Former Yes musician plays at sanctuary to raise awareness of animals that remain stuck in cages at ‘bile farms’
Rick Wakeman has played to all kinds of people around the globe, but he has now performed to an audience he had never encountered before – an enclosure of 150 bears.
The former Yes musician, who has gone on to have a prolific solo career, played the piano at a Vietnamese bear sanctuary.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Levy that allows almost 16,000 houses to be built on Norfolk Broads will not cover cost of mitigating environmental damage, critics say
A new levy on developers to allow almost 16,000 homes to be built in the environmentally protected Norfolk Broads has been cut by tens of thousands of pounds per house, the Guardian can reveal.
Ministers say the government’s environmental delivery plans (EDPs) were created to unblock housing growth across the country and are a “win-win” for development and nature.
Continue reading...Critically endangered Bornean orangutans flee forests as staff at Cabang Panti work round the clock to stave off blaze
Wildfires in Indonesia are sweeping through a critical research site for Bornean orangutans and are now threatening a celebrated research camp, home to one of the world’s longest-running studies of wild apes.
In the past few days, the fires have burned within 200 metres of Rangkong research station, a satellite of Cabang Panti research station, which lies about four miles north in Gunung Palung national park.
Continue reading...Critically endangered Bornean orangutans flee forests as staff at Cabang Panti work round the clock to stave off blaze
Wildfires in Indonesia are sweeping through a critical research site for Bornean orangutans and are now threatening a celebrated research camp, home to one of the world’s longest-running studies of wild apes.
In the past few days, the fires have burned within 200 metres of Rangkong research station, a satellite of Cabang Panti research station, which lies about four miles north in Gunung Palung national park.
Continue reading...Habitat destruction strongest driver of species loss, with legislation keeping 99% of listed species from going extinct
The Trump administration repealed a crucial part of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Friday, finalizing a new rule that will open habitats of imperiled wildlife to development, logging, mining and other uses.
For the last 50 years, the landmark environmental law included a broader understanding of the word “harm”, which ensured that not just the plants and animals themselves were protected but also the places that are critical to their survival. The inclusion of habitat in the “harm” definition was upheld by the supreme court in 1995, which ruled in support of old-growth forest protections relied on by endangered spotted owls.
Continue reading...Newly endangered animals include desert frogs and snails in extreme ocean depths, both threatened by mining
Life has colonised every corner of the planet by evolving ingenious survival strategies but these are increasingly being overwhelmed by destructive human activities, this year’s red list of endangered species has revealed.
Many snails, limpets and clams have adapted to life at crushing depths in the oceans on hydrothermal vents where water temperatures can reach 450C (842F). But an assessment for the red list found that two-thirds of the hundreds of mollusc species found only on deep sea vents were at risk of extinction because of deep-sea mining.
Continue reading...Wilderness Society says changes undermined intent of national standards intended to reverse decline of plants, animals and ecosystems
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Green groups have accused the Albanese government of watering down a proposal to protect threatened species and ecosystems.
National environmental standards were the key plank of reforms to Australia’s nature laws, passed by the parliament in November.
Continue reading...Critics say exemption for fossil fuels exploits White House’s ‘self-made gas crisis’, and could doom the rare Rice’s whale
A US government panel on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a move which critics say could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life.
The Endangered Species Committee – which had not convened in more than three decades – voted to approve the request for the ESA exemption at the request of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
Continue reading...Alarming shift since 2010 means planet’s three main rainforest regions now contribute to climate breakdown
Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that underscores the need for urgent action to save the world’s great natural climate stabilisers.
The alarming shift, which has happened since 2010, means all of the planet’s three main rainforest regions – the South American Amazon, south-east Asia and Africa – have gone from being allies in the fight against climate breakdown to being part of the problem.
Continue reading...Offsets were meant to be a last resort for mitigating environmental damage from development projects, but rapidly became the default
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The federal government risks repeating grievous mistakes made in NSW with its proposals to change the way developers compensate for damage to the environment, scientists and legal experts have warned.
As the Coalition tears itself apart again over climate, Labor’s plan to overhaul biodiversity offsets – and nature laws more broadly – has coasted under the radar with comparatively little scrutiny.
Continue reading...Fish named after Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus was most recently tracked at a section of the mid-Murray, near Belsar Island
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A young Murray cod has swum one of the longest ever recorded journeys for the species, travelling about 900km through the Murray River, its streams and backchannels.
Murray cod, Australia’s largest freshwater fish, grow up to 1.5 metres and can live for half a century. Research by Victoria’s Arthur Rylah Institute has shown the species, listed as vulnerable under federal environment laws, is capable of covering extreme distances.
Continue reading...Video shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park in south-western NSW
Baby numbats have been spotted at two wildlife sanctuaries in south-western New South Wales, sparking hope for one of Australia’s rarest marsupials.
Video captured by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park.
Continue reading...Glencore says it is working with state and federal governments to minimise the impact of flora and fauna in the 680ha area west of Mackay
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Habitat for threatened koalas that are part of a population described by one expert as nationally significant would be bulldozed under plans to extend a Queensland coalmine.
The campaign group Lock the Gate used drones with thermal imaging cameras to find 13 koalas in one night in trees earmarked for clearing by mining company Glencore.
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Continue reading...Government launches licensing round for 52 fossil fuel blocks, potentially undermining a flagship conservation initiative and affecting an estimated 39 million people
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is opening crucial gorilla habitats and pristine forests to bids for oil and gas drilling, with plans to carve up more than half the country into fossil fuel blocks.
The blocks opened for auction cover 124m hectares (306m acres) of land and inland waters described by experts as the “world’s worst place to prospect for oil” because they hold vast amounts of carbon and are home to some of the planet’s most precious wildlife habitats, including endangered lowland gorillas and bonobo.
Continue reading...Thousands have been displaced and conservation work halted as series of killings jeopardises decades of work in Niassa, one of Africa’s biggest protected areas
One of Africa’s largest protected areas has been shaken by a series of attacks by Islamic State-linked extremists, which have left at least 10 people dead.
Conservationists in Niassa reserve, Mozambique, say decades of work to rebuild populations of lions, elephants and other keystone species are being jeopardised, as conservation operations grind to a halt.
Continue reading...Fire in black sheoak forest of East Gippsland would destroy the birds’ food supply, conservationist says
Glossy black cockatoos could be pushed towards extinction in Victoria if planned burns of 13,000 hectares of forest go ahead, ecologists and conservationists warn.
The Victorian government is being urged to abandon the burn, which is intended to reduce bushfire risk.
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Continue reading...Forestry Corporation says suggestion that it can be compared to a criminal bikie gang is ‘ridiculous’
A former magistrate and one of Australia’s most experienced scientists have launched an extraordinary attack on the New South Wales government’s logging agency, describing it as effectively a “criminal organisation” that should be shut down after a string of court convictions.
Prof David Heilpern, a NSW magistrate between 1998 and 2020 and now the dean of law at Southern Cross University, said the state’s Forestry Corporation should be “disbanded” as it was was no longer fit for purpose.
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Continue reading...An ashen pallor and an eerie stillness all that remains where there should fluttering fish and vibrant colours in the reefscape, one conservationist says
The world’s coral reefs have been pushed into “uncharted territory” by the worst global bleaching event on record that has now hit more than 80% of the planet’s reefs, scientists have warned.
Reefs in at least 82 countries and territories have been exposed to enough heat to turn corals white since the global event started in January 2023, the latest data from the US government’s Coral Reef Watch shows.
Continue reading...Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems
Nearly 2m hectares of forests suitable for endangered koalas have been destroyed since the iconic species was declared a threatened species in 2011, according to analysis for Guardian Australia.
The scale of habitat destruction in Queensland and New South Wales – states in which the koala is formally recognised as being at risk of extinction – has continued despite political promises it would be protected.
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Continue reading...Ronald Greentree and his company Auen Grain cleared 1,262 hectares of land home to 30 threatened species, NSW government says
The former graincorp chair and prominent wheat farmer Ronald Greentree has been handed a record fine of more than $1m for illegal land-clearing in the north-west of New South Wales.
Greentree and his company Auen Grain were sentenced in the state’s land and environment court on Friday for offences related to illegal clearing of an area larger than Sydney airport on the property “Boolcarrol”, north-west of Narrabri.
The sentence follows a 2022 court decision that found Greentree and Auen Grain guilty of eight separate land-clearing events at the property between December 2016 and January 2019.
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