Environment | The Guardian

Bicycles offer endless opportunities for modification, both practical and decorative. We’d like you to share your bicycle projects with usFrom converting a multi-speed hub into a fixed gear, adding downtube shift levers or simply a comfy seat, a bicycle offers endless opportunities for the DIY enthusiast. We’d like you to share your bicycle modifications with us.Whether it’s to help those with mobility problems, to transport your children or just to look like the coolest rider on the street, there are any number of ways to make your bike even better. Continue reading...

Government officials and fellow conservationists paid tribute to Wayne Lotter at a special memorial yesterdayHundreds of people gathered at Baobab Village in Dar es Salaam to pay tribute to Wayne Lotter on Tuesday evening, as tributes continued to come in from around the world.Lotter, 51, was shot and killed last week while travelling in a taxi from the airport to his hotel on Dar es Salaam’s Msasani Peninsula. Lotter, who co-founded PAMS Foundation, a conservation nonprofit, was responsible for supporting anti-poaching efforts that had led to the arrests of more than 2000 ivory poachers and traffickers, and had taken down several key poaching syndicates in the country. He had received numerous death threats since starting the organization in 2009. Continue reading...

Charlie Alliston should have had a front brake but 18mph is a cautious speed and double standards are at work hereA heavy-handed prosecution against a cyclist for manslaughter has failed but a charge of “wanton and furious driving” has succeeded.In 2016 more than 400 pedestrians were killed on UK roads. Each a terrible tragedy to those involved and almost all avoidable. One of these casualties, Kim Briggs, died after a collision between herself and a teenage cyclist, Charlie Alliston. Continue reading...

Wildlife protection has become an increasingly dangerous business as rangers face armed gunmen and poachersThree rangers have been killed in separate countries in a deadly month for wildlife defenders.A ranger at Serra da Capivara national park, in Brazil’s north-eastern Piaui region, was killed by hunters on 18 August. Edilson Aparecido da Costa Silva and two other colleagues were patrolling the park when they were ambushed by a group of four armed men who are believed to have been hunting in the park illegally. Costa Silva was killed in the shootout that followed, while the other two rangers were injured. Continue reading...

Intrexon, a $2.2bn company headed by Randal Kirk, quietly began selling transgenic salmon, after making apples that don’t brown and cloning petsIf you want to sample the world’s first animal to be genetically engineered in the name of dinner, good luck finding it. If, on the other hand, you would never eat such a thing – good luck avoiding it.Tons of lab-developed salmon was sold in Canada last year without any packaging labeling it as a product of science, and the company that created and raises the fish, AquaBounty, won’t release the names of food distributors it sells to. Continue reading...

Farmer sends gift of sausages to thank Wiltshire firefighters who rescued piglets and two sows from fire in barnA farmer whose piglets were saved from a barn fire has served the animals up as sausages to thank the firefighters who rescued them.The baby pigs and two sows were freed by firefighters from Pewsey in Wiltshire when a barn went up in flames in February. Continue reading...

A new study finds a stark contrast between Exxon’s research and what the company told the publicRead all of these documents and make up your own mind.That was the challenge ExxonMobil issued when investigative journalism by Inside Climate News revealed that while it was at the forefront of climate science research in the 1970s and 1980s, Exxon engaged in a campaign to misinform the public. Continue reading...

Demonstration comes hours after court order preventing campaigners from taking ‘unlawful direct action’ came into forceCampaigners have demonstrated against a “politically controversial” tree-felling programme in Sheffield, hours after the start of a high court injunction against protesters.About 50 campaigners, some wearing wigs and dressing gowns and one in a Michael Gove mask, blockaded a Sheffield city council depot to try to prevent tree-felling contractors from leaving on Wednesday morning. Continue reading...

London’s historic food market also aims to achieve zero landfill with biodegradable packaging and compostable leftoversLondon’s Borough Market is to introduce free drinking water fountains as part of a new pledge to phase out sales of all single-use plastic bottles over the next six months. Continue reading...

Government says law, which will include 40% renewables by 2025 and commitment to invest in new projects, will send a strong signal to investorsThe Victorian government has introduced legislation to enshrine its renewable energy targets in law and establish a reverse auction mechanism to build 650 megawatts worth of new projects.The premier, Daniel Andrews, announced the Victorian renewable energy targets (VRET) of 25% renewable energy by 2020 and 40% by 2025 in June 2016.

De Brum saw the effects of rising seas from his home in the Marshall Islands and became a leading advocate for the fight against climate changeTony de Brum, the former Marshall Islands foreign minister who became a leading advocate for the landmark Paris Agreement and an internationally recognised voice in the fight against climate change, has died aged 72.De Brum, who was also the Pacific nation’s climate ambassador, died on Tuesday in the capital Majuro surrounded by his family, according to Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine. Continue reading...

A Buddhist leader has told Josh Frydenberg he would stand in front of machinery if digging at the Adani coal mine starts. All people of faith should join him

Glastraeth, Gwynedd A vastness of light and water, the sea’s immensity and the intimacy of the creeks, overwhelms the selfAmong the glittering spillways, a vastness of light and water, the self is overwhelmed by the immensity of mountains and sea, and the intimacy of samphire lawns, sea aster flowers and creeks. We wander into the salt marsh with sheep, a drift of Canada geese, an egret sharpening its idea of the strike, a group of Romany foragers, a raven and a story.When the monastery at Bangor-is-y-Coed was sacked in the early seventh century, on account of its allegiance to the Pelagian heresy, the surviving monks fled to what is now the magically circular walled church of Llanfihangel-y-Traethau on a little hill above the Dwyryd and Glaslyn estuary. Continue reading...

Plight of ordinary people being overlooked amid focus on missile launches and rising tensions between Pyongyang and WashingtonSanctions and the worst drought for almost two decades threaten to cause severe hardship for millions of people in North Korea, while the country’s leadership continues to plough scarce resources into its missile and nuclear programmes, according to UN agencies and those with contacts in the impoverished nation.A drought that ravaged crops earlier this summer will leave the North unable to properly feed many of its people, including soldiers in the country’s million-strong army, the groups have warned. Continue reading...

Josh Frydenberg says ElectraNet will build and own the battery and lease out the commercial operation to a major energy retailerThe Australian Renewable Energy Agency will provide funding of up to $12m for a new battery at the Dalrymple electricity substation on the Yorke Peninsula.The federal environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, is expected to confirm the funding for the 30MW battery on Wednesday during a visit to South Australia. Continue reading...

If so, Ford should prove there’s merit to its new scrapping scheme, writes Dr Kevin BannonAs the motor car industry is at the forefront of environmental degradation both globally and locally, it is only right that manufacturers take a lead in tackling the problem (Ford launches £2,000 scrappage scheme, 22 August). Instead, they offer only a scheme to sell more cars based on an unproven theory. This appears to posit that the pollution created by running an “old” car is so much greater than that of running a “new” one, that an environmental disaster might be delayed if we buy new cars more quickly. If Ford will reveal their figures for this old/new pollution differential and compare them with an evaluation of the pollution created in manufacturing a brand-new vehicle, then we might establish whether or not they know what they are talking about.

Two baby apes were discovered in tiny cages in Ketapang, Borneo. A man has been arrested for trafficking wildlife via social mediaA UK charity has helped rescue two baby orangutans who were found by police in West Borneo caged and ready to be sold through social media to illegal buyers.The two apes, a one-year-old male and an eight-month-old female, who were discovered in tiny cages are now in the care of International Animal Rescue (IAR) at its centre in Ketapang, Borneo. Continue reading...

Millions affected by severe flooding in south Asia, as aid agencies struggling to cope with disaster warn of food shortages and risk of disease

Research finds endangered Antarctic blue, fin and southern right whales struggling to recover despite hunting bansPopulations of the endangered blue and fin whales, which were hunted nearly to extinction in the 20th century, will not have recovered to even half of their pre-whaling numbers by 2100, according to a new Australian study.The research, published in the Fish and Fisheries journal next month, analysed 122 years of whaling data from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and current population survey data to project future population growth, based on predicted food availability in the southern oceans. Continue reading...

UK accused of double standards as thousands of tonnes of pesticide not authorised for use in EU are produced in Britain for export to developing worldA highly toxic weedkiller not authorised for use in the EU is being exported to developing countries from a UK factory.

Report reveals improvement but also details danger posed by tourist-generated pollution, oil extraction and climate changeJust below the surface of the turquoise sea, coral flutters majestically amid schools of puffed up porcupinefish and fluorescent blue and yellow angelfish.The gangly staghorn and fanning elkhorn corals are thriving in swimming distance of Laughing Bird Caye, a tiny Caribbean sandy islet in southern Belize, thanks to a restoration project that is yielding striking results. Continue reading...

The Sill, Once Brewed, Northumberland Planting at the National Landscape Discovery Centre aims to recreate the area’s rare whin grasslandsStanding on the roof of the Sill with the wind in my hair, I have a new view of familiar countryside. For years I’ve driven along Hadrian’s Wall, enjoying the way the land forms a series of waves like a frozen sea.Now, from the highest point of this building, I watch a buzzard circling above the Roman quarry at Barcombe Hill, see walkers labouring up the craggy steps at Steel Rigg, glimpse far-off bales in a recently cut hay field and cows tail flicking in the summer heat. Continue reading...

South Australian premier signals possible collaboration on alternative to clean energy target, and urges Turnbull to face down rightwing pressurePodcast: ‘They’re insatiable’ – Jay Weatherill on his clash with the CoalitionThe South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill, has renewed his warning that Labor-led state governments could go it alone on energy policy if the Turnbull government can’t resolve its internal battle over the clean energy target.If we are going to do it ourselves we might as well design the best system Continue reading...

Common moss changes shape in areas of high nitrogen pollution and drought and has potential to be big bioindicator, say scientistsDelicate mosses found on rocks and trees in cities around the world can be used to measure the impact of atmospheric change and could prove a low-cost way to monitor urban pollution, according to Japanese scientists.Moss, a “bioindicator”, responds to pollution or drought-stress by changing shape, density or by disappearing, allowing scientists to calculate atmospheric alterations, said Yoshitaka Oishi, associate professor at Fukui Prefectural University. Continue reading...

Environment Agency figures show severe incidents are weekly occurrence as farms struggle with cost of pollution prevention despite subsidiesSerious pollution incidents in the UK from livestock farms are now a weekly occurrence, leading to damage to wildlife, fish, farm livestock and air and water pollution.The Environment Agency in England and its devolved counterparts in Wales and Scotland recorded 536 of the most severe incidents between 2010 and 2016, the worst instances among more than 5,300 cases of agricultural pollution in the period across Britain. In England and Wales the figures relate to pig, poultry and dairy farms whereas in Scotland they refer to all livestock farms. Continue reading...

The Whittemores were hoping for an ‘idylllic lifestyle’ farming in Sussex. Instead, noxious byproducts from a biogas farm poisoned their landLynda and Richard Whittemore bought Quennells farm in the quiet Sussex countryside six years ago. They were hoping for what Lynda calls “an idyllic lifestyle”, tending their flock of 400 pedigree sheep and 45 cattle on 180 acres of farmland.“We have an undulating field at the back of the stream, winding to the other corner,” Lynda says. “Usually it has lovely clear water, with a gentle slope down to the water supply. It’s picturesque – the [livestock] don’t need troughs, they can walk down to drink the water.” Continue reading...

Saint-Gervais mayor warns that people who try to climb France’s highest mountain without proper kit face fines after series of deaths and accidentsFrench authorities are calling for police to enforce fines against climbers who attempt to scale Mont Blanc without proper clothing and equipment.The move follows a series of deaths and accidents on western Europe’s highest mountain. Earlier this month, a Hungarian woman and her nine-year-old twins were helicoptered off the peak by mountain rescuers. Continue reading...

Duchy of Cornwall was told in April that storm damage had left Crantock beach where Oneil Din died more dangerousPrince Charles’s private estate was repeatedly warned about the danger posed by a Cornish beach it owns before an incident in which a man died after being swept out to sea.Councillors told the Duchy of Cornwall as the summer season approached that someone could die at Crantock beach because storm damage had made the water more dangerous. Continue reading...

Campaign group Mighty Earth says aerial drones, satellite imaging and field research show farmers carried out forest-burning for fast food giant’s soy suppliersThe hamburger chain Burger King has been buying animal feed produced in soy plantations carved out by the burning of tropical forests in Brazil and Bolivia, according to a new report.Jaguars, giant anteaters and sloths have all been affected by the disappearance of around 700,000 hectares (1,729,738 acres) of forest land between 2011 and 2015. Continue reading...

Airedale, West Yorkshire Under one board are two young lizards, one buff, one a dramatic charcoal-grey; under another a dark-green frogIt’s all gone a bit quiet down by the river. The breeding season has petered out, and by and large the birds have retired from public life: to moult, to regrow, to regroup. It’s a drab, warm morning. One of the kingfishers hunches over the streaming shallows. A young bullfinch mopes in the low branches of an ash. Damp late-summer greenery – ferns, goosegrass, rosebay willowherb – chokes the pathways.

Goldfinches are common in our gardens nowadays. But there is something special about watching them in a wild settingThe tinkling sound is familiar now; as familiar as the chirp of sparrows used to be when I was growing up. In those days, the goldfinch was a special sight: one would occasionally visit our suburban garden, delighting us with its colourful plumage. I can still remember seeing for the first time the bird’s crimson face-patch and – when it flew – a sudden flash of gold in the wings.How things have changed – and in the goldfinch’s case, for the better. Today I see, or more often hear, goldfinches almost everywhere I go. They fly over our Somerset garden, distracting me as I sit and write; and are constant companions whenever I take the dog for a walk down the lane behind our home. Continue reading...

Reversal of ban shows ‘corporate agenda is king and people and environment are left behind’, say campaignersThe Trump administration’s decision to reverse a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles in some of America’s most famous national parks, including the Grand Canyon, shows “the corporate agenda is king and people and the environment are left behind”, campaigners have said.

Created by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the Cascade-Siskiyou monument protects Oregon’s extraordinary biodiversity, from butterflies to trout. But a Trump review threatens to open the landscape to the timber industryDave Willis, a grizzled woodsman and backcountry outfitter, has spent decades laboring to protect the mountains of south-western Oregon, one of the most beautiful, biodiverse regions in the country.Through grassroots activism, Willis and his conservationist allies have won the support of two US presidents. In 2000, Bill Clinton created the roughly 52,000-acre Cascade-Siskiyou national monument, proclaiming it an “ecological wonderland”. Located just outside of Ashland, it was the first such monument established solely for its extraordinary species diversity. It’s a place that harbors rare lilies and endemic trout, Pacific fishers and goshawks, black bears and a stunning array of butterflies. Continue reading...

The mining giant will give a critical results presentation this week, with activist investors lobbying impatiently for divestmentsIt has been a turbulent few years for BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining and petroleum company.First came the Samarco tragedy in Brazil, when the collapse of a dam at its iron ore mine unleashed a flood and killed 19 people. The company is still facing the prospect of criminal charges and a potential $47bn settlement over the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history. Continue reading...

Don’t get spooked by the pro-fossil fuel lobby: when we abandon petrol and diesel, our whole world is going to changeWhen it comes to cars, I had a bit of luck this summer. No, I wasn’t loaned the new Tesla Model 3. My street underwent a pavement improvement scheme. All the parking bays were suspended and minicabs no longer idled their engines during the night. I found myself living in an accidental Low Emissions Zone. It was wonderful.The best I can say about the anti-EV campaign is that it lacks imagination Continue reading...

Populations of gannets, puffins and other marine birds are in freefall, but a crucial scientific study to pinpoint the causes is being blocked, say expertsBempton Cliffs bird reserve was in fine fettle last week. The last of its population of puffins had departed for the winter a few weeks earlier, while its thousands of young gannets were still being cared for by their parents on the chalk cliffs of the East Yorkshire nature site. For good measure, kittiwakes, cormorants and fulmars were also bathing in the sunshine.Related: We must stop seabird numbers falling off a cliff. After all, we’re to blame | Adam Nicolson Continue reading...

Pressure is mounting against multi-faceted smugglers but the legal case, though strong, is enormously complexLate on 6 June 2014 Kenyan police, acting on a tip-off, raided a used car lot in Mombasa’s industrial area. Inside Fuji Motors East Africa Ltd, in one of the lock-ups, they found two tonnes of ivory.Days earlier a white Mitsubishi truck, its paperwork claiming “household equipment” but in fact carrying more than 300 elephant tusks secreted beneath a tarpaulin, had pulled into the yard on Mombasa Island’s dirty northern fringe, far from the tourist hotels and beaches for which the city is famous. Continue reading...

New Forest, Hampshire Marsh flowers provide nectar for a long list of species, from marmalade hoverflies to silver-washed fritillariesThe New Forest rides, named long before many were gravelled to allow cyclists and others ease of access, cut through the inclosures and plantations, serving as motorways for the many small creatures that abound in these woodlands.Much of the colour here in earlier months has gone. The golden yellow rays of marsh ragwort, Jacobaea aquatica, a plant quickly distinguished from its prolific commoner relative J vulgaris by its broader florets and leaves with a spade-like end, stand out more radiantly because there is so little competition. Continue reading...

Federal government calls for more areas to be placed in reserve to protect the huge crayfish, the world’s largest invertebrateThe federal government has called for more areas of north-west Tasmania to be placed in reserve as part of a conservation plan designed to protect the endangered giant freshwater crayfish.The crayfish, Astacopsis gouldi, can weigh up to 6kg and live for 60 years. Commonly called the giant freshwater lobster, it is the largest invertebrate in the world and endemic to the cool rivers of northern Tasmania, although habitat restriction and poaching have forced it to retract to areas west of Launceston. Continue reading...

A police insider has told the Guardian that the killers of Wayne Lotter may have been following him

Clouds cool the planet by reflecting solar energy back to space and also trap heat and radiate it back to Earth. In a Yale Environment 360 interview, physicist Kate Marvel discusses the double-edged effect clouds have on rising temperaturesClouds perform an important function in cooling the planet as they reflect solar energy back into space. Yet clouds also intensify warming by trapping the planet’s heat and radiating it back to Earth. As fossil fuel emissions continue to warm the planet, how will this dual role played by clouds change, and will clouds ultimately exacerbate or moderate global warming?Kate Marvel, a physicist at Columbia University and a researcher at Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is investigating the mysteries of clouds and climate change. And while she and her colleagues would like to offer definitive answers on this subject, the fact is that few now exist. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, she discusses what is known about the behaviour of clouds in a warming world (they are migrating more toward the poles), why strict controls need to be imposed on geoengineering experiments with clouds, and why she is confident that science and human ingenuity will ultimately overcome the challenge of climate change. Continue reading...

Brown bears fishing, a rare white moose, and a puma found in a São Paulo office block are among our images from the natural world this week Continue reading...

Lib Dem leader Vince Cable questions UK’s commitment to environmental projects after GIB sale to Australian bank MacquarieThe government is facing renewed criticism after pushing through the “disastrous” sale of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) to the Australian bank Macquarie, as fresh concerns are raised over its commitment to environmental projects.A consortium led by Macquarie agreed to buy the GIB, which was established in 2012 by the coalition government to fund green infrastructure projects such as windfarms and a waste and bioenergy power plant. The consortium also includes Macquarie’s in-house infrastructure fund and the Universities Superannuation Scheme, a pension fund for British higher education institutions. Continue reading...

As Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash face high court cases over citizenship, the constitution says parliamentarians cannot be ministers if not validly electedLabor has opened a new front in the Turnbull government’s citizenship crisis, raising the prospect that ministers may be unable to validly execute their ministerial duties under the constitution while there is a question about whether they have been validly elected.

Minninglow, Derbyshire The Y Not festival site is still a mess, but a walk along the High Peak Trail underlines the resilience of natureAt the top of Gratton Dale, turning into Mouldridge Lane, the familiar white-walled pasture had been transformed. Diggers and tractors swarmed across the fields, beeping frantically. Grass had been churned up everywhere, and serried ranks of portable loos leaned like wearied soldiers. I was baffled. Was this some sort of war re-enactment?Then I saw the word TONY spelled out in giant letters in the middle of the busiest field, only the Y was drooping and the N was the wrong way round. Continue reading...

From elephant shrew to Tibetan antelope and the two towers of Antarctica, here are the best wildlife and nature photographs from this year’s competition Continue reading...

Alison McKenzie, whose husband Glen Turner was killed by a farmer, is ‘horrified’ broadscale tree clearing could return in NSWThe widow of a New South Wales environment officer murdered over his role in overseeing tree-clearing laws has asked the state government to reconsider deregulation that would see “the value of his life diminished”.Alison McKenzie said her family was “horrified” that changes would allow a return to broadscale clearing that her husband Glen Turner “gave his life trying to prevent”. Continue reading...

State mines minister rejects two applications at reserves west of Cape Tribulation which campaigners say should set a precedentThe “archaic” practice of mining rivers in north Queensland is making a mockery of Australia’s key policy to protect the Great Barrier Reef, wasting multimillion-dollar efforts to cut runoff pollution, its opponents say.“Instream” mining in Queensland, the only state still allowing the excavation of rivers for gold, tin and silver, is unleashing torrents of fine sediment in one of the reef’s largest catchments. Continue reading...

Elusive and endangered white-letter hairstreak discovered in a field in the Scottish borders could become the 34th species to live and breed in the countryScotland has a new species of butterfly: the elusive and endangered white-letter hairstreak has been discovered in a field in Berwickshire, 100 metres from the English border. Continue reading...

Qualified graduates are struggling to find paid jobs and many give up to pursue a different career. The result is a net loss for conservation work, reports MongabayNika Levikov swore she would never work as a waitress again. But, today — with a master’s degree in conservation science from Imperial College London — she’s taking orders, delivering drinks, and cleaning tables to support herself. Continue reading...