Category Archives: Conservation

‘Wildly toxic’ poison used on fire ants is killing native Australian animals, experts warn Senate inquiry

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Fipronil is banned for use on crops in the EU, China, Vietnam and California

A “wildly toxic” chemical used to combat fire ants and the varroa mite in Australia is banned in Europe and harmful to humans – and it is poisoning waterways and killing native fauna, experts warn.

Fipronil acts as an insect nerve agent and is banned for use on crops in the EU, China, Vietnam and California because of its effect on pollinators. The insecticide was used in sugar baits across New South Wales in the now abandoned fight against the invasive varroa mite and has been injected into 35,539 fire ant nests in south-east Queensland and northern NSW since January 2023 as part of the national red imported fire ant eradication program.

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Birdwatch: rare black-faced spoonbill turns up in Hong Kong wetland

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Soon it will head back north to the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea where it can breed undisturbed

I opened the windows to the hide and was greeted by a mass of birds. Hundreds of cormorants, gulls, herons, egrets, ducks and waders, all feeding frantically as the rising tide covered up the fertile mud. Overhead, black kites patrolled half-heartedly, occasionally provoking the other birds to take to the wing in short-lived panic, before settling back down to feed or rest.

I witnessed this spectacle at the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Mai Po nature reserve in Hong Kong, justly celebrated as one of the most important wetlands in the world. Either side of high tide, birds gather here in vast numbers against the backdrop of Shenzhen, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, just across the border in mainland China.

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France’s appetite for frogs’ legs is endangering species in Asia, say campaigners

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Scientists and vets are urging the president to afford the world’s most traded species better protections

France’s hunger for frogs’ legs is “destructive to nature” and endangering amphibians in Asia and south-east Europe, a group of scientists and vets have warned.

More than 500 experts from research, veterinary and conservation groups have called on Emmanuel Macron, the French president, to “end the overexploitation of frogs” and afford the most traded species better protections.

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More than 400,000 songbirds killed by organised crime in Cyprus

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Report links rise in birds trapped for human consumption to cuts in anti-poaching resources in area of British military base

More than 400,000 songbirds were trapped and killed in Cyprus last autumn as part of a recent increase in wildlife crime, according to a new report.

Organised crime networks use decoys and speakers playing birdsong to lure these small birds – including garden favourites such as robins and sparrows – to land in bushes or orchards, where they catch them with “mist” nets or branches covered in glue. They are then sold via the hidden market to restaurants to be eaten as a local dish called “ambelopoulia”, which consists of pickled or boiled songbirds.

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Cinnamon frog species in ‘perilous state’ successfully bred in UK

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Froglets from species classed as near-threatened arrive for the second time at Cotswolds wildlife park

A frog species that is in a “perilous state” due to an infectious disease has been successfully bred at a wildlife park in Oxfordshire.

Keepers at the Cotswold wildlife park in Burford have again bred the near-threatened cinnamon frog, four years after it became only the second zoological collection in Europe to breed the species.

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‘Poisoned by chemicals’: citizen scientists prove River Avon is polluted

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Charity blames the decline of invertebrates on farming, sewage and run-off from roads and homes, months after the Environment Agency told them the water in Wiltshire river was clean


A citizen science programme has revealed the decline of one of the country’s most significant chalk streams after claims by Environment Agency officials that it had not deteriorated. The SmartRivers programme run by the charity WildFish, which surveys freshwater invertebrates, reported “strong declines in relation to chemical pressure” on the River Avon in Wiltshire. It said its data indicated a decline in the condition of the river over the last five years.

The charity compiled a report on its findings after the conservation groups say they were told at a meeting by the Environment Agency in August that “the Avon has not deteriorated in water quality in the last five years”. David Holroyd, head of water quality for Wiltshire Fishery Association, said the numbers of invertebrates collected in spring and autumn samples from 2019 and 2023 at 11 sites on the upper Avon had shown a decline.

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Colombia vows to put nature at the heart of global environmental negotiations

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The environment minister Susana Muhamad says nature is a ‘pillar’ of fighting the climate crisis

The next round of global biodiversity negotiations will put nature at the heart of the international environment agenda, Colombia’s environment minister has said, as the country prepares for the Cop16 summit.

Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, who is expected to be the Cop16 president, said the South American country would use the summit to ensure nature was a key part of the global environmental agenda in the year building up to the climate Cop30 in the Brazilian Amazon in 2025, where countries will present new plans on how they will meet the Paris agreement.

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Death toll rises to seven in Malawi elephant relocation project linked to Prince Harry NGO

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Exclusive: The animal translocation scheme by wildlife NGOs including African Parks, once headed by the royal, has been dogged by controversy

Four more people have died after an elephant translocation overseen by two wildlife organisations, including one that was headed by Prince Harry, in a protected area in Malawi. The recent deaths bring the total fatalities connected to the relocated elephants to seven.

In July 2022, more than 250 elephants were moved from Liwonde national park in southern Malawi to the country’s second-largest protected area, Kasungu, in a three-way operation between Malawi’s national park service and two NGOs: the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), and African Parks. Prince Harry was president of African Parks for six years, before being elevated to the board of directors from 2023.

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Ill-judged tree planting in Africa threatens ecosystems, scientists warn

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Research reveals area size of France is under threat by restoration projects taking place in unsuitable landscapes

Misguided tree-planting projects are threatening crucial ecosystems across Africa, scientists have warned.

Research has revealed that an area the size of France is threatened by forest restoration initiatives that are taking place in inappropriate landscapes.

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Oldest platypus found in the wild is ‘beyond all our expectations’, say researchers

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Australian Platypus Conservancy says ‘it’s remarkable this animal is still doing as well as he is’

The biologist who first tagged a one-year-old platypus back in 2000 was astonished when it was recaptured last year, aged about 24, making it the oldest platypus found in the wild.

The director of the Australian Platypus Conservancy, Geoff Williams, has been researching the egg-laying mammals for decades, but said long-term research into the species can be expensive and rare.

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Amazon rainforest could reach ‘tipping point’ by 2050, scientists warn

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‘We need to respond now,’ says author of study that says crucial forest has already passed safe boundary and needs restoration

Up to half of the Amazon rainforest could hit a tipping point by 2050 as a result of water stress, land clearance and climate disruption, a study has shown.

The paper, which is the most comprehensive to date in its analysis of the compounding impacts of local human activity and the global climate crisis, warned that the forest had already passed a safe boundary and urged remedial action to restore degraded areas and improve the resilience of the ecosystem.

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‘Places of the living’: bishop of Norwich calls for churchyards to be rewilded

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Graham Usher urges Church of England to look into this ‘often very ancient land’, as it prepares to vote on increasing biodiversity

Churchyards should be rewilded to increase biodiversity and to make them “places of the living, not just the dead”, a Church of England bishop has said.

Local parishes are responsible for about 7,100 hectares (17,500 acres) of churchyards in England. The C of E also owns about 34,000 hectares of farmland, mostly let to tenant farmers, and 9,300 hectares of forestry.

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Sydney’s 90m-year-old climbing galaxias fish may have been wiped out by school building works

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The species can climb waterfalls and reaches back to Gondwanaland – but there are fears polluted runoff has proven fatal

A “miracle fish” may have been snuffed out in its Sydney habitat by bungled construction work at a nearby government high school, local environmentalists fear.

The climbing galaxias (Galaxias brevipinnis) belongs to a species line reaching back to Gondwanaland. It was only identified in the Manly Dam region in Sydney’s north – the fish’s most northerly known location in Australia – in 1998.

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India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe

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Exclusive: $9bn port, airport and military base on Great Nicobar Island will cause ‘genocide’ of isolated Shompen, academics warn

Academics from around the world have urged India to cancel a huge construction project on Great Nicobar Island, warning it would be “a death sentence” for the Shompen hunter-gatherer people who live there.

The $9bn (£7bn) port project, planned to transform the Indian Ocean island of 8,000 inhabitants into what has been called the “Hong Kong of India”, includes the construction of an international shipping terminal, airport, power plant, military base and industrial park. It will also develop tourism.

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Greater glider put on path to extinction by NSW environmental watchdog, experts say

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Ecologists condemn watchdog decision, accusing it of making reckless changes to allow easier logging of state forests containing glider habitat

NSW’s environmental watchdog has put the endangered greater glider on a fast track to extinction by watering down logging protections, experts say.

Ecologists from WWF-Australia and Wilderness Australia have condemned the watchdog, accusing it of making reckless changes so Forestry Corporation can more easily log state forests.

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EU to delay new green rule in bid to appease protesting farmers

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Delay to rules on setting aside land to encourage biodiversity offered as concession amid continuing protests

Farmers protesting across Europe have won their first concession from Brussels, with the EU announcing a delay in rules that would have forced them to set aside land to encourage biodiversity and soil health.

About 10,000 French farmers stepped up their protests on Wednesday, with at least 100 blockades on major roads across France, as 18 farmers were arrested for blocking traffic as they tried to reach the wholesale food market at Rungis, south-east of Paris and 79 others were detained after they managed to get inside.

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Court orders temporary halt to logging in Tasmanian forest ahead of swift parrot case

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Bob Brown Foundation wants logging banned in area of forest south of Hobart, claiming it is breeding habitat for endangered bird

Conservationists have won a temporary injunction to stop logging in an area of forest south of Hobart they say is breeding habitat for the critically endangered swift parrot.

The Tasmanian supreme court granted the injunction on Wednesday afternoon pending a hearing of the legal challenge brought by the Bob Brown Foundation.

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Belgian port blockaded as farmer protests spread across Europe

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Roads around Zeebrugge could be obstructed until midnight on Wednesday, hitting commercial trade

The Belgian port of Zeebrugge was blockaded on Tuesday, causing gridlock on surrounding roads as a wave of farmer protests spread across Europe.

Authorities at the North Sea port, one of the biggest in Europe, said all access roads were blocked by 5pm (1600 GMT) on Tuesday, in a demonstration that will hit commercial trade, including imports and exports of food to and from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

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‘Unacceptable greenwashing’: Scottish farmed salmon should not be labelled organic, say charities

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Open letter calls for Soil Association certification to be removed from industry, amid concerns of negative environmental impact

The British body that certifies food in the UK as organic has been accused of misleading consumers over its labelling of Scottish farmed salmon.

Thirty charities, conservation and community organisations, including WildFish, the Pesticide Action Network and Blue Marine Foundation, say the negative environmental impacts of the industry in Scotland “run completely counter” to the principles of the Soil Association’s promotion of healthy, humane and sustainable food.

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Spot the punk rockers: hope for waxwing boost in annual UK bird count

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People encouraged to record sightings of mohican-sporting birds in RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend

The scale of this waxwing winter will be revealed this weekend when people are encouraged to spend an hour recording the birds they see in their gardens, balconies, parks and school grounds.

The spectacular migratory, mohican-sporting birds have been spotted across Britain during the colder weather and will be recorded alongside more familiar sparrows, blackbirds and robins in the RSPB’s annual Big Garden Birdwatch.

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