the world’s best flora and fauna photos, including bald eagles and roaming wild boar Continue reading...

Producers forced to shut rigs as demand slumps and US market drops below $18 a barrelThe US shale industry is expected to shrink by more than 2m barrels a day following a collapse in global oil prices which has forced oil producers to shut down their fracking rigs.The US oil market slumped to fresh 18-year lows and below $18 a barrel on Friday following one of the biggest hikes in US oil stocks on record as demand for oil continues to fall and storage facilities near their limits. The international benchmark oil price fell to $28 a barrel. Continue reading...

Contract length, farm location and caring duties cited as reasons for turning down work

UK wildlife watchdog under fire as conservationists say decision ‘sends wrong message’Conservationists have condemned the decision to allow falconers to take wild peregrine falcon chicks from nests as “selfish” and “sending the wrong message”.For the first time ever this year, Natural England, the government’s wildlife watchdog, will allow the taking of six chicks from peregrine nests to help falconers establish a lucrative new “studbook” of British falcons. Continue reading...

From tar sands oil to aviation, global business sectors have called for suspension of environmental protections

Dedicated conservationists are striving to save the North Atlantic right whale – believed to be down to 400 individuals as ships and fishing gear take their toll“You can’t work on North Atlantic right whales and be a pessimist,” Clay George tells me. He’s a senior wildlife biologist and right whale specialist at Georgia’s department of natural resources, and one of the only people in the south formally trained to disentangle a whale from fishing gear.Right whales are known to spend most of their time near the surface of the water, feeding and socializing. This behavior leaves them vulnerable to boat strikes and entanglement in fishing lines, almost exclusively the cause of their deaths. Continue reading...

Leaders condemn backing of global sectors that disregard green economy goals

Mick Keelty’s review urges governments to stop playing politics with the basin and calls for greater transparency on water sharingThe amount of water in the Murray river system is now only about half of what it was in the preceding century and the frequency of dry years has increased, a much-awaited report has found.The report by the interim inspector general of the Murray-Darling Basin Water Resource, Mick Keelty, has rejected a widely held view in the southern basin that the current conditions there are “a man made drought” brought on by the policies of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and unfair extractions in the northern basin. Continue reading...

Delaying freshwater reform would be a disastrous step backwards and could be the final nail in the coffin for our rivers, lakes and wetlandsNew Zealand is blessed with water. Fresh water flows from our snow and glacier-clad mountains, through our farms and cities, to the sea. Rivers have deep cultural values and one, the Whanganui, has been recognised as having the rights of a person. For Kiwis, our economy, our health, and our way of life depends on clean water.But our dependence on fresh water has not stopped decades of abuse. Now, our rivers and lakes are in serious trouble. On Thursday, a wide-ranging, data-driven report into the state of New Zealand’s rivers, lakes and freshwater ecosystems was released by two government departments, the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics NZ. Their findings, delivered during a nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, couldn’t be more alarming. Our freshwater ecosystems are at breaking point; the damage is overwhelming and in some cases irreversible. Continue reading...

Scores of amateur writers describe the arrival of new season in fields and gardensSome wrote in praise of the signs of spring glimpsed through windows or from balconies while others focused on the birds, the bees and the unfurling leaves spotted during outings for permitted exercise.Scores of amateur authors have taken part in a spring nature diary project to document the early days of the new season, with most clearly taking solace and finding some hope in flora and fauna at this most challenging of times. Continue reading...

Activists say inclusion of oil firms’ debts in bond scheme breaks new governor’s promisesThe Bank of England has been accused of failing to live up to its tough talk on the climate crisis after it revealed it would buy debt from oil companies as part of its coronavirus stimulus programme.The oil firms BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total are among the companies whose subsidiaries’ debts are eligible for the Bank’s bond purchases, according to an indicative list published on its website this week. Continue reading...

Exclusive: experiment uses a modified turbine to spray trillions of nano-sized salt crystals into the air from a bargeScientists have carried out a trial of prototype cloud brightening equipment on the Great Barrier Reef they hope could be scaled up to shade and cool corals and protect them from bleaching caused by rising global temperatures.The experiment used a modified turbine with 100 high-pressure nozzles to spray trillions of nano-sized ocean salt crystals into the air from the back of a barge. Continue reading...

As farms struggle under Covid-19, NFU says furloughed workers keen to join paid ‘land army’The leader of the UK’s biggest farming organisation says she is optimistic that British workers will come forward to rescue the harvest and keep the nation fed, instead of having to rely on flying in overseas workers.“A lot of signs are optimistic and we have really positive news,” said Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union. “We are hearing people are very keen [to work on farms]. There does seem to be a real swell of support from people to do this.” Continue reading...

Our global, profit-driven, meat-centered food system is making us sick. We need a radical rethinkIt was bats. Or pangolins. To hear common narratives about the origins of Covid-19, there is a simple causal relationship between China’s consumption of wild animals and the coronavirus ravaging the globe.Dr Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top epidemiologist, told Fox: “It boggles my mind how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human-animal interface, that we don’t just shut it down.” His opinion echoes a growing chorus across the political spectrum that singles out China’s so-called “wet markets” as the culprit for the pandemic. The Republican senator Lindsey Graham has called the Chinese exotic animal trade “disgusting” and conservationist Jane Goodall has called for “a global ban”. Continue reading...

Pollution-busting clean air zones in cities have been put on hold, as authorities tackle coronavirus

Firm to cut carbon intensity by selling more green energy but critics say first step must be to stop new drillingRoyal Dutch Shell plans to become a net zero-carbon company by 2050 or sooner by selling more green energy to help reduce the carbon intensity of its business.Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, said the company must focus on the long-term “even at this time of immediate challenge” caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

Hundreds of workers pass through Ajo, Arizona, daily. Residents say they have been partying and visiting stores in large groups

Welcome to our monthly roundup of the biggest issues in farming and food production, with must-read reports from around the webPigs and poultry are likely to be safe from Covid-19, according to German scientists, whose study showed that while fruit bats and ferrets were susceptible to infection, pigs and chickens were not. Coronaviruses have devastated farm animals in the past. Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV) killed nearly 25,000 piglets in China in 2016–17.

Half of real carbon footprint comes from ‘invisible’ cost of goods made overseas – study

Discoveries exposed by retreating ice include snowshoe for horses and bronze age skiThe retreat of a Norwegian mountain ice patch, which is melting because of climate change, has revealed a lost Viking-era mountain pass scattered with “spectacular” and perfectly preserved artefacts that had been dropped by the side of the road.The pass, at Lendbreen in Norway’s mountainous central region, first came to the attention of local archaeologists in 2011, after a woollen tunic was discovered that was later dated to the third or fourth century AD. The ice has retreated significantly in the years since, exposing a wealth of artefacts including knitted mittens, leather shoes and arrows still with their feathers attached. Continue reading...

Deforestation and climate change threaten the Achuar people’s existence - but a genealogy site is trying to protect its futureThe Amazon rainforest has been home to the Achuar people for thousands of years. Skilled hunters and fishermen, they have a spiritual connection with nature and consider themselves the forest’s greatest protectors.Life is governed by their ancestors, with family history passed down orally from generation to generation. Yet traditions are being undermined as the young are tempted away by modernity, while their fragile ecosystem faces man-made destruction. Continue reading...

Campaigners welcomed Wednesday’s ruling as a victory for tribal rights and environmental protectionThe controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has been dealt a major setback, after a judge revoked a key permit issued by the US army corps of engineers without properly assessing the impact on endangered species.In a legal challenge brought by a coalition of environmental groups, a federal judge in Montana ordered the army corps to suspend all filling and dredging activities until it conducts formal consultations compliant with the Endangered Species Act. Continue reading...

Six organisations raise concerns with environment minister Sussan Ley about the impact of the bushfires and coronavirusSome of Australia’s biggest environmental organisations have asked the government to delay the completion of its statutory review of Australia’s national environment laws.Six groups – the Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF, the Wilderness Society, Environmental Justice Australia, Humane Society International and Birdlife Australia – have raised concerns with the environment minister, Sussan Ley, about the impact of the bushfire and coronavirus crises on the review process. Continue reading...

Australian government to back 43 concepts in ambitious $150m research and development programBrightening clouds with salt crystals and deploying slicks of coral larvae to try and limit the impacts of global heating on the Great Barrier Reef are among more than 40 concepts being backed by the Australian government in an ambitious $150m research and development program.A two-year feasibility study released by the government on Thursday has reduced about 160 potential ideas to a list of 43 that will be funded for further investigation under the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP). Continue reading...

Charter flights organised after appeal fails to recruit enough British workers

Cultural nuance and wider view of supply chain ignored in debate following Covid-19 outbreak, say those proposing regulation over ban

Wildlife conservation efforts are essential to preventing outbreaks, scientists and advocates say

Queen guitarist and new vegan says ‘eating animals has brought us to our knees as a species’ despite source of pandemic still unclear

With numbers plummeting and food hard to find, African penguins face a bleak future – but a novel conservation plan is under wayIt’s amazing to see wild creatures in their natural homes,” says Gaja Rojec, as she sits next to a group of African penguins that don’t seem at all bothered by her presence. It is late January 2020, and the Slovenian film-maker is just one of about 800,000 people who have visited Boulders Beach on South Africa’s Cape Peninsula every year to get up close to these charismatic flightless birds.At Boulders, just over an hour’s drive south of central Cape Town, African penguins swim, loaf around and breed within a few metres of visitors, who can even get into the water with them. Penguins normally nest on offshore islands, but this small beach is surrounded by houses which form a barrier to land-based predators such as caracal lynxes and baboons, making it a “pseudo island” where the birds feel safe. They have bred here since the early 1980s, and it’s now part of the Table Mountain national park. Continue reading...

Along with up to 30 new marine species, scientists have found a 150-ft example of a siphonophore, a string-like deep-sea predatorScientists exploring the deep sea off Australia’s coast have discovered as many as 30 new marine species – and what may be the longest animal ever seen.The discoveries were the result of expeditions into Western Australia’s underwater canyons. One of the biggest discoveries was a siphonophore measuring an estimated 150 feet (46 metres). Siphonophores are deep-sea predators made up of many small clones that act together as one and spread out like a single long string in the water. Researchers think this particular siphonophore may be the longest yet found. Continue reading...

EPA chief Wheeler says current soot regulations are adequate despite research that shows stricter rules could save thousands of livesThe Trump administration has said it will not tighten rules for soot pollution, despite research showing that doing so could save thousands of lives each year.Related: Coronavirus US live: Cuomo says Trump cannot order New York to reopen Continue reading...

Global economy could lose out by $600tn by end of century on current emissions targetsEvery country in the world would be economically better off if all could agree to strengthen their commitments on the climate crisis through international cooperation, new research has found.But if countries go no further than their current CO pledges – which are too weak to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, and would lead to dangerous levels of global heating – then they face steep economic losses. Continue reading...

Scientists say the rapid change could have negative effects on fisheries and aquaculture, and impact coastal vegetationWater in estuaries along 1,100km of Australia’s south-east coast warmed by more than 2C between 2007 and 2019, a new study finds.The rapid change could have negative effects on fisheries and aquaculture, as well as impact coastal vegetation such as mangroves, scientists behind the study said. Continue reading...

Dame Jane Goodall also reveals Duke of Sussex is finding departure from UK ‘a bit challenging’The British primatologist Dame Jane Goodall believes the Duke of Sussex will give up hunting because of his wife’s dislike for the sport, and thinks he has been finding life “a bit challenging” since the couple moved to North America.Goodall, 86, a friend of the pair who has been a guest at their Frogmore Cottage home in Windsor, said in an interview with the Radio Times that Harry and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, were champions of the natural world – “except they hunt and shoot”. Continue reading...

Witnesses accuse government of covering up severity of blaze near site of nuclear disasterWildfires in Ukraine have spread to just over a mile from the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant and a disposal site for radioactive waste, according to activists, as more than 300 firefighters work to contain the blaze.A video posted by a Chernobyl tour operator showed flames and a cloud of smoke rising within sight of the protective shelter over the carcass of Chernobyl’s Unit 4 nuclear reactor, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. Continue reading...

Italian, Spanish and Greek farmers set to lose billions unless drastic action is taken to combat bacterium that has killed millions of trees