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While wildlife populations crash globally, research finds designated areas enable recovery of threatened species
Wildlife and humans are thriving within sites recognised by Unesco, research has found, allowing for the recovery of threatened species and habitats around the world.
While wildlife populations have crashed globally by nearly three-quarters since 1970, those within Unesco-protected areas have remained largely stable.
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Fiona Harvey tells Nosheen Iqbal why the climate crisis is a threat to national security
“Last October, I and other journalists got quite excited because we thought that we were going to be attending a great event at the Natural History Museum,” the Guardian’s environment editor Fiona Harvey tells Nosheen Iqbal.
“We had been told that there was a major report being launched at this event. And this report was going to come not just from where you’d expect – from the government’s environment department – but also from the joint intelligence committee, and they are the UK’s spy chiefs, MI5, MI6, the intelligence agencies. And they were taking an interest in the climate and biodiversity and the threats that they pose to the UK’s national security.”
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About 500 farmers challenge Green Gen Cymru in high court over alleged disregard for landowners and biosecurity
A group of 500 Welsh farmers have brought a landmark legal claim to the high court over the alleged conduct of a green energy developer planning to build electricity pylon routes across their land.
The court will hear allegations that Green Gen Cymru “unlawfully sought entry to private land, intimidated landowners, and showed disregard for biosecurity and basic rights”, as well as examine laws that force landowners to sell property to utility companies, in a hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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St Mabyn, Cornwall: Many apiarists opened their hives this spring to find hardly any sign of life. In Richard’s case, he found nothing at all
Richard Bray’s hives stand in a crooked line at the edge of the apple orchard, beside a low thicket of nettles. Richard was “brought up with” beekeeping here at Haywood farm, and at the peak of his apiary business had 250 hives; today he has seven. This spring, for the first time in 75 years, none of his bees survived the winter.
Richard lifts the lid of the first hive, releasing a sour smell of old wax and honey. “There’s nothing,” he says, “that’s very worrying. You’d expect to [at least] see dead bees in there. But there isn’t a bee anywhere.” An inspector from the National Bee Unit advised that the loss was caused by the varroa mite, a notorious destroyer of bee colonies. “I’ve never had anything like this,” Richard tells me. “Varroa mite? I don’t know.”
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Exclusive: Report finds Natural England has created no new SSSIs, which protect areas from development, since 2023
The government’s wildlife watchdog for England is failing to save nature because it has stopped giving protection to rare wildlife and habitats, according to a new report.
No new sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) have been designated by Natural England since 2023. SSSIs are nationally or internationally important places for rare wildlife and habitats. Without the designation, endangered species can be at risk of being lost to development.
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‘Stone age’ system of booking cross-border rail tickets holding back climate action by consumers, says thinktank
Europe’s “stone age” system of booking train tickets makes it needlessly difficult for travellers to avoid polluting flights, a report has found.
Booking equivalent train tickets is “difficult or impossible” on almost half of the EU’s busiest international air routes, analysis from the Transport & Environment (T&E) thinktank shows.
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One way to pay for wildlife conservation is to allow the rich to bag a few animals for high prices. But critics see this approach as an exercise in neocolonialism
You can kill almost anything if you’re willing to pay. Big or small. Land, water or air. Ten a penny or one of the last of its kind. There’s nearly always a way, though it might not make you popular. The Niassa special reserve, a vast reservation larger than Switzerland, stretches for 190 miles along the northern rim of Mozambique, taking in 4.2m hectares of woodland and rivers. The reserve, one of the world’s largest protected areas, is home to elephants, leopards, hyenas, zebras and about 1,000 wild lions.
That word, however: protected. It applies to some, but not all, of its animal inhabitants. Each year, a specific number are set aside for sacrifice, for the greater good. Not long ago,I joined an expedition in Niassa, with one of Africa’s top game-hunting companies.
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Analysis of video footage reveals how wave changed as it travelled over mud-rich rice paddies, exerting more force
It is just over 15 years since the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, killing almost 20,000 people and triggering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Fresh analysis of video footage of the wave has revealed that the mud-rich coastline made the tsunami far more destructive than it might otherwise have been.
Patrick Sharrocks, from the University of Leeds, and colleagues studied helicopter video footage, along with before and after images from Google Earth, to estimate the speed, shape and power of the tsunami flow front. They found that as the wave travelled over mud-rich rice paddies it changed from a fast-moving, clear-water flow into a thick, gloopy, mud-laden one.
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The country is seeing an increase in human-wildlife conflict as the number of megafauna, including rhinos and tigers, grows. But there are efforts to tackle the problem around Chitwan national park through education and training
The tourists lining the steep embankment buzzed with excitement, phones out, snapping away in the twilight as a wild Indian rhinoceros grazed below the Nepali village of Sauraha. Climbing to the main street, the rhino ambled down the middle of the road.
Local people warned tourists to give it plenty of space. All manner of wheeled vehicles slowed, then passed. The rhino turned its horn at a cyclist passing too close, triggering gasps from the assembled crowd.
A manager uses torchlight to guide a wild Indian rhinoceros through the grounds of his hotel in Sauraha
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Kerbside wheelie bins have been used in Australia since the 1980s but the recycling rate is stuck at 44%. Will another recycling bin make a difference?
There’s no garbage truck in Kamikatsu.
Instead, the Japanese town’s 1,400 residents take their waste to the local recycling centre, or “Gomi station”, and sort it themselves into more than 40 different categories.
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