Environment | The Guardian

City has cleared 8,414 trees in last three years – twice as many as any other authorityNewcastle has become the tree-felling capital of the UK after the council chopped down almost twice as many trees as any other local authority.More than 110,000 trees have been cut down by councils across the UK in the last three years, according to figures gathered under the Freedom of Information (FOI) act by the Sunday Times. Some 8,414 were in Newcastle, more than in any other rural or urban local authority. Wiltshire was next, having felled 4,778 in the same period, followed by Edinburgh with 4,435. Continue reading...

Guy Smith says it’s unfair to point the finger at farming as the cause of environmental damage, Iain Climie addresses food wastage and Dr Blake Alcott says the most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is to not reproduceOne fundamental point has been overlooked by Kevin Rushby in his article about the plight of the countryside due to agriculture (The killing fields, G2, 31 May). There has been no intensification of agriculture in the UK for 25 years.Government statistics show pesticide and fertiliser use has been significantly reduced. There are fewer crops grown and the numbers of pigs, sheep and cattle have fallen. So to point the finger at farming as the cause of environmental degradation through intensification makes no sense, especially when you consider the other changes that have taken place in that time – increased housebuilding, more roads, and more cars on those roads – and the impact they have had on the country’s landscape. Continue reading...

With 32 million visitors expected this year, fears grow that the country cannot copeGreece is braced for another bumper year. The tourists will not stop coming. For every one of its citizens, three foreign visitors – 32 million in total – will arrive this year, more than at any other time since records began.It’s an extraordinary feat for a country that has battled with bankruptcy, at times has been better known for its protests and riots and, only three years ago, narrowly escaped euro ejection. Tourism is the heavy industry that has helped keep catastrophe at bay. Continue reading...

Sustainability is intrinsic and not an afterthought for many designers taking part in this year’s eventThe future of fashion is sustainable if graduate fashion week is anything to go by. The annual four-day event event at London’s Old Truman Brewery comprises installations, catwalk shows and two prize-giving ceremonies and promises to uncover the torchbearers of “considered design”, according to the event’s creative and managing director, Martyn Roberts.Roberts believes that graduates can help existing fashion houses and retailers tap into “what a new generation of consumers want”. As brands from every echelon seek to improve their social, economic and environmental impact, graduate fashion week, says Roberts, is where many companies are looking for creatives for whom sustainability is intrinsic, as opposed to an afterthought, to show them how it’s done. Continue reading...

When a tsunami hit the nuclear plant, thousands fled. Many never returned – but has the radiation risk been exaggerated?Shunichi Yamashita knows a lot of about the health effects of radiation. But he is a pariah in his home country of Japan, because he insists on telling those evacuated after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident that the hazards are much less than they suppose. Could he be right?Yamashita was born in Nagasaki in 1952, seven years after the world’s second atomic weapon obliterated much of the city. “My mother was 16 years old when the bomb dropped and she was two miles away,” he told me at his office in the city, where he still lives with his mother, who is now 88. Continue reading...

Reintroduction programmes of animals driven from their once-natural habits are a cause for optimismIn May, Dutch and Romanian European bison reintroduction programmes were declared successful after several years of conservation efforts. The Dutch project began back in 2007; the wild cattle had been extinct in that region for two centuries. Now, though, both national parks in question are reaping great environmental benefits from the bisons’ grazing, with a consequent flourishing of flora and fauna. Continue reading...

Climate change has caused a catastrophic drop in the numbers of terns, kittiwakes and puffinsSumburgh Head lies at the southern tip of mainland Shetland. This dramatic 100-metre-high rocky spur, crowned with a lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s grandfather, has a reputation for being one of the biggest and most accessible seabird colonies in Britain.Thousands of puffins, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars gather there every spring to breed, covering almost every square inch of rock or grass with teeming, screeching birds and their young. Continue reading...

As solar farms spread across the central agricultural regions of the sunshine state, opponents are becoming increasingly vocalColin Ash has spent a working lifetime in the cane fields near the Pioneer River in central Queensland, out past Marian, where the mill has processed sugar for more than 130 years.“You can’t get sentimental about things,” he says from the front seat of his truck as he drives slowly around the boundary of his property. “You’ve got to pay your bills.” Continue reading...

Pilot whale was found barely alive in Thai canal and vomited up five bags during fruitless rescue attemptsA whale has died in southern Thailand after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags, with rescuers failing to nurse the mammal back to health.

A 10-year fight between a group of residents and the East Gippsland shire council over grey-headed flying foxes is heating up againThe Australian town of Bairnsdale in Victoria – 300km east of Melbourne – is known as the gateway to east Gippsland’s natural wonders. It is also the scene of a 10-year battle between a group of residents and the East Gippsland shire council over a colony of grey-headed flying foxes that roost along the town’s Mitchell River.

Before the latest auction figures, Adam Morton investigates the plan Turnbull once called ‘a recipe for fiscal recklessness’At some point in June, the Australian government will announce it has spent up to $2.3bn over three years on a scheme that the prime minister believes is a reckless waste of public money.Related: Land-clearing wipes out $1bn taxpayer-funded emissions gains Continue reading...

Start Point, Devon: Spider crabs rub pieces of seaweed against the backs of their shells until they stick, creating remarkable camouflageThe combe above the beach echoes with the calls of chiffchaffs, and cock stonechats flick and churr on the wind-stunted hawthorns that line the footpath. Around the twin radio masts – a 20th-century riposte to Start Point’s whitewashed gothic lighthouse – a small flock of swallows cut and swerve.Beneath the sea there are signs of spring too. Common spider crabs (Maja brachydactyla), which have been overwintering in the depths, start to appear close to shore, a sight that has become a feature of my first sea swims of the year. Continue reading...

Environment minister says up to 2,500 wild horses are causing ‘significant damage’ to plant and animal speciesThe Victorian government has signed off on a plan to remove more than 1,200 feral horses from the Alpine national park, saying the impact of the animals on sensitive ecosystems has reached critical levels.Two weeks ago the New South Wales government announced a proposal to protect Kosciuszko national park brumbies, which conservation advocates have labelled a “disaster” for Australia’s environmental heritage. Continue reading...

Energy firm obtains expanded injunction ahead of plans to begin large-scale fracking at Preston New Road siteA major energy firm has secured an expanded injunction against protesters after it took a big step towards starting fracking on a substantial scale.Cuadrilla Resources went to court to obtain the injunction against all campaigners who opposed its drilling operations at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire. The injunction was granted on Friday on a temporary basis amid growing criticism of the corporate use of injunctions to counter protests. At least five companies have chosen to use them as legal weapons in this way. Continue reading...

Christiana Figueres was also scathing of those who say it is inevitable that the global warming limit set out in the Paris agreement will be brokenBusinesses are moving forward faster than ever on climate change despite the intransigence of US president Donald Trump, the former climate chief of the UN has said.“There is a big difference between the economics of climate change and the politics of climate change,” said Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change, who oversaw the landmark Paris agreement on climate change. Continue reading...

Blue-throated bee-eaters, a baby anteater and a dehydrated fruitbat are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Four Greenpeace activists climb down into Total's AGM to protest against the oil company’s plans to drill in the mouth of the Amazon and French Guiana. The abseilers descended as the Total chief executive, Patrick Pouyanné, began his presentation, while many people protested outside the venue

Activists join about 250 others who oppose drilling in Amazon and French GuianaMore than 250 Greenpeace activists hijacked Total’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Paris to protest at the oil company’s plans to drill in the mouth of the Amazon and French Guiana.Four activists descended by ropes from the ceiling above the stage, as the Total chief executive, Patrick Pouyanné, began his presentation, with at least 20 more gaining access to the Palais des Congrès. Some of the activists chained themselves to fixtures in the hall with the proceedings disrupted by chants and the blowing of whistles. The remainder of the 250-strong group protested outside the venue. Continue reading...

Leaked documents reveal discarded proposals to ward off antibiotic resistance through closer scrutiny of drug firmsThe EU has scrapped plans for a clampdown on pharmaceutical pollution that contributes to the spread of deadly superbugs.

Andrew Garn is a native New Yorker who grew up surrounded by the city’s ubiquitous pigeons. For over a decade he has photographed, rehabilitated and observed the birds, documenting the entire spectrum of their development from newborn “squeakers” to fully fledged adults. The New York Pigeon: Behind the Feathers by Andrew Garn, with text by Emily S Rueb and Rita McMahon, is published by powerHouse Books and available in the UK at The Guardian Bookshop Continue reading...

It’s not perfect, but the city has ambitious plans for cycling, and the Festival of Cycling offers a chance to celebrate progressIn theory, Edinburgh might not look like the perfect city for cycling. Apart from the weather there are the (in)famous hills, then there’s the … (add your own excuses here.) But things are changing.Currently the city council is committing 10% of its transport budget to cycling, a first for a UK city, as well as introducing 20mph speed limits across a large area. And in September, Edinburgh will finally be getting its own bikeshare scheme, which will include a proportion of e-bikes to help beat the hills.

Bronkham Hill, Dorset: The wind pours larksong over the humps and bumps of a bronze age barrow cemeteryThe sound of chiffchaffs shouting in the woods falls away as I follow the South Dorset Ridgeway upwards to the high chalk. The way is starred with white stitchwort running through clumps of shocking-pink campion and the last of the bluebells. Continue reading...

Cities, states and companies are taking their own steps on behalf of the planet. But their power to minimize Trump’s damage is limitedDonald Trump barely had time to leave a sun-drenched Rose Garden after announcing the US exit from the historic Paris climate change agreement before the backlash began. Continue reading...

Workers say they are taking action in response to vast amount of windfarms being constructed in their watersThe Netherlands may be the land of the windmill, but fishermen are planning a major protest on Saturday against the Dutch government’s latest wind turbine construction in the North Sea, with an armada of fishing boats sailing into Amsterdam.After alighting from at least 15 boats at the back of Amsterdam’s central station, it is understood that hundreds of fishermen will march to the capital’s Damrak canal, where they will upend bags of small fish deemed too small for sale by the EU, and cover them with red dye. Continue reading...

Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock - it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmlandAvoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet.The new research shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% – an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined – and still feed the world. Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of the current mass extinction of wildlife. Continue reading...

New total represents an increase of 25% since 2010 in its central African heartlandIt is one of the most recognisable animals in the world and one of the most endangered, but a new census reveals the surviving mountain gorilla population has now risen above 1,000.This represents a rise of 25% since 2010 in its heartland of the Virunga Massif in central Africa. It also marks success for intensive conservation work in a region riven by armed conflict, and where six park guards were murdered in April. Continue reading...

Residents use social media to beg holidaymakers to avoid area as supply runs dryResidents of the picturesque Indian hill station Shimla are begging tourists to stay away amid a severe drinking water shortage that is being compared to Cape Town’s water crisis.The Himalayan city was the former summer capital of the British Raj and continues to be popular with Indians fleeing scorching summers on the Gangetic plain. Water supplies have been critically low for at least the past three years but ran out completely on 20 May. Continue reading...

Security forces launch raids linked to deforestation in the Carpathian mountains, home to some of Europe’s last virgin forestRomania’s security forces have mounted a series of raids to break up an alleged €25m illegal logging ring, in what is believed to be the largest operation of its kind yet seen in Europe.

We’d like to hear about – and see pictures of – the small things you are doing to encourage nature where you liveNaturalist Patrick Barkham wrote in the Guardian this week about the principles of rewilding – stepping back and allowing natural processes to occur, and encouraging wild plants and insects.

Melbourne bird survey supports research suggesting native species thrive better if planning includes environmental reserves, rather than backyardsThe outskirts of Melbourne are a maze of newly-paved culs-de-sac. Freestanding homes twist in on each other, filling the footprint of their small street blocks.On the other side of the road, short wooden stakes have been tied with fluorescent tape to mark out the next development. Continue reading...

Booker prize-winning author predicts climate reality will not be far from scenarios imagined in her post-apocalyptic fictionClimate change will bring a dystopian future reminiscent of one of her “speculative fictions”, with women bearing the brunt of brutal repression, hunger and war, the Booker prize-winning author Margaret Atwood is to warn.“This isn’t climate change – it’s everything change,” she will tell an audience at the British Library this week. “Women will be directly and adversely affected by climate change.” Continue reading...

Green groups welcome decision as a sign of a larger trend away from fossil fuels towards renewables• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon Plans to expand a coal port in Newcastle, New South Wales, have been scrapped by the developer because demand for coal has not increased enough to support the project.Port Waratah Coal Services said on Thursday it would allow its lease for the T4 terminal to lapse when it expired next year because the capacity of existing terminals was likely to be sufficient for future growth in coal exports. Continue reading...

Queensland environment department will investigate but New Hope denies allegations• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon Queensland’s environment department is investigating claims that the mining company New Hope expanded existing operations at its New Acland coalmine without permission.The state environment department confirmed on Thursday it was investigating New Hope’s controversial mine, west of Brisbane, but the company insisted the complaints were part of a campaign against it. Continue reading...

Australia is one of the few countries in the world where hives are free of the debilitating varroa miteThe soaring price of Australian beeswax could be bad news for local beard owners – and good news for scammers – as demand for high-quality beeswax heats up.New uses for the wax – from cosmetics to food wraps – and the comparative health of Australia’s bees have driven the export price of Australian beeswax up in the global marketplace. Continue reading...

With no spectators, no bags of freebies and no medals, the 400km London-Wales-London ride provides a welcome antidote to overblown sportives“Cycling far?” asks a woman in the bakery as a group of us queues for coffee and sausage rolls, as well as an all-important receipt to prove we passed through Tewkesbury.Increasing numbers of cyclists are getting bored with 100-mile sportives and looking for something else Continue reading...

Coalition says phosphate exploration would have had unacceptable impact on endangered seabirdThe Turnbull government has knocked back a controversial phosphate exploration proposal on Christmas Island “because it is likely to have significant and unacceptable impacts on matters protected under national environment law”.Phosphate Resources Limited – the owners of a phosphate mine on Christmas Island – had proposed to clear 6.83ha of land and undertake exploration drilling along 44 survey lines in an effort to determine the extent of the additional phosphate resources on Christmas Island. Continue reading...

Comins Coch, Ceredigion: Meadow grasses and flowers have grown in abundance, but the trees have been slow to greenIn the pasture beside the lane, dandelions have already set seed, their spherical heads intact and waiting for the right gust of wind to break the seeds free and disperse them across the village like invading paratroopers. The meadow grasses and wild flowers have grown rapidly in confused abundance, but the crown of the oak tree across the field remains more defined by the framework of branches than by new foliage. Possibly the sudden drop in temperature that preceded the late snow selectively stalled development.Further uphill the old meadow was marked by fresh molehills among the rushes and the lady’s smock, showing where these stolid hunters have been clearing and extending their shallow runs. The activity of their favoured prey, earthworms, is triggered by rising temperature and an attractive level of soil moisture – conditions that have apparently been satisfied. Continue reading...

There is nothing logical about the Kinder Morgan pipeline – especially not the decision to gut environmental laws for itThe twists and turns in the saga of the Kinder Morgan pipeline just took a turn for the seriously weird today, but the path has never been clear.

Benjamin Mancroft says Labour allowed its prejudice that all hunting people were toffs to blind it to the realities of managing foxes. Plus letters from Andrew Barker, Karen Lloyd, Ian Coghill and Philip MerricksThere is growing anecdotal evidence that the fox population in lowland rural Britain is in sharp decline (Is Britain’s fox population in decline?, Shortcuts, G2, 23 May). This is not because they are short of food, and thus in need of feeding on roadkill by Chris Packham or anybody else.Professor Stephens of Durham University is right that “fox populations appear to have dropped specifically within the past 15 or 20 years”, ie since the enactment of the ban on fox-hunting in 2004. Nor is he wrong when he suggests that “people who were enthusiastic about hunting would often encourage fox populations”. More accurately, this means that they provided habitat (which benefited all wildlife), observed a closed season to allow foxes to breed and rear their cubs in peace, and practised a method of culling that encouraged survival of the fittest and removed the surplus numbers required to maintain a level population. The existence of hunts also acted as a deterrent to those wishing to shoot foxes indiscriminately and all year round with rifles which have significantly increased in accuracy and range over the past 15 years. Continue reading...

There are several ways to embrace nature – no matter the size of your plotRewilding excites people with its images of wolves and ambition to return entire landscapes to nature as humans withdraw after centuries of domination. But the grandeur of rewilding can also make the concept seem remote or irrelevant to people living ever more urban lives.To declare we are rewilding our garden, or window box, is probably a contradiction in terms and risks cheapening this important conservation concept. But there are principles of rewilding – stepping back and allowing natural processes to occur, and encouraging wild plants and insects – which we can all embrace. The most relevant rewilding idea for us urban beings? Let go, and reduce our micromanagement of whatever small patch of earth we own, rent or enjoy and influence. Continue reading...

For farmers planting crops they hope will bear fruit in 25 years – including avocado trees – climate change must be reckoned with nowChris Sayer pushed his way through avocado branches and grasped a denuded limb. It was stained black, as if someone had ladled tar over its bark. In February, the temperature had dropped below freezing for three hours, killing the limb. The thick leaves had shriveled and fallen away, exposing the green avocados, which then burned in the sun. Sayer estimated he’d lost one out of every 20 avocados on his farm in Ventura, just 50 miles north of Los Angeles, but he counts himself lucky. Continue reading...

Purchasing huge tracts of land in Chile and Argentina, former clothing tycoons Doug and Kristine Tompkins have led a quarter century-long effort to reintroduce threatened and locally extinct species to the wilds of South AmericaDuring an elegant dinner in the wilds of Patagonia, Kris Tompkins suddenly remembered the fresh guanaco carcass down the road. She rose from the table and drove us to the nearby grasslands of Patagonia national park, gushing about the possibility of staying up all night with a torch in hope of spying a mountain lion come to feast on the dead llama-like creature. Continue reading...

New index finds many of the world’s largest protein producers failing to measure or report emissions, despite accounting for 14.5% of greenhouse gasesMeat and fish companies may be “putting the implementation of the Paris agreement in jeopardy” by failing to properly report their climate emissions, according to a groundbreaking index launched today.Three out of four (72%) of the world’s biggest meat and fish companies provided little or no evidence to show that they were measuring or reporting their emissions, despite the fact that, as the report points out, livestock production represents 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

Conservationists call for end of ‘abhorrent’ whaling programme, which Japan argues is conducted for scientific purposesMore than 120 pregnant whales were killed during Japan’s annual “research” hunt in the Southern Ocean last summer, a new report has revealed.

Those still at the agency fear climate science funding will be cut since it is now considered a ‘sensitive subject’

Newly reintroduced chequered skippers are fluttering about Rockingham forest as other butterflies emerge in the sunlightButterfly lovers’ emotions tend to boom and bust like butterfly populations. Two weeks of sunshine in my part of the world and my heart’s lifted by plentiful orange tips, small whites and brimstones, while last summer’s peacocks gamely fly on. Alongside a decent abundance of common species there’s the exciting addition of 41 chequered skippers from the continent, now enjoying the warm glades of Rockingham forest, Northamptonshire.The chequered skippers – males and females collected in Belgium – have been reintroduced as part of the Back from the Brink project, after the species became extinct in England following the hot summer of 1976. (A similar summer would be too dry for this species’ caterpillars, which need moisture to survive.) Continue reading...

Data confirms that reptiles use Coral Sea as a highway between their nesting beaches and feeding groundsCritically endangered hawksbill turtles that nest on islands east of Papua New Guinea have been tracked moving across parts of the Coral Sea marine park where the Australian government wants to allow commercial fishing, conservationists have found.Ten of the turtles were tagged at the privately owned Conflict Islands in early January, with seven swimming across the Coral Sea to the Great Barrier Reef to feed. Continue reading...

2017 was a standout year for renewables, the Clean Energy Council says as it calls for ‘policy certainty’ in 2018• Sign up to receive the latest news in Australian politics every weekdayThe emissions reduction target in the national energy guarantee is too low to encourage the development of renewable energy projects on a scale sufficient to drive down power prices as Australia’s ageing coal plants retire, according to the Clean Energy Council.A new report from the council, to be released on Wednesday, says 2017 was a standout year for the renewable energy industry, with the largest domestic rollout of rooftop solar in history, and 16 large-scale renewable energy projects completed, adding 700 megawatts of new generation to the mix. Continue reading...

My mother, Pat Callaghan, was a champion of urban wildlife who was dedicated to making sure people in towns and cities had access to green spaces. With the help of many others she ran “urban safaris” to demonstrate that the environment is not just a matter for rural areas. As chair of Staffordshire Wildlife Trust (1995-2007) she also helped to promote and shape new ideas about conservation.Pat, who has died aged 86, had a background in radio broadcasting – she worked on the Countrywise programme for BBC Radio Stoke – and her communication skills allowed her to forge many partnerships. She worked tirelessly to foster links between environmental projects, agricultural organisations and grassroots community groups. She also helped to establish the National Forest, a project to plant trees across 200 square miles of central England. Continue reading...

Finance minister says ‘this is an investment in Canada’s future’ and says pipeline will and must be builtCanada’s federal government has announced it will buy a controversial pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific coast to ensure it gets built.The country’s finance minister, Bill Morneau, said on Tuesday that Justin Trudeau’s government will spend C$4.5bn (US$3.45bn) to purchase Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. Continue reading...