Category Archives: Environment

Shark culls brought in after fatal attack causes division and anger in New Caledonia

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Authorities say capture of bull and tiger sharks necessary to protect lives as environmentalists launch urgent legal challenge

Some beaches in areas of New Caledonia are closed to swimming and the authorities have begun shark culling off the capital, Nouméa, after a fatal attack in the popular tourist spot – prompting a legal challenge to stop the operation and reigniting debate over public safety and marine conservation.

The culling operation began on 23 February, after a man from New Caledonia riding a wing foil in a recreational area was attacked and killed. Preliminary investigations indicate the victim was attacked by a tiger shark that measured at least three metres.

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Last of the summer rain puts southern states on flood watch and Sydney on alert for bull sharks

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SA premier Peter Malinauskas warns residents to prepare for heavy falls and possible flash floods

Late summer rain is causing havoc across Australia, with South Australia on flood watch, Victoria cleaning up after a downpour, and Sydney issuing a shark warning after heavy falls.

Almost all of South Australia, much of western Victoria and parts of western NSW were on flood watch as a slow-moving pressure system from central Australia moved east. Queensland had also seen severe rainfall.

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‘A devastating force’: how recent Mediterranean storms turned to tragedies

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Atmospheric machine-gun has fired storm after deadly storm at the region this year, leaving a trail of widespread destruction

For Andrés Sánchez Barea, in Spain, it was the fear that arose when water started to spurt from plug sockets. For Nelson Duarte, in Portugal, it was the helplessness that hit as violent winds smacked down trees and tore tiles from roofs. For Amal Essuide, in Morocco, it was the reality that dawned when a corpse was pulled onboard a boat in the flooded medina.

Each moment of horror is a fragment of the destruction wrought by an atmospheric machine-gun that in recent weeks has fired storm after storm at the western Mediterranean. Scientists do not know if climate breakdown helped pull the trigger, but research suggests it loaded the chamber with bigger bullets.

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Germany accused of ditching climate targets as it scraps renewables mandate

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Coalition government agrees to remove parts of controversial law and allow homes to rely on fossil fuels

Germany’s coalition government has been accused of abandoning its climate targets after agreeing to scrap parts of a contentious heating law mandating the use of renewables in favour of a draft law allowing homeowners to rely on fossil fuels.

While the previous law required most newly installed heating systems to use at least 65% renewable energy, often with a heat pump, the amended legislation will allow households to keep using oil and gas.

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Anger over plans to abolish New Zealand’s dedicated environment ministry

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Critics say proposal to fold department into a new ‘mega ministry’ will dilute accountability and put nature protections at risk

New Zealand’s government is seeking to abolish its dedicated environment ministry to cut down on bureaucracy, a move critics say could dilute environmental protections.

Under the plan, the department would be folded into a new “mega-ministry” that will cover housing, urban development, transport, local government and the environment.

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Channel 4’s Dirty Business is a clarion call to nationalise the water industry

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As the drama shows, private firms no longer able to pollute the coast of England of Wales just switched to rivers instead

There is a moment in Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business when Julie Maughan holds the body of her dead child and lets out an anguished cry. It is as brutal as it is compelling.

Her eight-year-old daughter Heather had just died in hospital, two weeks after playing in the sea on the beach at Dawlish Warren in Devon, where she contracted E coli O157, a bug which comes from raw sewage. She became ill with diarrhoea and blood loss. Transferred to Bristol children’s hospital, her parents agreed to switch off her life-support machine after she suffered kidney failure and brain damage.

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Chelsea flower show seeks new charity sponsors after mystery donors end support

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Exclusive: Project Giving Back, set up in 2022 to help charities exhibit show gardens, says this year will be its last

Chelsea flower show is looking for new charity sponsors after the mystery philanthropic couple who have spent more than £23m on show gardens end their support.

Project Giving Back was set up by two anonymous donors in 2022, and since then it has paid for 63 gardens at the most prestigious horticultural event in the world, held each summer at the Royal Hospital gardens in south-west London.

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Under water, in denial: is Europe drowning out the climate crisis?

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Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential

In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.

Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.

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Floreana giant tortoise reintroduced to Galápagos island after almost 200 years

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Subspecies driven to extinction by hungry whalers returns after ‘back breeding’ programme using partial descendants

Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote small island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years.

The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the giant tortoise once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages.

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Australia-US minerals deal underpinned decision to allow Alcoa to keep clearing WA forest, document reveals

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Document also shows US miner had been unlawfully clearing land for 15 years despite warnings from department

The Australian government’s decision to allow the US mining giant Alcoa to continue clearing swathes of Western Australian jarrah forest despite past illegal clearing practices was made in part due to a critical minerals deal reached between Australia and the Trump administration last year, a new document shows.

The document also reveals Alcoa was unlawfully clearing land for its bauxite mining practices in the area south of Perth for 15 years, despite warnings from the federal environment department.

Conservationists have expressed outrage that an “unprecedented” $55m penalty announced by the environment minister was only applied to a six-year period in which the illegal clearing was alleged to have occurred.

Murray Watt said on Wednesday that the penalty – known as an enforceable undertaking – was for clearing that occurred from 2019-2025 in known habitat for nationally protected species without an approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

When announcing the penalty, Watt said he had granted Alcoa a national interest exemption to allow it to continue clearing in the northern jarrah forest for 18 months while the government considered a proposal for an expansion of the company’s Huntly and Willowdale mining operations to 2045.

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Man in Sicily trained his dog to illegally dump rubbish, say police

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City of Catania calls ruse to avoid CCTV cameras installed to stop fly-tipping ‘as cunning as it is doubly wrong’

A man in Catania, Sicily, trained his dog to dump bags of rubbish by the roadside in an attempt to evade surveillance cameras installed to combat fly-tipping, municipal police have said.

The episode was detailed in a post on the city of Catania’s official Facebook page. Accompanying a video of the dog was a remark from the police that “inventiveness can never become an alibi for incivility”.

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Deer shooting to be facilitated in England to protect woodlands

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Government plans legislation giving landowners and tenants rights to cull deer to protect crops and property

It will be much easier to shoot deer in England under government plans that aim to curb the damage the animals are doing to the country’s woodlands.

Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, plans to bring forward new legislation to give landowners and tenants legal rights to shoot deer to protect crops and property.

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New Zealand bug of the year: moth named Avatar after mining threat crowned winner

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Arctesthes avatar moth, which won nearly half of the votes, was discovered in 2012 and is critically endangered

A tiny critically endangered moth, named after the Avatar films because of the proposed mining activity threatening its primary habitat, has been crowned New Zealand’s bug of the year.

The Avatar moth won by a wide margin, earning 5,192 of the more than 11,000 total votes cast. It won 2,269 more votes than the runner-up, the mahoenui giant wētā, one of the world’s largest insects. Other contenders included the wonderfully spiky hellraiser mite, the country’s heaviest spider – the black tunnelweb – and a giant earthworm that glows in the dark.

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Beef and lamb get 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, study finds

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Report says common agricultural policy provides ‘unfair’ levels of support to unhealthy, meat-heavy diets

Beef and lamb receive 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, a report has found, despite scientists urging people to get more of their protein from less harmful sources.

Analysis by the charity Foodrise found the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) provides “unfair” levels of support to meat-heavy diets that doctors consider unhealthy and climate scientists consider environmentally destructive.

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‘It’s a catastrophe’: Wellington rages as millions of litres of raw sewage pour into ocean

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Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline in New Zealand

A tide of anger is rising in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, as the city’s toilets continue to flush directly into the ocean more than two weeks after the catastrophic collapse of its wastewater treatment plant.

Millions of litres of raw and partially screened sewage have been pouring into pristine reefs and a marine reserve along the south coast daily since 4 February, prompting a national inquiry, as the authorities struggle to get the decimated plant operational.

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‘Daunting but doable’: Europe urged to prepare for 3C of global heating

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Advisory board member says Europe already paying price for lack of preparation but adapting is ‘not rocket science’

Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather “is not rocket science”, a top researcher has said, as the EU’s climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3C of global heating.

Maarten van Aalst, a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC), said the continent was already “paying a price” for its lack of preparation but that adapting to a hotter future was in part “common sense and low-hanging fruit”.

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Global heating and other human activity are making Asia’s floods more lethal

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Much improved response systems are struggling to cope with ever more powerful and destructive storms

Families stranded on their rooftops. Homes buried by fast-flowing mud. Jagged brown craters scarring lush green hillsides.

The scenes are the result of a series of cyclones and storms in a heavy monsoon season that have struck Asia with torrential rains, gutting essential infrastructure and reshaping landscapes. The violent weather has killed at least 1,200 people in the past week and forced a million to flee without knowing whether their homes will still be standing when they go back.

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Get shucking: South Australians urged to eat oysters and donate shells for reef restoration project

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Shrimp soundtrack will be played under water to lure baby oysters in program aimed at fighting algal blooms

South Australians are being urged to feast on local oysters and then donate the shells to restore native reefs, which will filter ocean water and help fight harmful algal blooms.

The program will also involve lumps of limestone being sunk in the ocean, with a soundtrack of snapping shrimp playing on underwater speakers to lure baby oysters in.

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Australia could miss clean energy target as solar and wind investment slumps, investors warn

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Expert cautions large pipeline of potential projects will not deliver required energy capacity unless companies make final investments

Renewable energy investors have warned “deep structural issues” are driving a slump in solar and wind investment in Australia, with commitments on large-scale farms at the lowest level in almost a decade.

Clean Energy Regulator data shows the government agency expects 2.5GW of industry-scale renewable energy capacity to reach a final investment decision this year, down from 4GW last year. The 12-month average for investment commitments on new developments is at its lowest since early 2017.

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Death toll passes 900 in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka floods

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Officials in Indonesia say more than 442 people have died, while Sri Lanka suffers worst natural disaster since 2004 tsunami

Authorities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand are racing to clear debris and find hundreds of missing people after more than 900 died in devastating floods and landslides across the south of Asia.

In the latest example of the impact of the climate crisis on storm patterns and extreme weather, heavy monsoon rains, exacerbated by a tropical storm, have overwhelmed parts of south-east Asia in recent days, leaving thousands of people stranded without shelter or critical supplies.

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