Officials have removed 61 live tigers from Tiger Temple in ongoing operation after allegations of wildlife traffickingWildlife authorities in Thailand have found 40 tiger cubs in a freezer during a police raid on Tiger Temple, a tourist attraction that has faced repeated allegations of animal trafficking.The discovery occurred after officials from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP), backed by police, closed the temple this week to relocate 137 tigers to government-run sanctuaries. Continue reading...

Brexit would allow Britain to renegotiate a more favourable share of catches, claims out campaigner George EusticeBritain would have an opportunity to upend fishing quotas that give a “disproportionately large” share of catches to France if it votes to leaves the EU, according to George Eustice, the pro-Brexit minister for farms, food and fisheries.In an interview with the Guardian, Eustice said that even if it left the EU, the UK would still respect catch limits set out to preserve stocks, some driven to near-extinction by decades of over-fishing. Continue reading...

We asked you to share your most striking images of the weather in May from around the world. Here are some of our favourites• You can add your June weather photographs here

Funding for geoengineering computational experiments was mysteriously included in a Senate appropriations bill

Elephant populations in Tanzania’s Selous national park could collapse unless poaching and mining are urgently controlled, say WWFElephants could disappear from one of Africa’s most important wildlife reserves within six years unless industrial scale poaching is stopped and mining is brought under control, the WWF has said.Selous national park, a world heritage site in southern Tanzania, has lost an average of almost 2,500 elephants a year since the 1970s. But it has now reached a crtitical stage with only about 15,000 left, according to the latest census. Continue reading...

Steep rise between 2010 and 2014 shows link between EU’s renewable energy mandate and deforestation in south-east Asia, say campaignersLeaked trade industry figures show a five-fold increase in the use of palm oil for biodiesel in Europe between 2010 and 2014, providing new evidence of links between deforestation in southeast Asia and the EU’s renewable energy mandate.The leaked figures, which the Guardian has seen, show that 45% of palm oil used in Europe in 2014 went to biodiesel, up from 8% in 2010. Continue reading...

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party MP Robert Borsak admits to shooting and eating an elephant while on a hunting trip in Zimbabwe. In a late-night sitting of New South Wales parliament on Tuesday, he defends his choice ‘to hunt and gather my own meat because it is my right to do so – it’s a clean, organic and sustainable way to live’

Energy inefficient and substandard construction in developing countries locking the world into high greenhouse gas emissions for decades, warns Fatih BirolBuildings currently being constructed at an increasing rate in developing countries are locking the world into high greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, the world’s leading authority on energy has warned.Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian that the world’s number one priority in tackling climate change must be to ensure those buildings meet higher standards of efficiency and safety. Continue reading...

From Tibetan monks playing basket ball with ice thawing high up in the Himalayas, to the pollution that hides behind the Taj Mahal, here’s our pick from 60 exceptional environmental photographs, by photographers and filmmakers from 70 countries, that will go on show at the Royal Geographical Society in London from 29 June to 21 August. The winners will be announced on 28 June

Captured by the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, these images show the extent of coral bleaching in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives. Scientists say this and similar devastation elsewhere in the world, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, are visible evidence of the impact of global warming• Coral bleaching spreads to Maldives, devastating spectacular reefs Continue reading...

Exclusive: Images from the Indian Ocean archipelago reveal the extent of the longest global coral bleaching event in history• Coral bleaching in the Maldives – in pictures The longest global coral bleaching event in history is now devastating reefs in the crystal clear waters of the Maldives, with images released exclusively to the Guardian powerfully illustrating the extent of the damage there.Photographed by the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, the images captured the event in May as it moved beyond the now devastated Great Barrier Reef and into waters further west. Continue reading...

Company’s CEO Ian Taylor has kept a low profile but is finally breaking cover to lobby against EU plans to tighten regulation of commodity trading“The biggest company you’ve never heard of” is a label regularly bandied around but is well-deserved by the global trading firm with a name more suited to a household cleaning product: Vitol.You will not hear its name at this week’s Opec meeting in Vienna or have heard it quoted on the subject of the significant rise in oil prices over the past four months, but a Saudi oil minister would know the name Vitol as they would Shell or BP. Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire These shocking pink perennials are an antidote to a kind of sobriety that prevails in much writing about the natural worldThere’s a flash of naughtiness in the hedgerows. We never talk of shocking blue or shocking green, but shocking pink seems fitting for the red campions. Their colours are so vivid that they appear like garden plants in the waysides, an unfeasible pink that ranges from screaming princess to rose blush.Silene dioica is a largely perennial herb. Silene is a feminine form of Silenus, who was the old, drunken tutor of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and wildness, and given to antinatalist prophecy – which basically claims we’re better off dead. This seems totally at odds with the brightly camp campions and the note of exuberant joy they start summer with. Continue reading...

Pact addresses concerns that burgeoning output from renewables is putting strain on electricity grid and pushing up pricesThe German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has hammered out a deal with state premiers on the latest reform to Germany’s renewable energy law aimed at curbing the costs and controlling the speed of the roll-out of green power sources.After a meeting with the leaders of Germany’s 16 states that stretched into the early hours of Wednesday, the government agreed to cap the expansion of onshore wind power at 2.8 gigawatts in capacity per year. Continue reading...

He may have been excluded from the leaders’ debate but that hasn’t kept his party out of the media spotlight this election campaign – far from itRichard Di Natale was at home on his farm on Sunday night, watching Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten on television.

The Australian Greens leader examines coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef while snorkelling at Lizard Island in Queensland. Richard Di Natale also dives at Michaelmas Cay, where he is joined by his deputy, Senator Larissa Waters. All footage provided by the Australian Greens Continue reading...

Ben Gerring, a 29-year-old mine worker, was surfing at Falcon Beach south of Perth when he was mauled by a shark and has reportedly lost a legA surfer is fighting for his life after being mauled by a shark off a beach south of Perth.It’s believed 29-year-old Ben Gerring has lost a leg above the knee. Continue reading...

The killing of Harambe after a child fell into his enclosure at Cincinnati zoo was a tragedy. Lethal force is not the only way to deal with these reasoning animalsThe tragic events at Cincinnati zoo last Saturday triggered an outpouring of emotion all over the world. Shock at the killing of a splendid young silverback, Harambe, mixed with relief that the four-year-old boy came through it relatively unscathed (though doubtless traumatised). What lessons can we learn from such a sad turn of events?Related: Cincinnati zoo visitors leave flowers for gorilla fatally shot after grabbing boy Continue reading...

A crop of web and mobile developers from Silicon Valley and beyond are stopping blemished produce from ending up in landfillsWhen Zoe Wong moved to the San Francisco Bay Area three years ago, she fell in love with the fresh and abundant produce from surrounding farmers’ markets. Wong grew up in Hong Kong, where fruits and vegetables were scarce and imported. After attending college in upstate New York, she moved to California, the largest agricultural state in the country.Soon, though, Wong discovered something was off. “At the market, I’d see farmers getting ready to throw out boxes and boxes of fruit and vegetables they couldn’t sell,” she says. “I was shocked.” Continue reading...

With overpopulation a key environmental concern, safe access to birth control, abortion and reproductive health services offer a simple solutionAn often-ignored factor when examining environmental issues and climate change is the powerful role played by women. In the developed world, although women still struggle to achieve parity in issues of pay and opportunity, we typically hold the most sway in household decisions. According to the Wall Street Journal, women control nearly three-quarters of consumer spending in the US and two-thirds in the UK, including “making the decision in the purchases of 94% of home furnishings … 92% of vacations … 91% of homes … 60% of automobiles”.This massive buying power means that most of the time, women hold the reins when it comes to making large, environmentally friendly decisions like deciding to vacation close to home rather than taking another long-haul flight, buying a modestly sized dwelling rather than a McMansion, and choosing a compact hybrid car rather than a gas-guzzling SUV. Continue reading...

Farmers in the Southwest are turning a harsh, dry climate to their advantage by raising fishEast of Lake Tahoe, an organic farmer and his son are putting the finishing touches on what is perhaps a counterintuitive approach to water conservation in a dry climate: a 32,000-sq ft greenhouse that will grow tomatoes, peppers and fish in the heart of the Nevada desert.Mark O’Farrell, the owner of Hungry Mother Organics in Minden, Nevada, plans to have his desert fish farm operational by August, when he’ll begin to produce an estimated 36,000 to 50,000 tilapia per year. Continue reading...

Cars and houses are buried in rubble after extreme floods hit parts of south-west Germany. Streets in Braunsbach were strewn with debris after two streams burst their banks. Four people have died, including a firefighter. Much of Germany and Europe experienced heavy rain and thunder storms over the weekend

The growth of car-free homes, a drop in driver’s licences and increased car-sharing could all be signs of a move away from the automobileIf all goes according to plan, next year construction will begin on a 30-storey residential tower in Austin, Texas. Nothing new in the daily life of a booming city, except for one thing: the apartment tower will offer no parking spaces to residents.

The EU referendum has united an often fractious industry, with skippers in ports from northern Scotland to Cornwall desperate to dump imposed quotasWilliam Whyte has a new flag flying from the rigging of his vast blue-hulled trawler, its fabric snapping in the brisk breeze coming in off the North Sea. It features the cartoon of a militant-looking fish wearing armour, a union jack shield at its waist and the legend “Fishing for Leave”.

Shooting safaris should be allowed to control the reptiles’ numbers, which had ‘exploded’, says MP Bob Katter, criticising rival Warren Entsch for saying ‘You can’t legislate against human stupidity’A suspected fatal crocodile attack on a missing tourist in Australia’s far north-eastern wilderness has revived a perennial dispute about how to deal with a protected predator.Photographer Cindy Waldron was reportedly taken by a saltwater crocodile during a moonlight walk through shallow water at a beach in Queensland’s Daintree national park on Sunday. Continue reading...

Photographs from the Eyewitness series Continue reading...

Tara national park, Serbia The extraordinary thing is not how comfortable local people are around bears but how they live in almost parallel worldsSitting in a forest hut for three hours watching a glade fill with shadows tests to the limits all that modern life has made of us, especially our capacities for patience, stillness, silence.Not that I expected the objects of our vigil to reciprocate. On the contrary, brown bears in this park can be 250kg, so I was assuming that they might give warning of their approach: inadvertent rustling perhaps, or anxious alarm calls from nearby birds. Not a bit of it: what was so affecting was how the bears brought the stillness with them. On one occasion an animal walked right by us and while just 4 metres away we heard nothing. Continue reading...

Greens leader Richard Di Natale criticises Labor and the Coalition for their commitments to new coalmines, accusing them of taking huge donations from the fossil fuel lobby and harming the future of renewables on ABC’s Q&A program on Monday. When asked about his plans for central Queensland, Di Natale says: ‘I tell you what we won’t be doing is opening up a new coalmine and killing the Great Barrier Reef.” Continue reading...

The full draft of the Unesco report on climate change reveals many mentions of Australia were actually positiveGreg Hunt has conducted one of the strangest manoeuvres of his already rather gymnastic career, over the erasure of Australia from a United Nations report on climate change.Guardian Australia had broken the story that all mentions of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef had been scrubbed from the report at the request of the environment department. Continue reading...

Resources minister says candidates are challenging Bill Shorten’s authority on coal and Adani’s Carmichael mineThe resources minister, Josh Frydenberg, has taken aim at a number of outspoken Labor candidates who oppose new coalmines and called on Bill Shorten to clarify the party’s position.The Courier-Mail has reported Labor’s candidate for North Sydney, Peter Hayes, tweeted: “[Australia’s] defence of coal mining and export is in the same league as heroin poppy cultivation and exports elsewhere!” Continue reading...

Polling indicates 71% would be more likely to vote for a party that supported distributed small-scale solar and storageBattery storage technology has the potential to reshape not just the energy and transport sectors but also the upcoming Australian federal election, according to a new report.The Australia Institute report Securing Renewables: How Batteries Solve the Problem of Clean Electricity includes polling indicating that 71% of Australians would be more likely to vote for a party that supported distributed small-scale solar and storage. Continue reading...

Labor’s Terri Butler and the Coalition’s Steve Ciobo turn on Greens leader after he describes their commitment to coalmines ‘the great tragedy’The commitment by both major parties to new coalmines that threaten the Great Barrier Reef was “the great tragedy” of Australian politics, Greens leader Richard Di Natale told the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday.Di Natale, who was forced to defend the role of his party from both Labor and Coalition rivals, who branded him “arrogant”, linked fossil fuel donations to the two major parties to the economic woes now felt in regions like central Queensland. Continue reading...

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s assessment of the parties’ policies awards the Coalition 11 points out of 100, Labor 53 and the Greens 77The Australian Conservation Foundation has described the Coalition’s environmental policies as “woefully inadequate” in its traditional election scorecard.It gave the Coalition 11 points out of a possible 100, Labor 53 and the Greens 77. Continue reading...

Officials in Thailand take three tigers away from a Buddhist temple during a raid over wildlife trafficking claims. The tigers are tranquilised and taken away on stretchers to be transferred to a state-owned sanctuary. Dozens of tigers remain at the temple in Kanchanaburi province, and tourists are seen taking selfies with the big cats. The temple claims it is a wildlife sanctuary, but authorities are investigating it for animal trafficking and abuse Continue reading...

Data released to Greenpeace in response to FoI requests show number of prosecutions has dropped significantly in recent yearsFar fewer pirate fishermen are being caught in English and Welsh waters, with prosecutions, warnings and inspections all plummeting in recent years following cuts at the enforcement agency.The reduction in action against illegal fishing, a multimillion-pound activity, is putting marine life at risk and allowing “blackfish” to become a normal catch for some rogue operators, according to experts. Those convicted of major fishing crimes are also free to continue fishing afterwards. Continue reading...

A worried mother elephant looks on as her calf is rescued by wildlife officials in Sri Lanka, after it fell into an open drain. Rescuers in the town of Hambantota fire smoke bullets to keep her from coming too close while they dismantle the drain and pull the calf to safety Continue reading...

Expert criticises ministers over refusal to disclose agreement with energy supplier for planned nuclear plant

Officials remove three animals following raid at temple, which has been investigated for animal abuse in recent yearsWildlife authorities in Thailand have raided a Buddhist temple where tigers are kept, taking away three of the animals and vowing to confiscate scores more in response to global pressure over wildlife trafficking.

The new Tun Mustapha marine park & shark sanctuary in Borneo is the biggest marine protected area in MalaysiaMalaysia has just established the biggest Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the country. The Tun Mustapha Park (TMP) occupies 1m hectares (2.47m acres) of seascape off the northern tip of Sabah province in Borneo, a region containing the second largest concentration of coral reefs in Malaysia as well as other important habitats like mangroves, sea grass beds and productive fishing grounds.It is also home to scores of thousands of people who depend on its resources – from artisanal fishing communities to the commercial fisheries sector – making it in many ways a microcosm of the entire Coral Triangle bioregion, where environmental protection must be balanced with the needs of growing coastal populations. Continue reading...

Farming minister George Eustice says leave vote would free up £2bn now spent on insurance schemes and incentives for farmersThe UK could develop a more flexible approach to environmental protection free of “spirit-crushing” Brussels directives if it votes to leave the EU, the farming minister, George Eustice, has said. Continue reading...

Footage shows collapsed buildings and cars buried under rubble, following violent storms that caused severe flooding in southern Germany on Monday. Four people have died and several more are injured. The scenes are from the streets of Braunsbach, which according to German media, have been strewn with debris after two streams burst their banks and unleashed floodwaters that brought down one house and damaged several other. Photograph: REUTERS/Kai PfaffenbachFour dead after severe floods hit southern Germany Continue reading...

Thanks to the likes of Menstrual Man periods are now out in the open: now it’s time to be equally bold about the waste problem posed by millions more padsMuruga reaches down and puts a sanitary towel between his legs. It’s actually a postpartum pad for women who have just given birth, and who don’t use underwear, hence the ingenious elastic loop that holds the pad in place.Muruga’s full name is Arunchalam Muruganantham but he is better known as Menstrual Man. He is a one-off, and his story is enchanting: who else would have tested their own sanitary pad design by taking a football bladder, filling it with goat blood, then wearing it for weeks? “I became like a woman,” he tells me in his factory in Coimbatore, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. “Always checking behind me, to check for staining.” Continue reading...

The Springwatch presenter’s revelation may seem a tad unpalatable, but he is sending an important message to parents about children’s encounters with natureAs celebrity revelations go, it’s one of the more unusual: as a boy, Chris Packham would decant tadpoles on to a special spoon and eat them.The naturalist and Springwatch presenter reveals his tadpolephagy in his new memoir, Fingers in the Sparkle Jar, and he’s not sorry either. They are gritty and tricky to chew, Packham reports, comparing them to watery semolina with a bit more “thrashing” under the tongue. Continue reading...

Girl of 13 who was struck by a train while sheltering from the rain and volunteer firefighter among those killedFour people died and several more were injured in southern Germany after violent storms with torrential rains caused severe flooding, authorities said.

Scientists say sea temperatures are back to normal, but from southern Africa to southern Asia, droughts and heatwaves have left a trail of devastationThe strongest El Niño in 35 years which has seen long droughts, scorching temperatures, water shortages and flooding around the world is officially over. But the consequences of a second year of extreme weather will be seen for many more months in food shortages for nearly 100 million people, the loss of income for millions of poor farmers and higher prices in cities, say the UN and leading meteorologists.According to Australian and US government scientists, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, which warm significantly every few years, have cooled to normal levels and are unlikely to rise again this year. This marks the end of an 18-month global weather hiatus which has created social and ecological turmoil in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Continue reading...

In a country hit by a devastating poaching surge for rhino horn and elephant ivory, local people are turning the tide – but the wider problems of demand, corruption and organised crime remain“It’s hard work. I cut their tusks off with an axe,” said Abdi Ali, a northern Kenyan pastoralist who became a full-time poacher at 14. With three other men it took him about 10 minutes to kill each of the 27 elephants he poached, cutting off the trunk, splitting the skull and removing the ivory that would later fetch 500 Kenyan shillings (£3) a kilo.

Photographs from the Eyewitness series Continue reading...

Election 2016: as polls remain close the question of a hung parliament comes up again – and earlier outright denials are softeningHow about this for an alternate reality? A normal election campaign would be starting today. As it is, welcome to week four – we’re nearly, almost, oh-so-close to the halfway mark, and the question of a hung parliament is back on the table.The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, the treasurer, Scott Morrison, and the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, have weighed in on the hypothetical as poll analysis shows the government could lose up to 16 seats in just three states. Continue reading...

Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef is clearly at risk from climate change, so why would Unesco agree to censor its own report?That quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet comes to mind: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”The lady in question is the Australian government, which some time in early January saw a draft of a report from a United Nations organisation. Continue reading...

The suspected male buck jumped on to Sharon Heinrich and her friend when they paused on a cycle tour of the Reisling Trail in Clare ValleyTwo women have been attacked by a kangaroo while cycling in South Australia’s wine country.Sharon Heinrich, 45, suffered cracked ribs and internal injuries while Helen Salter, 47, was concussed after being attacked along the Riesling Trail in Clare Valley. Continue reading...