China’s lucrative black market for fish parts is threatening the vaquita, the world’s most endangered marine mammal. The porpoises, who live only in the Gulf of California, are getting caught up as bycatch in illegal gill nets and killed, reports Yale Environment 360In 2013, Song Shen Zhen, a 75-year-old resident of Calexico, California, was attempting to re-enter the United States from Mexico when border patrol noticed a strange lump beneath the floor mats of his Dodge Attitude. The plastic bags beneath the mats contained not cocaine, but another valuable product: 27 swim bladders from the totoaba, a critically endangered fish whose air bladders, a Chinese delicacy with alleged medicinal value, fetch up to $20,000 apiece. Agents tracked Zhen to his house, where they discovered a makeshift factory containing another 214 bladders. Altogether, Zhen’s contraband was worth an estimated $3.6 million.The robust black market is grim news for totoaba — but it’s an even greater catastrophe for vaquita, a diminutive porpoise that dwells solely in the northernmost reaches of the Gulf of California, the narrow body of water that extends between the Baja Peninsula and mainland Mexico. Since 1997, around 80 percent of the world’s vaquitas have perished as bycatch, many in gill nets operated by illegal totoaba fishermen. Continue reading...

Ministers have been forced to reassure consumers and business that the latest changes to the government’s flagship energy market reforms will deal with any supply problems, illustrating how desperate matters have become

Arrival of meteorological spring to be met with icy blast after one of warmest winters on record

In the wake of the Flint water crisis several schools have shut off their drinking water due to high levels of lead, raising the question: ‘how big is this issue?’Several schools across the US have either discovered or acted upon evidence of high levels of lead in their drinking water in the wake of the crisis in Flint, Michigan, with one leading expert warning the cases could mark “the tip of the iceberg”.Related: 'It's all just poison now': Flint reels as families struggle through water crisis Continue reading...

Specialist body tackling wildlife crime was set to close at the end of March but has been awarded four years’ worth of fundingThe UK’s national wildlife crime unit (NWCU) has won a late reprieve from closure after the government announced new funding on Tuesday.The specialist unit tackles wildlife crime from the killing of birds of prey and poaching of deer in the UK to the smuggling of endangered reptiles, birds and elephant ivory across the globe. It was set to close at the end of March, but environment minister Rory Stewart announced funding for four years in a statement to parliament. Continue reading...

Spring is in sight for the northern hemisphere with the arrival of March, while the southern hemisphere prepares for the autumn months ahead. We’d like to see your photos of the March wildlife near youDespite the recent cold mornings, the northern hemisphere will be hoping the arrival of March brings early signs of spring. Summer is now in the past as the southern hemisphere embraces the autumn months ahead. So what sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps? We’d like to see your photos of the March wildlife near you.Share your photos and videos with us and we’ll feature our favourites on the Guardian site. Continue reading...

A Filipino social enterprise is bringing cheap solar lighting to more than 20 countries helping improve safety, reduce air pollution and cut energy costsEvery day at around 6pm, 40 families living in a remote corner of Andhra Pradesh in southeast India – a 6km walk from the nearest road – would be swallowed by darkness. With no access to electricity, sunset was a non-negotiable curfew – going outside was dangerous, people couldn’t cook and children were unable to do their homework.This changed in April 2015 when Liter of Light, a project that transforms plastic bottles into simple solar lights, introduced solar-powered street lamps to the villages. “Some of the children had never seen [artificial] light in their lives,” says Pankaj Dixit, co-founder of Liter of Light’s Bangalore branch in India. “They said we had added four hours to their lives every day.” Continue reading...

Key reforms to the energy market have been unexpectedly brought forward by a year in a bid to avoid supply gapsThe UK government has moved to allay fears of a coming electricity supply crunch by unexpectedly bringing forward key reforms to the energy market.An auction of contracts to supply electricity is to be brought forward a year, to next January, and will cover the supply of power in the winter of 2017 to 2018. Continue reading...

The typical UK press response to sensible EU rules on the energy efficiency of products is a textbook case of cutting off our nose to spite our faceSome Brits love to hate the EU, especially when the bureaucrats are going after things like kettles or toasters.Last week was no exception, when old news resurfaced that one day the EU may gently show the door to the worst-performing kitchen equipment. There are no current EU rules for toasters and there was no real development. Continue reading...

Photographer James Morgan has spent time with two WWF scientists who are undertaking a unique ecological and social monitoring project looking at the impacts of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the far east of Indonesia. Five years into the study, nearly half a million fish have been counted and more than 3,500 households interviewed, making it the largest study of this type ever conducted Continue reading...

Preliminary Met Office figures indicate temperatures beat previous records set in 2007 and 1989This winter is on track to be the warmest ever recorded in England and Wales, according to preliminary figures from the Met Office. Continue reading...

Partnering with indigenous groups, conservationists discover a wealth of wildlife in Bangladesh’s most remote region. Including maybe, just maybe, tigers.

Reclaim the Power says it will use direct action at a dozen international sites in May, including the UK’s largest opencast coal mine in south WalesClimate activists will use direct action to try to shut down major coal sites across the world in May, including the UK’s largest opencast coal mine in south Wales.The dozen international sites facing civil disobedience from the Break Free 2016 campaign span the globe from the US to Australia and South Africa to Indonesia. Continue reading...

Spain’s national parks showcase the country’s amazing diversity, from snow-capped mountains to volcanic semi-deserts and stunning archipelagos. This year marks the centenary of their foundingNudging the French border is Spain’s joint oldest national park (created in 1918 with Picos de Europa, see below) but also one of the least well known. The 3,355m Monte Perdido (Lost Mountain) looms over dramatic glacial valleys up to 3km deep. In its 156 sq km you’ll find hikes for every level, including paths along natural ledges in the limestone just a metre wide. Most popular hikes begin at Pradera de Ordesa including the Circo de Cotatuero, a six-hour circuit to a thundering waterfall (there’s also a shorter walk). There’s exhilarating rafting (€52pp) just a few kilometres south of the park in Torla which has a comprehensive visitors’ information centre.

Blackwater Carr, Norfolk The smell of which I speak is, in a sense, the scent of all human cultureAs my poor mother’s eyes mist over with cataracts, I give constant thanks for my own sight. This morning as I heard wild swans bugling faintly high over the house I thought also of friends who now have to wear hearing devices in their ears.Yet what of our sense of smell? Isn’t it, of all senses, massively underrated? Continue reading...

Nonprofit released confidential decision in complex case involving monarch butterflies, scientific freedom and the safety of the nation’s food supplyFederal officials have rejected a complaint by an entomologist who charged that the government has tried to suppress negative research findings about a widely used pesticide, in a complex case involving monarch butterflies, scientific freedom and the safety of the nation’s food supply.The confidential decision by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was disclosed Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), a nonprofit group that offers aid and advice to whistleblowers and scientists. Continue reading...

A dog-walking friend described how, having set off from the bottom of the downs in Sussex in thick mist and dressed for the freezing temperatures, he found himself in bright sunshine as he walked uphill.By the time he had reached the hilltop, he had to remove a couple of layers of clothing because the temperature had risen to 12C (54F). Continue reading...

The animals are being slaughtered – yet other European nations are able to live alongside lupines. It seems hunters don’t want to give up their total control of the countrysideThere’s been a massacre in Finland. The country, which from afar looks to epitomise sustainable living, has slaughtered a third of its wolves this winter. Seventy-five wolves have been killed since the end of August: 43 in a government-sanctioned cull, and most of the rest under a licence system that allows “problem” wolves – those repeatedly found in villages or menacing farm livestock – to be shot dead.Related: Finland approves wolf hunt in trial cull Continue reading...

The Oscar-winning actor’s environmental activism may not quite stretch back to What’s Eating Gilbert Grape but he has steadily schooled himself on the oceans and climate change since the 1990sLeonardo DiCaprio was a climate champion long before the actor wrapped himself in an animal carcass, vomited up raw bison liver, and risked hypothermia for his Oscar-winning role in Revenant.DiCaprio used his acceptance speech for best actor to urge a global audience to reject the “politics of greed”, and support leaders willing to take action against climate change. Continue reading...

The city of Salem is firing its goat squad tasked with eradicating invasive species after the animals ate the native vegetation, tooAn Oregon city’s experiment to outsource the removal of invasive vegetation to goats has backfired after the hoofed animals went on a damaging rampage.

We were saddened, but not surprised, to read that, according to a BBC Gardeners’ World survey, almost half of British people have never seen a hedgehog in their garden (Report, 29 February). The population has declined by a third in urban areas and by half in rural ones since 2000 (State of Britain’s Hedgehogs 2015 report).A big part of the problem is connectivity. If a hedgehog cannot get into your garden, you are unlikely to see one there. The British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species have joined forces on a project called Hedgehog Street that is calling for homeowners to ensure there are 13cm x 13cm gaps at the bottom of boundary fences and walls to enable hedgehogs to move through the landscape. We have recruited almost 38,000 “hedgehog champions” to date who help to spread the word. To find out more visit www.hedgehogstreet.org. Continue reading...

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler, comedian Hannibal Buress and at least a dozen other performers were also at an event in Michigan at the same time as the Oscars“The truth is, that by and large, the world’s most popular and talented entertainers often come from the Flints all over this country,” said Grey’s Anatomy star/activist Jesse Williams. Williams was in Flint, Michigan, Sunday night with filmmaker Ryan Coogler, comedian Hannibal Buress and at least a dozen other performers, who traveled to the Rust Belt city to express solidarity with residents in the wake of a water crisis and to raise money at a #JusticeForFlint event.The show was the same evening as the Academy Awards, which were under scrutiny for a lack of black nominees. Coogler, the writer and director of feature films including Fruitvale Station and Creed, insisted days before the show that despite the scheduling, the event was not a response to the awards show. The goal, he said, was to give residents a good show, and “humanize the issue” so viewers watching the show on a live internet feed could hear about what residents are going through. Continue reading...

Note from the European commission reveals emissions trading system allowance numbers are not in line with global 2C targetThe EU is set to emit 2bn tonnes more CO2 than it promised at the Paris climate talks, threatening an agreement to cap global warming at 2C, a note from the European commission has revealed.Carbon prices will rise too slowly to cut industrial emissions as much as needed, says a confidential note prepared for MEPs on the environment committee, which the Guardian has seen. Continue reading...

Rick Snyder previously said he became aware of severity of the lead problem on 1 October, but emails show he initially aimed to avoid a disaster declarationMichigan governor Rick Snyder could have declared a federal disaster over the Flint water crisis months before he did, but instead acknowledged to his aides that he wanted to resolve the problem without a disaster declaration, according to emails released by his office on Saturday.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley imposes levy of up to 4% on new passenger vehicles as part of his annual union budgetIndia has introduced a new tax on car sales aimed at helping fight high levels of air pollution and congestion.The surprise move, announced by the finance minister, Arun Jaitley, is a victory for campaigners and a defeat for the powerful car industry. Continue reading...

From how mountains are formed to the ‘fatal attraction’ of Everest, our lesson resources will help you scale new heights with your studentsThere’s something about mountains, isn’t there? They’re massive, yes, but there’s more to it than that: they remind us small humans of our place in geological processes that happened over millions of years. Or maybe it is mainly the massiveness. Either way, mountains are great. And some of the greatest of them can be found in the Himalayas, the 1,500-mile mountain range that has nine of the world’s 10 highest peaks, including Mount Everest. As well as vital reflections on climate change and previously undiscovered species, the Himalayas also offer opportunities for learning across the curriculum. Here’s how you can scale new heights with your classes. Continue reading...

Washing infected frogs in an anti-fungal drug bath reduced mortality rate and extended lifespan of population, and could buy valuable time to save species from extinction, research showsScientists have for the first time found a successful short-term treatment for amphibians infected with a deadly fungus in the wild.Although the treatment would not save them from being reinfected and dying at a later date, it could “greatly extend” the time needed to save an amphibian population from extinction in the face of epidemic disease, according to the study led by scientists from the Zoological Society of London and published in the journal Biological Conservation. Continue reading...

The Academy Award ceremony saw a plethora of principled statements from the winners’ podium – with more than #OscarsSoWhite in their sightsMaking a political statement at the Oscars podium appears to have come back into fashion, after Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscar-acceptance speech exhorting action over climate change led a string of wide-ranging statements at the 2016 ceremony – even if the expected controversy over Hollywood diversity was more muted than had been anticipated.The campaigning period, which had officially been kicked off by the nominations announcement on 14 January, had been dominated by talk of boycotts over the film industry’s diversity issues, and the associated #OscarsSoWhite hashtag. High profile figures such as Will and Jada Pinkett Smith chose to stay away, while up-and-coming directors Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler opted to attend a benefit even for the #JusticeForFlint campaign, over the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan. Oscars host Chris Rock tackled the issue with a stream of gags, but the combative mood was blunted by the appearance of Fox News commentator Stacey Dash – a high profile critic of Black History Month – and a less-than-incendiary speech from musician Quincy Jones. Continue reading...

Five years in planning and due to be finished in early March, more than 23,000 solar panels will be floated on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir near Heathrow and used to generate power for local water treatment plantsOn a vast manmade lake on the outskirts of London, work is nearing completion on what will soon be Europe’s largest floating solar power farm – and will briefly be the world’s biggest.But few are likely to see the 23,000 solar panels on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir at Walton-on-Thames, which is invisible to all but Heathrow passengers and a few flats in neighbouring estates. Continue reading...

Coal use fell 3.7% in 2015, following 2.9% drop in 2014, as China tries to wean itself off fuel that causes local air pollution problems and global warmingChina’s coal consumption fell for the second year in a row, government data showed Monday, as the world’s biggest polluter attempts to tackle chronic pollution that accompanied economic growth.

The crash in crude oil prices has huge implications for geopolitics, climate change – and even our pensionsIt’s been many years since the motorist had such a warm feeling at the petrol pump. Whoever thought they would be able to fill the car at prices as low as 90p a litre? Take advantage; fill up that tank. But don’t delude yourself that this is an unalloyed benefit. Instead be aware of the dynamic that has delivered cheap petrol to your tank, and of its serious implications.How did we get here? Since June 2014, the price of crude oil has fallen by over 70%. The reason is supply and demand, and the economics of oil markets. From the start of the Arab spring uprisings in Tunisia in January 2011, oil producers in the Middle East and north Africa sought higher oil revenues to keep people off the streets and out of the squares. That required higher oil prices – which for some time they managed to achieve. From 2011 to June 2014, prices averaged at $97 a barrel. The shale gas revolution in the US also had an impact. Production there increased by almost 5m barrels a day between 2008 and 2015 – unprecedented in the history of the industry. You don’t need a Nobel prize to realise that high prices in a market so oversupplied with oil were simply unsustainable. Continue reading...

New doc Land Of Hope And Glory - British Country Life looks behind the bucolic splendour of the magazine and its readers. But there are simmering tensions under those giletsAnd so to an alien world that lives side-by-side with our own, where people speak in accents so plummy they sound like they’re in a specialised and intense course of speech therapy, where men legitimately wear bowler hats, and the women use the word “jolly” without irony. That world is the countryside, of course, the beautiful British countryside. And that’s what Land Of Hope And Glory – British Country Life (Friday, 9pm, BBC2) is all about: our nation’s privileged green patches, the bodywarmer-wrapped people who trot about on them, and the staff who fetishise all this at Country Life magazine.At its core, Land Of Hope And Glory is similar to the Beeb’s Inside Tatler series but with very, very little about the actual production of the magazine itself. Instead the doc zips around the UK, alternately meeting too-posh-to-be-real readers, the salt-of-the-earth farmer types who work for them, and the occasional Country Life journo looking around a massive house and saying “extraordinary”. Then it’s back to the offices in south London, where longstanding editor-in-chief Mark Hedges holds the bridge of his nose and agonises over which particular Oxbridge graduate should be featured in its Girls In Pearls frontispiece. Continue reading...

First criminal action to be taken after 2011 disaster, in which three nuclear reactors went into meltdown after earthquakeThree former executives from Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) have been charged with contributing to deaths and injuries stemming from the triple meltdown in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.Their indictment on Monday marks the start of the first criminal action to be taken in connection with the disaster, which forced the evacuation of 160,000 residents, many of whom are still unable to return to their homes. Continue reading...

Leonardo DiCaprio has won an Academy Award for best actor for his role as a betrayed 19th century frontiersman in The Revenant. The nomination was DiCaprio’s fifth in an acting capacity but it is the first time he has won an Oscar. The actor used his acceptance speech to warn about the effects of global warming, saying “Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take this night for granted” Continue reading...

With its serious pollution problem and notorious driving styles, Milan is hardly renowned as a cycle-friendly city – but a radical new scheme aims to change that

Backstage at the Academy Awards, the winner of the best actor Oscar explanded on his impassioned acceptance speechLeonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar on Sunday, after being nominated four times previously. The actor was expected to win after dominating the best actor race all season, winning a number of precursor awards including a Bafta. Still, he said the industry-wide support he’s received over the past few months “feels incredibly surreal”.Related: The best images from the Oscars 2016 – in pictures Continue reading...

Eshaness, Shetland A single raven appears from the gloom and hangs overhead, watching with naked curiosityWe abandon the car at Eshaness, outside the lighthouse swinging its torch in an endless, unstoppable arc, and head north along the cliffs.Only a few months ago, the crags were crowded with life: tens of thousands of seabirds – fulmars, gannets, arctic skuas and the aggressive bonxies, as they call great skuas locally, that will divebomb anyone who comes near their nests – but now they are long gone, all except the hardiest fulmars gone south for the winter. Continue reading...

Quirky video shows a population of ‘pollution survivors’ who have adapted by growing luxuriant nose hairFor almost every Beijing resident it will be a familiar sight which quite literally gets up their nose.Related: Airpocalypse now: China pollution reaching record levels Continue reading...

The video depicts a dystopia where people in China have adapted to the air by growing long moustaches – actually nose-taches – to filter out the smog. ‘Change air pollution before it changes you,’ says the video, which was produced by WildAid China as part of its GOBlue campaign. About one-third of China’s 1.35 billion people regularly breathe smog deemed unhealthy by the World Health Organisation. In a recent WildAid survey, more than 90% of Chinese people are concerned about air pollution. Continue reading...

Fewer than a third of Britons spotted a hedgehog in their gardens last year