Locals blame coca interests for the state’s broken promise on protecting Tipnis national park, biodiversity hotspot and home to thousands of indigenous peopleWhen Ovidio Teco’s Amazon homeland was declared “untouchable” by the Bolivian government in 2011, his war had been won.The concerns of people like him had been listened to: their beautiful and ancient land would not be carved in two by a 190-mile highway. Continue reading...

Announcement aimed at tackling pollution will prove a huge incentive to development and sale of electric and hybrid vehiclesChina, the world’s biggest vehicle market, is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in a major boost to the production of electric vehicles as Beijing seeks to ease pollution.

Interim report finds an urgent fix is needed in NSW to repair an ‘ineffectual’ water compliance and enforcement systemNew South Wales’s top water bureaucrat, Gavin Hanlon, is facing misconduct proceedings after an interim report into allegations of water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin was submitted to the state government.The report released on Monday found an urgent fix was needed in NSW to repair an “ineffectual” water compliance and enforcement system. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 14 September 1917Already a peacock butterfly has selected our curtains for winter quarters, but it is early for this fly to be going into hibernation, and many are still on the wing, settling on the scabious and ragworts in the lanes or the flowers in our gardens. Perhaps the yellowing foliage of the sycamore and showers of curled, crisp beech leaves already down had given it a warning; it had a duty to fulfil: a long death-like slumber and a short flight next spring to find the young nettles and lay its eggs, thus linking up the years. It is many years since peacocks and red admirals were so abundant as they are now; everywhere people are struck by the numbers, not only locally nor even in other parts of England. A friend in France writes:– “The crops here are barbed wire, thistles, and nettles; I don’t know what the first produces, but the two last have brought out great lots of painted ladies, red admirals, peacocks, and a positive swarm of small tortoiseshells.” The weeds of the war-scarred, untilled land have produced one beautiful crop.Related: Red Admiral spotting: desperately seeking a British butterfly revival Continue reading...

Exclusive: Special rapporteur’s mission finds government has violated obligation to protect people’s lives and healthThe UK government is “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens from illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights related to toxic waste.

There is still no confirmed cause for the toxic haze that affected the Sussex coastline last monthItems from the shipping lanes frequently wash up on UK beaches. Occasionally hazardous chemical containers appear prompting local beach closures. The incident on the East Sussex coast on 27 August was on much larger scale.Although media reports focused on the beach at Birling Gap, air pollution monitors tell us that the affected area was much bigger. An apparent sharp rise in ozone was detected on Eastbourne sea front at 4:45pm and then about 30 minutes later at Lullington Heath, 8km to the west and 5km inland from Birling Gap – an area of over 40 square km. Continue reading...

It is possible to determine which nations and companies are responsible for damaging the climate. It’s only a matter of time before courts decide they must pay for global warmingRecent days have seen Houston, Texas literally sunk under sheer weight of rain, Carribbean islands battered by powerful storms barrelling across the Gulf and now Florida homes blasted by Irma, the largest of three hurricanes churning in the Atlantic basin. It seems almost certain that man-made climate change has a role in such events. Scientists used to be circumspect at attributing any single extreme event to global warming. No longer. Now scientists make the link between climate change and droughts in Kenya, record winter sun in Britain and torrential downpours in south-west China. The unmistakeable fingerprint of extreme weather at the crime scene of global warming seems intuitively obvious: consider that Houston is reckoned to have been hit by three “500-year floods” in three years. A 500-year flood does not have to happen only twice a millennium. But a run of three indicates that past climate is no longer a reliable guide to the present weather. The explanation is that the climate itself is changing. Continue reading...

Small but fast-growing Green party, which is demanding an immediate halt to gas and oil exploration, seen as potential kingmakerWhen Truls Gulowsen began campaigning in the 1990s, telling Norway it had both a moral obligation and an economic interest in phasing out the industry that has made it rich was not what might be called a vote winner.But as Norwegians go to the polls on Monday, the future of their country’s giant oil and gas business is a major electoral issue – with parties that back curbs or even a shutdown of the industry set to play a key role in post-election coalition-building. Continue reading...

A new film tells the story of Crossett, Arkansas – a small town dominated by a Koch brothers-owned paper mill, blamed for dumping cancer-causing chemicalsThe documentary Company Town opened in New York City on Friday night, for a short run at Cinema Village on East 12th Street. Introducing a sold-out screening, New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman said co-directors Natalie Kottke-Masocco and Erica Sardarian had captured one of the “quiet tragedies that are taking place all across America all the time”.Related: Dark Money review: Nazi oil, the Koch brothers and a rightwing revolution Continue reading...

Analysts predict sea change in energy policy as falling costs for offshore power will charge UK taxpayer at least 10% less than deal handed to new nuclear plantWindfarms around Britain’s coast will beat the planned nuclear power station Hinkley Point on price when the winning bidders for a £290m-a-year pot of government subsidies are announced on Monday, experts predict.Such a milestone would mark a dramatic cost reduction for a technology that was once far more expensive than atomic power, and could fuel calls for a rethink over the UK’s future energy mix. Continue reading...

Cambridge University has completed the first stage of its ambitious £1bn development of homes, shops and schools on the city’s outlying farmlandAt the centre of debates about green belts is the question of trust. In theory it should be possible to build on a very small proportion of the nation’s green belts in such a way that affordable housing and sustainable communities are created, and more people have more and better access to nature than before. In practice few people trust that this will happen, as the available evidence is that we will get instead a smearing of developers’ standard products across the countryside, for sale at inflated prices.The promise of what’s called the North West Cambridge Development is that it will indeed achieve these good things. Here the University of Cambridge is turning 150 hectares of what was flat, inaccessible and somewhat featureless farmland, located between the city and the M11, into a billion-pound urban district the area of which is not much smaller than the historic centre of Cambridge itself. Three thousand homes are planned, half of them affordable, plus 2,000 postgraduate student bed spaces, 100,000 sq m of research facilities, and the schools, shops, surgeries and the like needed to sustain them. Two new public parks are being created, one between the new development and the old city, the other a series of lakes and mounds that buffer the sights and sounds of the motorway. Continue reading...

It’s not about pristine sands – we need seaweed, coral and mangroves to sustain marine wildlife and protect the world’s coastsTo the untrained eye, all beaches can look healthy – the sea gives them a restorative glow. The Beach Ecology Coalition is based in California, but its indicators for a healthy beach broadly hold for Skegness as much as California’s Laguna. Don’t be fooled by pristine beaches. A healthy one should be strewn with wrack: organic litter including seaweed that sustains beach hoppers and birds.Healthy beaches should be strewn with organic litter Continue reading...

Environmental lawyer James Thornton says China’s ‘ecological civilisation’ concept is the best response to the world’s environmental crisisJames Thornton’s specialty is suing governments and corporations on behalf of his only client – the Earth – and he’s very good at it. In his four decades of legal practice across three continents, he’s never lost a case.Acknowledging this in 2009 the New Statesman named him one of the ten people likely to change the world; ClientEarth, the public interest environmental law firm he started in London in 2007 now employs 106 people.

President Temer is courting the mining companies and their political backers by breaking into pristine rainforestOn 23 August it emerged that the president of Brazil, Michel Temer, had issued a decree abolishing the protected status of an immense area of the Amazon forest. The area is in the north of the country, beyond the Amazon river, going up to the frontiers with French Guiana and Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana). The estimated size is 4.5 million hectares, the size of Denmark or Switzerland.The decree was shocking, but not entirely unexpected. Temer is in political difficulties, facing corruption charges and needing political allies. There are more than 30 registered political parties in Brazil, and to get anything done in Congress they form bancadas (“benches” or coalitions). One of the most powerful is the bancada ruralista, consisting of powerful, wealthy agribusiness interests (mostly cattle and soya) together with those who represent mining and other extractive industries. And, making things gloomier, the evangelicals attach themselves to this bancada. Continue reading...

Animal rights campaigners claim strong support in the Midlands village that hosts a museum dedicated to the bloodsportThe fractious politics of hunting was far from the minds of Julian Smith and Becky Whitehead during a pleasant afternoon exploring Leicestershire’s only National Trust house – a 118-year-old cottage nestled in countryside just out of earshot of the M1.Nevertheless their views were clear, before a landmark vote next month that could prohibit trust land from being used for trail hunting – where riders follow hounds in pursuit of a fox-based scent. “We would be very anti-hunting, to be honest, and very much in favour of the existing government ban on foxhunting,” said Smith, a trust member who had travelled from Nottinghamshire to visit old houses and walk in the Peak District. Continue reading...

In an extract from his book Ends of the World, Peter Brannen examines mass extinction events and the catastrophic outcome of rising temperatures for all the world’s populationMany of us share some dim apprehension that the world is flying out of control, that the centre cannot hold. Raging wildfires, once-in-1,000-years storms and lethal heatwaves have become fixtures of the evening news – and all this after the planet has warmed by less than 1C above preindustrial temperatures. But here’s where it gets really scary.If humanity burns through all its fossil fuel reserves, there is the potential to warm the planet by as much as 18C and raise sea levels by hundreds of feet. This is a warming spike of an even greater magnitude than that so far measured for the end-Permian mass extinction. If the worst-case scenarios come to pass, today’s modestly menacing ocean-climate system will seem quaint. Even warming to one-fourth of that amount would create a planet that would have nothing to do with the one on which humans evolved or on which civilisation has been built. The last time it was 4C warmer there was no ice at either pole and sea level was 80 metres higher than it is today. Continue reading...

Rapa Nui protection area, about same size as Chilean mainland, will protect up to 142 species, including 27 threatened with extinctionOne of the world’s largest marine protection areas has been created off the coast of Easter Island.The 740,000 sq km Rapa Nui marine park is roughly the size of the Chilean mainland and will protect at least 142 endemic marine species, including 27 threatened with extinction. Continue reading...

As the hurricane approaches, the wealthy residents of Miami Beach can afford to play golf, their homes primed to withstand the wind and rain. In Liberty City, just a few miles away, they’re crossing their fingers

A slew of Trump properties stand in the path of Hurricane Irma, and they could be underwater by the end of the centuryMar-a-Lago. Trump National Doral Miami. Trump Palace. Trump Royale. Trump International Beach Resort Miami. Trump Hollywood.

Humphrey Head, Cartmel Peninsula Tiny creatures, with remarkable jumping ability, dwell in the carboniferous limestone hills above Morecambe BayDense vegetation alive with birdsong clings to the face of Humphrey Head. Gazing up at the gaping mouth of Edgar’s Arch, a blowhole in Cumbria’s highest limestone headland – and above a bushy beard of trees, shrubs and creepers – I forget to watch my feet. Result? I become stuck in one of the glutinous exiting channels that booby-trap Morecambe Bay’s shores.Good Samaritans hoist me to my feet, “We’re on a weekend activity hen do,” says the one in the “Game Over” T-shirt. “Glad the tide’s out,” says the group’s instructor, her top labelled “Boss”. “Folk get mired down like mice in those traps with sticky floors. Then the tide sneaks in.” Continue reading...

Environment secretary says EU must combat spread of Xylella fastidiosa by stopping high-risk species from crossing borders uncheckedEurope must implement greater protections against a disease that could threaten UK plants and trees, including oaks, the environment secretary Michael Gove has said.The horticulture sector is also being urged to take action to prevent Xylella fastidiosa, which is having a devastating impact on plants such as olive trees in parts of mainland Europe, spreading to the UK. Continue reading...

Exclusive: New studies find microplastics in salt from the US, Europe and China, adding to evidence that plastic pollution is pervasive in the environment

Our air, water and salt are contaminated by plastic and the impact on our health is unknown. While we wait for the findings, here are ways to reduce plastic use

EU duties on Chinese solar modules are set to rise 30% above market levels signalling ‘huge negative effects’ for businessesEurope’s solar industry has condemned an EU vote to impose another round of duties on Chinese imports, just weeks before a US trade panel is due to rule on similar tariffs.

Milder floods that refill reservoirs are decreasing as severe floods become more common

Exclusive: Winner of the BP young artist award at UK’s National Portrait Gallery says donation is a protest against his art being used to promote the oil company

An artist has given away part of his winnings to protest against BP’s role in climate change. The company’s money has helped an unfashionable artform, but what’s at stake is far more importantWe can’t stop looking at human faces. Can’t stop being interested in ourselves, our species. The BP Portrait Award, whose annual exhibition of winners and strong contenders can be seen at the National Portrait Gallery until 24 September, is full of humanity. It is, perhaps, the most humanist art prize in the world, an art award that specifically celebrates the painted human image and looks for modern heirs to the profoundly compassionate tradition of portraiture that includes Rembrandt, Velázquez and Lucian Freud.Yet it may be time to get over ourselves. Has the moment come to put nature before portraiture, and abolish this oil-tainted oil painting prize? Continue reading...

Project supported by WWF is likely to take many years and involves creation of nature reserve and restoration of forestWild tigers are to be reintroduced to Kazakhstan 70 years after they became extinct in the country.The animals will be reintroduced in the Ili-Balkhash region in a project that involves the creation of a nature reserve and the restoration of a forest that is part of the animal’s historical range. Continue reading...

Akademgorodok is a science centre situated in a remote Siberian forest. Photographer Pablo Ortíz Monasterio gained access to marvel at its brightly coloured chemistry labs and nuclear particle accelerators Continue reading...

Petersfield, Hampshire Bags of picnic rubbish littered the lakeside, and rats were helping themselves to bread left for the ducks

Environmental law group has accused Delta Electricity of underreporting emissions at its Vales Point power station and breaching licence conditionsThe only Australian company with a stated potential interest in buying and keeping AGL’s ageing Liddell coal-fired power station open beyond 2022 is facing a number of allegations of environmental mismanagement.AGL’s chief executive, Andy Vesey, has told government ministers AGL would consider selling Australia’s oldest coal-fired power station – near Muswellbrook in New South Wales – to a “responsible buyer”. Continue reading...

Australia’s overall greenhouse gas emissions last financial year were the highest since 2011, despite the closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power plantEmissions from the electricity sector in the three months to June dropped by the biggest amount on record, as the effect of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station closure is seen for the first time in quarterly projections produced exclusively for the Guardian.But even that drop wasn’t enough to stop Australia’s overall greenhouse gas emissions from continuing to rise. Emissions from almost every other sector – industrial energy, transport, industrial heat and agriculture – all rose. They are the highest levels seen since before the carbon tax was repealed, according to projections by consultants at Ndevr Environmental. Continue reading...

Joe Corré accuses multinational petrochemical company of âbully boy tacticsâ to prevent legitimate protest against its fracking activities in the UKAn environmental campaigner is challenging the legality of a wide-ranging injunction obtained against protesters by a multinational firm that he criticised as being âdraconian, anti-democratic and oppressiveâ.Joe Corré accused petrochemical giant Ineos of using âdisgusting bully boy tacticsâ against campaigners who want to protest against the firmâs fracking operations. Continue reading...

Carmaker follows Volvo in spelling an end for petrol or diesel-only cars, despite not making any electric vehicles at presentJaguar Land Rover has become the latest large carmaker to say it will stop launching new models solely powered by internal combustion engines, two months after Volvo pledged to do so.The UK-based manufacturer promised that all new models from 2020 will be fully electric or hybrid, a year later than Volvoâs target, but a big step beyond its unveiling last November of a single electric concept car. Continue reading...

Northumberland coastline famed for Arctic terns and Atlantic puffins granted greater protection by Natural EnglandA stretch of coastline which is one of the most important sites in the UK for seabirds such as Arctic terns and Atlantic puffins has been given greater protection.The newly-designated Northumberland marine special protected area (SPA) stretches 12 miles from the coast into the North Sea, covering an area larger than 120,000 football pitches, government conservation body Natural England said. Continue reading...

It came without warning, and without equivalent. Now a flash drought is fueling fires and hurting the lives of those who work the landWhen Rick Kirn planted his 1,000 acres of spring wheat in May, there were no signs of a weather calamity on the horizon. Three months later, when he should have been harvesting and getting ready to sell his wheat, Kirn was staring out across vast cracked, gray, empty fields dotted with weeds and little patches of stunted wheat.

Bristol-based brand says Unilever will help it expand globally amid rising demand for upmarket organic brewsUnilever, owner of PG Tips and Liptons, is increasing its presence in the herbal tea market by acquiring Bristol-based Pukka Herbs.Sebastian Pole and Tim Westwell, founders of the brand known for its exotic flavours such as turmeric gold and mint matcha as well as cleansing and detox teas, have sold the business to Unilever for an undisclosed sum. The pair have agreed to stay on to help drive global expansion. Continue reading...

Government data reveals Tesco deducted administration costs from plastic bag sales, unlike other major supermarkets, angering senior MPsMillions of pounds in administration costs were deducted from the charitable donations made by Tesco using funds generated from the plastic bag tax, government data has revealed. No other major supermarket made any such deductions, leading senior MPs to urge Tesco to follow their lead.

What would the world be like if we weren’t dependent on oil? Photographer Richard Allenby-Pratt imagines a deserted Dubai in which the wealthy have fled, leaving giraffes and zebras to wander the alien landscapes Continue reading...

London-based designer Ryan Yasin used his background in aeronautical engineering to develop sustainable clothing to fit babies through to toddlersAn origami-inspired range of children’s clothing made from a durable pleated fabric that expands to fit growing babies and toddlers has won its 24-year-old designer a prestigious James Dyson award.Ryan Yasin devised the material using scientific principles he studied for his aeronautical engineering degree, after noting the lack of sustainability in the clothing industry and being frustrated by how quickly his baby niece and nephew outgrew garments he bought for them. Continue reading...

Federal funding for biodiversity conservation has dropped by 37% since 2013 and all MPs need to take greater actionAustralia is rapidly losing its world-famous biodiversity. More than 90 species have gone extinct since European colonisation (including three in just the past decade) and more than 1,700 species are now formally recognised as being in danger of extinction.Despite the pride many Australians feel in our unique natural heritage (and the billions of dollars made from nature-based tourism), the amount of federal funding for biodiversity conservation has dropped by 37% since 2013. Continue reading...

Destructive force of Irma and Harvey has Trump expressing awe, but those in power should focus on the environmental causes

The Azerbaijani regime wants to present a positive image in Europe because it needs support for its flagship project, write four campaigners. Plus Rebecca Gowland on British failure to crack down on those who exploit weaknesses in tax and governance lawsThe Guardian’s Azerbaijani Laundromat investigation (UK at heart of $3bn secret payments by Azerbaijan, 5 September) has uncovered thousands of covert payments as part of a European lobbying effort. But the article doesn’t mention the elephant in the room. Azerbaijan is particularly keen to present a positive image in Europe because it needs significant European support for its flagship project – the Southern Gas Corridor – despite the regime’s serial human rights abuses, systemic corruption and election rigging.The corridor, one of the biggest infrastructure projects undertaken by the fossil fuel industry with a total cost of about $45bn, will carry gas from Azerbaijan to Europe. Powerful interests from fossil fuel corporations to European governments are pushing through this unnecessary project against the will of communities and threatening human rights and a safe climate. Continue reading...

Gliders listed as threatened by both state and federal governments, but they are not protected by legislationLogging has begun in trees inhabited by the threatened greater gliders in a forest also inhabited by Victoria’s faunal emblem, the threatened Leadbeater’s possum.Protections for the remaining Leadbeater’s possum population – believed to be fewer than 2,500 breeding individuals left in the wild – mean logging will be halted within 200m of known colonies. But no such protection exists for the greater gliders, which have been listed as threatened by both state and federal governments. Continue reading...

The victims were targeted by a criminal gang who wanted to use their lands to grow lucrative palm oil, according to local indigenous leaders

Developer TuNur has applied to build a 4.5GW plant in the Sahara and pipe enough electricity via submarine cables to power two million European homesAn enormous solar park in the Sahara could soon be exporting electricity to Europe if Tunisia’s government approves an energy company’s request to build it.

Many UK councils are planning to restrict parking and idling near school gates, with fines of up to £130 in some casesParents across the country face tough restrictions – and even fines – over driving their children to the school gates, in a push by councils on road safety and pollution.As the new academic year begins, a survey of councils shows many are enforcing laws preventing parking immediately outside the school gates, using CCTV cameras and mobile monitoring vehicles to crack down on parents flouting the rules. Continue reading...