High court order bans eight campaigners from ancient woodland in west LondonThe transport secretary, Chris Grayling, has been granted an injunction banning campaigners opposed to the construction of the HS2 line on an area of ancient woodland in west London from “unlawful protest” on the site. Continue reading...

Expired, unfinished or undeveloped: conservationists call for more transparency and accountability in species management systemsLess than 40% of Australia’s nationally-listed threatened species have recovery plans in place to secure their long-term survival.And close to 10% of listed threatened species are identified as requiring plans to manage their protection but the documents are either unfinished or haven’t been developed, according to data published by the environment and energy department. Continue reading...

Huge rise in air temperature above north pole will allow chilly winds from eastern Europe to blast UK, Met Office warnsBritain will be gripped by a potentially lengthy cold snap as sudden stratospheric warming looks poised to cause temperatures to tumble.

From rising temperatures preventing take-off to rising seas flooding runways, aviation needs to adapt to changes already grounding flights around the worldPhoenix gets hot. But not usually as hot as last June, when the mercury at the airport one day soared above 48C. That exceeded the maximum operating temperature for several aircraft ready for take-off. They didn’t fly. More than 50 flights were cancelled or rerouted.Thanks to climate change, soon 48C may not seem so unusual. Welcome to the precarious future of aviation in a changing climate. As the world warms and weather becomes more extreme, aircraft designers, airport planners and pilots must all respond, both in the air and on the ground. With about 100,000 flights worldwide carrying eight million passengers every day, this is a big deal. Continue reading...

Director of Third Energy, which wants to frack in North Yorkshire, is Conservative donorCampaigners have accused the Treasury of allowing the appearance of a conflict of interest over its examination of an energy company at the forefront of fracking in the UK.Third Energy’s financial health is being looked at by a Treasury body, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), whose findings will inform whether the government gives the firm a green light. Continue reading...

Current temperatures are hotter than at any time in the history of human civilization

Emily Eavis says festival is working on ‘enormous project’ to ban plastic bottles on site when it returns after year off in 2018Glastonbury festival is to implement a site-wide ban on plastic bottles when it returns in 2019. “It’s an enormous project; it’s taking a lot of time to tackle with all the different people we work with,” organiser Emily Eavis told BBC 6 Music.In 2014, Glastonbury introduced environmentally friendly stainless steel bottles and water kiosks for the cost-free refill of any kind of receptacle, followed in 2016 by stainless steel pint cups designed to be “non-aerodynamic, to minimise injuries from throwing”. Use of these containers was optional. Glastonbury organisers have previously estimated that 1m plastic bottles are used during the event. Continue reading...

Laws banning protest were overturned following legal challenge by Bob BrownThe Tasmanian Liberal government has promised to introduce new anti-protest laws to replace those struck out by the high court if it is returned to power next month.

East Chaldon, Dorset: Her diary records a happy morning when she and her lover, the poet Valentine Ackland, lay on top of a barrow listening to the windA row of round barrows stud a Dorset ridge – five of them, although tumbled gaps suggest there once were more. From the old chalk trackway, trails lead through shaggy grass to the top of each. To the north, charcoal and dun in the wintry light, stretches a broad swathe of heathland; to the south, gentle green hills enclose the village of East Chaldon.In the 1930s, the walk up to this bronze age site was a favourite with Sylvia Townsend Warner, her long career as a writer already launched. Her diary records a happy morning when she and her lover, the poet Valentine Ackland, lay on top of one of the barrows listening to the wind and discussing torpedoes. Today, there’s no hint of things military, only a fly-past by two ravens whose cries sound more conversational than martial. Continue reading...

Screenshot from LNP politician’s Facebook page is sent to police by Greens candidate who said he received death threatsThe Queensland Liberal National party politician George Christensen has been reported to police over a Facebook post showing the MP holding a handgun with the comment “Do you feel lucky, greenie punks?” Ben Pennings, who is running for the lead position on the Queensland Greens Senate ticket, said he sent police the screenshot of Christensen’s post after receiving “numerous” death threats from central and north Queensland. Continue reading...

A chunk of the monster Whitechapel fatberg is now a superstar museum exhibit. It shines a horrifying light on our throwaway age – but will it stop people clogging up the sewers with the grease from their Sunday lunch?The fatberg that went on display this month at the Museum of London is proving something of a sensation. Visitor numbers have more than doubled; there is a palpable air of half-term excitement when I visit; and the fatberg fudge – modelled to look like the rough-hewn fatberg brick, with little raisins to represent flies (or something worse) – has sold out. The museum has hit on an unlikely goldmine.Unsurprisingly, curator Vyki Sparkes is looking pretty pleased with herself, and is already talking about a world tour for her prized object – a slice of the giant Whitechapel fatberg discovered last year. There is just one problem: no one knows if it will survive. It is already changing colour as it continues to dry out, and Sparkes is worried that it may start to disintegrate. It is due to be on show at the museum until July. Best come early to avoid disappointment. But, for now, it is an undoubted triumph, raising the question “what is art” – can hardened sewage in a glass case have aesthetic value? – and confronting us with the environmental destructiveness of our throwaway age. Continue reading...

Documenting fracking protests in Kirby Misperton, photographer Gary Calton found a surprising mix of people uniting to protect Britain’s countrysideIt’s early February and the mood at the anti-fracking camp in the embattled village of Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire, is one of cautious optimism. The camp, a collection of makeshift wooden buildings in a muddy field outside town, has been running since December 2016, but it’s only in the last five months that demonstrations against the fracking company Third Energy have flared up, leading to an extraordinary police presence around the village, more than 80 arrests and – just a couple of weeks ago – an apparent victory for the protesters.I’m in the company of Observer photographer Gary Calton, who has been documenting events here for six months. Calton, who lives eight miles away, has pictures of protesters boarding lorries, lying down at the gates to the site and facing off against battalions of police. He has also captured more intimate moments, the protesters running through drills, chatting, sleeping and – a key activity on the freezing day I visit – simply keeping warm as they wait for the next chapter in the fracking saga to unfold. Continue reading...

Populations of all kinds of wildlife are declining at alarming speed. One radical solution is to make 50% of the planet a nature reserveThe orangutan is one of our planet’s most distinctive and intelligent creatures. It has been observed using primitive tools, such as the branch of a tree, to hunt food, and is capable of complex social behaviour. Orangutans also played a special role in humanity’s own intellectual history when, in the 19th century, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, co-developers of the theory of natural selection, used observations of them to hone their ideas about evolution.But humanity has not repaid orangutans with kindness. The numbers of these distinctive, red-maned primates are now plummeting thanks to our destruction of their habitats and illegal hunting of the species. Last week, an international study revealed that its population in Borneo, the animal’s last main stronghold, now stands at between 70,000 and 100,000, less than half of what it was in 1995. “I expected to see a fairly steep decline, but I did not anticipate it would be this large,” said one of the study’s co-authors, Serge Wich of Liverpool John Moores University. Continue reading...

Wick Wood, New Forest: Graham Long’s last regular country diary sees him introduce a friend to butcher’s broom, a plant easily missedWe set out for Wick Wood under a bright blue sky, in a clear atmosphere that makes it great to be out and about. It’s bitterly cold. The frost in the air is an unseen presence that bites the nose and ears. There is warmth where the sun breaks through the trees, and the rising mist it creates tempts us to linger, to luxuriate for a moment or two. A few steps on and we’re back into the shade again. The temperature plunges, shards of ice litter the sides of puddles broken by earlier feet, and mosses and ferns are dusted with silver. We press on until we turn into a ride down which the sunlight flows to pick our way through thawed mud and still-iced turf. Continue reading...

Experts say growling grass frog and southern brown bandicoot not likely to be found at Endeavour Fern Gully

Feral pigeons are exposed to the same environmental factors as humans, so help explore the affect of contaminants, say researchersPigeons might be seen as the scourge of cities, but researchers say they could help us explore both the levels and impacts of a host of toxins in the air, from lead to pesticides.Scientists say feral pigeons are a valuable way of probing contaminants in environment, since they are exposed to the same air, water, food and other factors as humans, and don’t venture far from home. Continue reading...

Pound’s decline against euro costs French firm €608m as home energy usage also dropsFrench state-owned energy firm EDF reported falling profits, including a downturn in the UK due to falling prices for nuclear power, improved energy efficiency among its household customers and the slide in the value of sterling since the Brexit vote.Profits in the UK division, which includes EDF Energy, slumped by a third to €1.035 (£920m) as sales dwindled by €579m to €8.68bn, partly because UK customers pay their bills in pounds but the company reports its results in euros. Continue reading...

Readers respond to an earlier letter suggesting that students should replace migrant farm workers after BrexitIn the agricultural sector there is a shortfall of 4,300 jobs with a tiny proportion of the population working on farms. Yet Aileen Hammond (Letters, 15 February) demands that 2.28 million students in higher education descend on to the farms of this country every summer and winter. I’m afraid a few second homes she wants to be made available isn’t going to be quite enough to house these students.I spent my vacations from university volunteering, getting work experience, writing dissertations – all of which has allowed me to contribute to the common good. There are also lots of other important and meaningful seasonal jobs that depend on the student vacation workforce. Forced labour of students on to farms would play havoc with these sectors and merely shift the labour problem elsewhere. Continue reading...

Paul Brannen says Britain needs more trees not least because wood is a raw material that can be used by the emerging bioeconomy; while Peter Price defends Sheffield city council’s tree-planting policyJohn Vidal is absolutely correct in identifying the multiple benefits of agro-forestry (A eureka moment – we’re finally planting trees again, 13 February) but these benefits need to also be unleashed in the developed world, not only in Africa, Asia and South America.Currently 9% of EU agricultural land is given over to agro-forestry, meaning it is not merely a fringe activity. The UK’s largest agro-forestry holding is just to the south of Peterborough, where Steve Briggs farms 125 acres of organic oats with strips of apple trees across; reducing wind erosion of the soil, increasing water retention and improving biodiversity – eg most bird species have increased by 20-50% with barn owls up 400%. Continue reading...

The $5.6bn cost of the 70-storey W350 Project is expected to be twice that of a conventional buildingA skyscraper set to be built in Tokyo will become the world’s tallest to be made of wood.The Japanese wood products company Sumitomo Forestry Co is proposing to build a 350 metre (1,148ft), 70-floor tower to commemorate its 350th anniversary in 2041. Continue reading...

Spyhopping humpback whales and ‘frost flowers’ are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

Levels of powerful air pollutant rose by 3.2% from 2015 to 2016 according to government statisticsEmissions of ammonia have been on the rise in the UK, new statistics from the government show, even while the amount of other pollutants entering the atmosphere has fallen.Levels of the powerful air pollutant rose by 3.2% from 2015 to 2016, the latest year for which statistics are available, according to a report published by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Thursday morning. The rise came despite an overall fall of 10% in ammonia emissions since 1980. Continue reading...

GPS data from the endangered young eagle, that was tagged by environmentalist Chris Packham, stopped transmitting before randomly restarting out at seaA young golden eagle may have been illegally killed near Edinburgh and dumped at sea after its satellite tag inexplicably stopped transmitting and then restarted in the North Sea.The golden eagle was tagged by broadcaster and environmentalist Chris Packham and the campaign group Raptor Persecution UK at a nest in the Scottish Borders last summer, and named Fred, after the landowner’s grandson. Continue reading...

New research refutes the theory that pressure from saddles can cause erectile dysfunction, and says cycling could actually improve performance in older menFew doubt that cycling helps you get healthy. One study last year found cyclists are less likely to develop heart disease or cancer, and a 2011 review showed it improves fitness and leads to longer lives. But there’s an area of men’s health that has been the subject of a persistent question: does time spent in the saddle lead to problems in the sack?In recent years, scientists have linked cycling with several male health problems, including erectile dysfunction, which they speculate is caused by the saddle decreasing blood flow to the penis. In one study, Norwegian researchers gathered data from 160 men after they took part in a long-distance bike tour. They found that one in five suffered with numbness to the penis that lasted up to a week after the tour, and 13% developed erectile dysfunction that lasted more than a week in most cases.

Dairy farms in the Netherlands are producing so much dung they can’t get rid of it safely. Now the WWF is calling for a 40% cut in herd numbers to protect the environment

Bleaklow, Derbyshire: They hunker down, escaping the wind and wary of predators, waiting for the hour after dark to feedBrilliant sunshine and a covering of snow had transformed Bleaklow into the Arctic, the sky azure overhead with hints of turquoise on the horizon, bruising to mauve as the day wore on. Approaching Barrow Stones, the moors a glittering sweep of blue-white, nothing stirred but the bitter wind that curled around my neck. The wind had sculpted extravagant shapes from the snow: translucent fins of névé or else, where it eddied, sinuous arcs and twists. Soft spindrift filled the groughs between peat hags fringed with icicles. The same wind, I reflected, has done much the same to Barrow Stones, albeit over millennia rather than days, scouring a crowd of abstract heads nodding in the sun.The snow had recorded more than the wind’s passage. From time to time we came across a busy intersection of animal tracks, a meandering series of triangles made by grouse, the delicate feet of mice and voles, like sutures, stitching the lightest trace of time through the snow’s surface. There were the unmistakable prints of mountain hares, also known more prettily as blue hares, forepaws offset and hitting the ground behind the back legs. Different animals had shared the same path for a while before looping off individually in a new direction. Then the prints would disappear altogether until we encountered a new group. Mountain hares don’t have extensive ranges. Continue reading...

The machines that ensure smooth ice for athletes can be responsible for air pollutionWatch the live streams from the Winter Olympics and you will see the ice rink resurfacing machines that ensure smooth ice for the athletes. Running any engine indoors is a bad idea, especially in a room full of thousands of spectators and heavily breathing ice-hockey players or skaters. The first case of air pollution problems from ice resurfacers was reported in 1975 when 15 children became ill from carbon monoxide poisoning at a Seattle rink. Nitrogen dioxide was added to the list of concerns when concentrations in the average Finnish rink were found to be more than three times World Health Organisation guidelines. Practical solutions include exhaust clean-up equipment, better ventilation, warming up the resurfacing machine outside and opening the ice rink doors to get faster air changes. Even so, accidents can and do happen. In 2011 two ice hockey players were hospitalised after training in a rink where the ventilation system had failed. A yellow haze had been seen in the cold air that settled over the ice. Thirty one people became ill, some of whom began to cough up blood several days later. The advent of new electric-powered machines offers the best long-term solution to this problem. Continue reading...

Research shows paints, perfumes, sprays and other synthetic items contribute to high levels of ‘volatile organic compounds’ in airHousehold cleaners, paints and perfumes have become substantial sources of urban air pollution as strict controls on vehicles have reduced road traffic emissions, scientists say.Researchers in the US looked at levels of synthetic “volatile organic compounds”, or VOCs, in roadside air in Los Angeles and found that as much came from industrial and household products refined from petroleum as from vehicle exhaust pipes. Continue reading...

Fresh efforts needed to protect critically endangered animals from hunters and habitat loss as population more than halvesHunting and killing have driven a dramatic decline in the orangutan population on Borneo where nearly 150,000 animals have been lost from the island’s forests in 16 years, conservationists warn.Related: Borneo orangutan found riddled with gunshots in latest attack Continue reading...

Australia sells South Korea $6bn of coal a year, so Canberra unease over the governor’s anti-coal message is unsurprisingFor a South Korean presidential hopeful, Ahn Hee-Jung is not what you would expect. Continue reading...

The Hopi tribe is taking on an Arizona ski resort over its use of artificial snow: ‘People compare it to baptizing a baby with reclaimed water’

Green manifesto for 2050 includes measures for transport and clean energy but could put islands on a path to confrontation with MadridThe Balearic islands’ government has launched a pioneering plan to phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, potentially setting itself on a collision course with the Spanish government.

But the networks need to improve reporting on climate events unrelated to TrumpIn 2016, US TV network news coverage of climate change plummeted. News coverage was focused on the presidential election, but the corporate broadcast networks didn’t air a single segment informing viewers how a win by Trump or Hillary Clinton could affect climate change or climate policy. That followed a slight drop in news coverage of climate change in 2015, despite that year being full of critical events like the Paris climate accords, Clean Power Plan, and record-breaking heat.The good news is that the annual analysis done by Media Matters for America found that in 2017, network news coverage of climate change soared. Continue reading...

Eggs laid by white-letter hairstreak found on elm trees in BerwickshireThe microscopic eggs of an endangered butterfly have been found in Scotland, suggesting the insect has returned to breed in the country for the first time in more than 130 years.Lepidopterists discovered white-letter hairstreak eggs on wych elm trees at Lennel, Berwickshire, this month after an adult butterfly was spotted last summer 10 miles away – the first sighting in Scotland since 1884.

The impoverished town of Natadradave, home to just 27 families, has become a site of global interest thanks to ‘healing properties’ of its natural poolThe crowds begin to gather before dawn, snaking along with dusty backroads of Tailevu district in eastern Fiji, humid jungle pressing at them from every side.Ambulances and open-topped trucks bearing stretchers are allowed to pass first, then those who can walk, and finally the healthy arrive, loaded up with empty water bottles to carry home to sick relatives and friends. Continue reading...

Officials say Kavous Seyed Emami used endangered Asiatic cheetah surveys as pretext for spying, but no evidence has been citedUN officials have urged the Iranian government to respect the work of environmental activists following the death in custody last week of wildlife campaigner, Kavous Seyed Emami.Emami was buried on Monday, but several members of the organisation he founded, the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, remain in jail and the deputy head of the Environmental Protection Organisation, Kaveh Madani, was detained for 72 hours over the weekend.

Crook, County Durham: A steady rain of shredded petals settles daily on the flagstone path

Status of northern hairy-nosed wombat, central rock-rat, numbat and Christmas Island shrew upgraded in latest threatened species listFour mammals – including the northern hairy-nosed wombat and the numbat – have been upgraded to endangered or critically endangered on the updated Australian threatened species list published on Thursday.The northern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii) has been steadily contracting its range to a single area within Queensland’s Epping Forest national park, 855km north-west of Brisbane. Continue reading...

Discussion paper proposes national energy guarantee ‘flexibility’ by deferring proportion of obligations

Senate blocks plan to cut water returned to environment by 70GL, prompting outrage from Victoria and NSWThe New South Wales government said its plan to walk away from the Murray-Darling basin plan will free it from “the whim of politicking”, while blaming Labor and the Greens for bringing the vital water-sharing agreement to the “brink of collapse”.NSW regional water minister, Niall Blair, said the state government would act “calmly” in its next steps, and honour any existing commitments made under the Murray-Darling basin plan. Continue reading...

Labor, Greens and environment groups call for urgent review of funding for species conservation

Climate change and industrial-scale fishing is impacting the krill population with a potentially disastrous impact on larger predators, say scientists

In 1996, Osvaldo Wuaru and his family arrived on the outskirts of the vast Munduruku Amazon Territory with a crucial mission: set up a village to hold back the invasion of pariwat (non-indigenous) gold miners. Twenty-one years later, it has all but failed, reports Climate Home NewsNamed Watch Post (the Portuguese acronym is PV), the village has been swallowed by the heavy equipment of hundreds of illegal gold miners (called garimpeiros). What was once a few huts hidden in the Amazon forest now resembles a bombed battlefield.

German photographer Tobias Friedrich has been named this year’s winner for his ‘perfectly lit and composed’ panorama of a wreck off the coast of Egypt, while British winner Grant Thomas captured a couple of affectionate swans Continue reading...

The bucket-list beach on the island of Koh Phi Phi Leh became famous when it featured in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, but environmental concerns mean it will close to tourists from JuneIt is one of the world’s most famous beaches, thanks to its starring role in Danny Boyle’s film of Alex Garland’s bestselling novel, and is often referred to simply as “the beach”. However, this summer Maya Bay, on the Thai island of Koh Phi Phi Leh, will be closed to tourists as authorities attempt to reverse decades of damage done to the region’s marine environment.The closure will take place from June to September, during the island’s low season, in order to give its coral reef time to recover. While similar measures have been introduced on other Thai islands – in 2016 local authorities closed Koh Tachai – it is the first time tourists will be forbidden from visiting Maya Bay. Continue reading...

Other animal welfare proposals include mandatory CCTV in abattoirs and post-Brexit safeguardsFoie gras and badger culling would be banned under new animal welfare measures proposed by the Labour party, in a move described by activists as “the beginning of the end of cruel factory farming”.The practice of force-feeding geese and ducks in order to fatten up their livers is widely considered cruel and inhumane, leading Labour to advocate an end to imports of the delicacy in a new policy document released on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Scientists are fascinated that Hawaiian crickets still perform their vigorous mating call, despite having evolved to lose their song to avoid a deadly new parasiteMale field crickets traditionally attract a mate by “singing” – creating a sound by rhythmically scraping their wings back and forth.In Hawaii, however, their song attracts a less welcome female: parasitic flies, whose larvae devour and kill the crickets from the inside out. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: The one-step-forward-two-steps-back dance between winter and spring had time yet but many of the animals and plants had notOvernight snow left anonymous gifts. Frost and a chill wind through the trees hardened what remained of the snowfall as the weather moved on, to leave a scattering of unopened envelopes. Snow on fungi: there was something very symbolic about these two kinds of ephemeral structures. The Armilaria fungi living in the rotten stump of a tree may have been what killed it. The fruiting bodies of russet flesh that bloomed from fibrous mycelium, forming a circuit between tree cells and a kind of organic afterlife in the soil, were now holding a frozen package of snow.After days of sogginess with bright moments, the return of snow felt revenant. It was too clear and pure, even in its fleetingness. In Among the Summer Snows, Christopher Nicholson talked about the literary obsession with the whiteness of snow and quoted Shakespeare when Juliet declares that Romeo “wilt lie upon the wings of night/ Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back”. Love transcends death, or something. Continue reading...

The state government refuses to provide an environmental licence to allow New Hope to expand mining to the Darling DownsThe Queensland government has accepted a landmark land and environment court ruling from last year and refused to provide an environmental licence to the New Acland coalmine extension.Following the longest case in the court’s history, a judge last year recommended against New Hope’s plans to expand the mine into prime agricultural land on Queensland’s Darling Downs, primarily over concerns about impacts on groundwater supplies, but also on air quality and noise. Continue reading...

Labor is in talks with water minister and is hoping to reach a compromise on changesA crucial vote to disallow changes to the Murray Darling Basin plan, which could trigger New South Wales and Victoria to walk away from the plan, has been been delayed until Wednesday afternoon.The Senate had been due to vote on Wednesday morning on whether to disallow a cut to the target for recovery of environmental water in the northern basin of the river system by 70 GL or 18%. Water recovery is usually achieved either by the government buying back water rights or by funding efficiency measures. Continue reading...