Category Archives: Environment

Brazil says illegal miners driven from Indigenous territory, but ‘war’ not over

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Country’s top cop said 90% of miners despoiling Yanomami land had been expelled, though experts say they are only displaced

Brazil’s top federal police chief for the Amazon has celebrated the government’s success in driving thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory but warned the “war” against environmental criminals is not yet over.

Speaking during a visit to the Amazon city of Belém, Humberto Freire estimated environmental and police special forces had expelled 90% of the 20,000 miners who had been devastating the protected Yanomami territory, since launching their clampdown in February.

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Weather tracker: heat dome raises temperatures in Spain and Portugal

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Phenomenon is forecast to expand as it strengthens, triggering conditions of more than 30C in parts of Europe

Parts of southern and western Europe have been experiencing unusually high temperatures. Areas of Spain and Portugal have recorded daily maximum temperatures in the high 30s celsius for more than a week, exceeding 40C in parts of southern Spain on Sunday. Italy, France, Germany and the Benelux region also reached the low- to mid-30s celsius in places at the weekend.

The heat is caused by a large area of high pressure that is stagnating over Europe and preventing the usual pattern of low pressure systems moving eastwards into Europe from the Atlantic. This is known as a blocking high and results in very dry and stable conditions, as the fronts associated with more dynamic weather patterns are forced away by the high pressure.

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India floods: monsoon rains leave 22 dead in north as Delhi sees wettest July day in decades

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Residents in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand warned not to go outside and Delhi schools closed amid flooding and landslides in multiple states

Torrential rain across northern India has killed at least 22 people, causing landslides and flash floods in the region, with Delhi receiving the most rainfall in decades, reports and officials have said.

Schools in Delhi were closed after heavy rains lashed the national capital over the weekend, and authorities in the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand asked people not to venture out of their homes unless necessary.

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Australia’s annual plastic consumption produces emissions equivalent to 5.7m cars, analysis shows

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Plastics consumed nationally in 2019-20 created 16m tonnes of greenhouse gases, report says

The plastics consumed yearly by Australians have a greenhouse emissions impact equivalent to 5.7m cars – more than a third of the cars on Australia’s roads, new analysis suggests.

A report commissioned by the Australian Marine Conservation Society and WWF Australia has found that the plastics consumed nationally in the 2019-20 financial year created 16m tonnes of greenhouse gases.

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Rare and ‘seriously, seriously cute’ chubby-cheeked rat discovered near Melbourne

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Shy broad-toothed rat found after a detection dog tracked down its bright green poo

A detection dog has unexpectedly discovered a new population of rare native rodents in Melbourne’s outer east.

The previously unrecorded broad-toothed rat population was found by a four-year-old labrador called Moss who was searching the Coranderrk bushland near Healesville sanctuary.

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Cadia goldmine could be source of some lead found in water tanks, miner says

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Exclusive: General manager says chemical analysis shows ‘slight overlap’ of mine lead and samples from local residents’ rainwater tanks

Chemical analysis has identified the Cadia Hill goldmine as a potential source of some of the lead found in samples collected from nearby residential rainwater tanks in central west New South Wales, the mine’s management has said.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority has been investigating the goldmine – one of the largest in the world – since May, when it issued Newcrest’s Cadia Holdings Pty Ltd with a draft pollution prevention notice and a draft licence variation regarding its management of emissions of dust and other pollutants. It followed local residents, including children, reporting heavy metals in their blood and rainwater tanks.

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South Koreans confront IAEA chief over Fukushima water release

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Rafael Grossi met with protests in Seoul during visit to try to calm fears over radioactive water discharge

Protesters have confronted the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog during a visit to South Korea in an attempt to calm fears over Japan’s plan to discharge treated radioactive water from its Fukushima plant.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Seoul on Friday to meet the foreign minister and a top nuclear safety official during a three-day visit after his trip to Japan.

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New York steps up patrols off local beaches after slew of shark attacks

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Drones and personal watercraft among measures to protect beachgoers but expert calls for perspective over shark attack data

New York lifeguards are being trained to use drones and personal watercraft after recent shark bites off local beaches – but one shark expert believes such solutions lack specialist input.

Officials in New York’s Long Island say they are upgrading training after five people were reportedly bitten by sharks since Monday, including two minors.

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Future of deep-sea mining hangs in balance as opposition grows

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Ireland and Sweden join countries calling for moratorium on extraction of metals from seabed as UN-backed authority prepares for crucial talks

The list of countries calling for a pause on deep-sea mining continued to grow this week ahead of a key moment that mining companies hope will launch the fledgling industry, and its opponents hope could clip its wings, perhaps for good.

Ireland and Sweden became the latest developed economies to join critics, including scientists, environmental organisations and multinationals such as BMW, Volvo and Samsung. The carmakers have committed not to use minerals mined from the seabed in their electric vehicles.

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Janet Yellen urges China to boost funding to tackle climate crisis

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US Treasury secretary says Beijing could have greater global impact if it worked with global climate institutions

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has pressed China to do more to support international climate institutions that are helping finance green initiatives around the world, urging deeper cooperation in addressing the “existential threat” of global heating.

“Climate finance should be targeted efficiently and effectively,” Yellen said on Saturday in Beijing during a meeting with Chinese and international sustainable finance experts. “I believe that if China were to support existing multilateral climate institutions like the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Investment Funds alongside us and other donor governments, we could have a greater impact than we do today.”

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Driven out by decades of conflict, native giraffes make a return to Angola

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In a ‘message of hope’ the animals have been brought in from Namibia to establish a group in their historical homeland

After an epic 36-hour journey, the first native giraffes to be returned to an Angolan national park arrived from Namibia this week, in what many hope to be the first of multiple translocations to return the animals to their historical homeland.

The giraffes, seven males and seven females, travelled more than 800 miles (1,300km) from a private game farm near Otjiwarongo in the Otjozondjupa region of central Namibia to Iona national park in the south-west corner of Angola.

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‘We’re all afraid of bears’: judge fines Canadian man for shooting animal

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The judge rejected Serge Paincahud’s ‘scared’ defense to fire at a black bear while illegally carrying a shotgun on a trail

A Canadian man, who had pleaded guilty to shooting a black bear in a national park, will pay a fine of C$7,500 after the judge rejected his “fear” of the predator as justification for bringing a loaded firearm on a popular hiking trail.

Serge Painchaud, 42, was this week fined for violating a hunting restriction under the National Parks Act.

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At least 50 dead in Pakistan monsoon floods since end of June

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Most of the deaths were in Punjab province and mainly caused by electrocution and building collapses

At least 50 people, including eight children, have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan since last month, officials have said.

The summer monsoon between June and September brings 70-80% of south Asia’s annual rainfall every year. It is vital for the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security in a region of about 2 billion people – but it also triggers landslides and floods.

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Paddleboarders in close brush with hammerhead shark off Florida coast

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Gabriel Barajas and Malea Tribble thought ‘it was all over for us’ – but marine expert suggests shark was merely being ‘inquisitive’

A pair of paddleboarders raising money for charity had a frightening encounter with a hammerhead shark that circled them near Florida’s coast – and the entire incident was caught on video.

Gabriel Barajas and Malea Tribble were paddling from Florida to the Bahamas, an 80-mile journey, to raise money for cystic fibrosis awareness, WJZY reported.

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Peter Dutton ramps up nuclear power push and claims Labor down ‘renewable rabbit hole’

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Opposition leader to tell Institute of Public Affairs that domestic reactors are natural next step from Aukus pact

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has ramped up calls for nuclear power in Australia, casting the move as a way to avoid dependence on wind and solar technology from China and a natural next step from the Aukus pact.

Dutton will make the comments on Friday at an event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal-aligned thinktank that has publicly opposed curbs on coal-fired power and has lobbied against the net zero by 2050 policy.

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Australian energy ministers to consider renaming natural gas to ‘fossil gas’ in law

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Meeting to discuss updating national gas law to reflect fuel’s environmental impact as well as overhauling hydrogen strategy

Australian energy ministers meeting on Friday will discuss an overhaul of the country’s hydrogen strategy, the treatment of emissions from the Beetaloo gas field and whether to change the treatment of “natural gas” in the national gas law.

The ACT energy minister, Shane Rattenbury, will propose the gas law be updated to replace “natural gas” with “fossil gas” or “methane” to more accurately reflect the environmental impact of the fuel.

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Grey whales seen seeking human help to remove parasites

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Captain of tourist boat from Baja California, Mexico, says grey whales return repeatedly for ‘grooming’

Grey whales have learned to approach whale-watching boats to have parasites removed by human beings, it has been claimed.

Video footage documenting the behaviour in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, shows a grey whale having whale lice picked off its head by the captain of a small boat. “I have done it repeatedly with the same whale and others,” Paco Jimenez Franco told a US news site. “It is very exciting for me.”

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The US banned a brain harming pesticide on food. Why has it slowed a global ban?

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Farmers can’t use chlorpyrifos on food because it damages children’s brains but an EPA official questions restrictions under global treaty

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden announced that his administration planned to scrutinize a Trump-era decision to allow the continued use of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that can damage children’s brains. And with great fanfare, the Environmental Protection Agency went on to ban the use of the chemical on food.

“Ending the use of chlorpyrifos on food will help to ensure children, farmworkers, and all people are protected from the potentially dangerous consequences of this pesticide,” the head of the EPA, Michael Regan, said in his announcement of the decision in August 2021. “EPA will follow the science and put health and safety first.”

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Tory MPs back mandatory swift bricks in all new homes to help declining birds

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Calls grow for legislation requiring developers to include hollow bricks for endangered nesting species

Conservative MPs are joining calls for a new law to guarantee swift bricks in every new home to help the rapidly declining bird and other endangered roof-nesting species.

Pressure is growing to amend the levelling up bill so that developers are required to include a hollow brick for nesting birds in all new housing, with MPs to debate the issue in parliament on 10 July.

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EU sets out first-ever soil law to protect food security and slow global heating

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Proposal to improve soil health throughout continent by 2050 criticised for lack of legally binding targets

The European Commission has proposed the continent’s first soil law, intended to undo some of the damage done by intensive farming and mitigate global heating.

Amid intense opposition to proposed laws on nature restoration and curbs on pesticides, the European Commission put forward proposals in Brussels on Wednesday to revive degraded soils. Research indicates that this could help absorb carbon from the atmosphere and ensure sustainable food production.

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