Cyclone delays cleanup after ship runs aground in rough seas near Rennell Island
Solomon Islands authorities are scrambling to clean up an oil spill caused after a bulk carrier came aground about a fortnight ago on a coral reef on the southern coast.
Category 2 cyclone Oma and rough weather had delayed efforts to salvage the ship, MV Solomon Trader.
Continue reading...Communities clash over natural resources as arrivals from South Sudan and DRC plunder environment for fuel and construction
The cutting down of millions of trees has sparked angry clashes in parts of Uganda between local people and refugees who have been fleeing conflict in neighbouring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The timber is being used for house construction, fuel and to make charcoal. In the north and west of the country, where an estimated 1.1 million refugees are living, massive deforestation is drawing protests by local communities.
Continue reading...EU regulations outlaw killing of wolves unless people are in danger or there is ‘no satisfactory alternative’
More than a century ago, wolves were hunted to extinction in Germany. These days, they’re back – and their presence is a source of political strife.
Wolf attacks on livestock increased drastically in 2017, according to government statistics released at the weekend: they carried out 472 attacks, an increase of 66% over the previous year. The number of killed, injured or missing livestock – mostly sheep and goats – rose 55%, to 1,667.
Continue reading...Thousands of young people take time out of school to join protests across the country
Some wore school uniform, with ties askew in St Trinian’s fashion, others donned face paint, sparkly jackets and DM boots. The youngest clutched a parent’s hand as people gathered in the sunshine in Parliament Square in London, a few metres from the politicians they say are letting down a generation.
They carried homemade placards, with slogans full of humour, passion and hope that the voices of thousands of children and young people would be heard.
Continue reading...Activists say ‘post-apocalyptic’ scenes in Kuzbass highlight manmade ecological disaster
Residents of a coalmining region in Siberia have been posting videos online showing entire streets and districts covered in toxic black snow that critics say highlight a manmade ecological catastrophe.
In one video, filmed in Kiselyovsk, a town in the Kuzbass region, a woman drives past mounds of coal-coloured snow stretching to the horizon, covering a children’s playground and the courtyards of residential buildings. The scenes in the footage were described as “post-apocalyptic” by Russian media.
Continue reading...The 16-year-old’s lone protest last summer has morphed into a powerful global movement challenging politicians to act
Greta Thunberg is hopeful the student climate strike on Friday can bring about positive change, as young people in more and more countries join the protest movement she started last summer as a lone campaigner outside the Swedish parliament.
Related: Teenage activist takes School Strikes 4 Climate Action to Davos
Continue reading...Recent wildfires scorched 90% of the federally protected Santa Monica Mountains – destroying a 1950s Hollywood set and affecting biodiversity. But life is slowly coming back
The fire came quickly. Fueled by dry, blustering winds, officials were unable to contain the Woolsey fire before it scorched the canyons of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, taking close to 97,000 acres and 1,500 properties with it.
One of the great casualties was the Santa Monica Mountains national recreation area. Nearly 90% of the federally owned land burned in the November 2018 blaze. The park is home to popular hiking trails, a rich ecosystem of plant and wildlife, including mountain lions and coyotes, as well as famous spots such as the Paramount Ranch’s “Western Town” (a well-known Hollywood set location), the historic 1927 Peter Strauss Ranch house, a research field station and ranger residences. Nearly all of them burned to the ground.
Continue reading...Focus for year ahead will be on ‘providing drought refuges and avoiding irreversible loss of species’
The outlook for the environment in the Murray-Darling Basin, particularly in the north, is extremely challenging and there will be almost no scope for environmental flows for the remainder of the 2018-19 year unless it rains, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has warned.
It says the focus will be “on providing drought refuges and avoiding irreversible loss of species”.
Continue reading...Residents of Churchill, Canada share their streets with the largest land carnivore in the world as their isolated town’s identity faces a reckoning: a revitalized port
Spend enough time in Churchill, and you will hear the stories.
Of hearing a noise outside, pulling open the drapes and seeing a polar bear looking in through the window.
Continue reading...Exclusive: lawsuit in Japan contends that dolphins are wrongly classified as fish and should be protected as mammals
Animal rights activists have launched an unprecedented legal challenge to the slaughter of dolphins in Japan, claiming that fishermen are routinely violating animal welfare laws and exceeding government-set quotas.
The London-based organisation Action for Dolphins and the Japanese NGO Life Investigation Agency on Wednesday submitted evidence they hope will halt the annual dolphin hunts in Taiji, a whaling town on Japan’s Pacific coast, the Guardian can reveal.
Continue reading...Idea of topping municipal plant in Copenhagen with urban ski resort won accolades for Danish architecture firm
It might be the first waste incinerator the neighbours actually want next door. The shop at the foot of the Amager Bakke waste-to-energy project in Copenhagen is packed with families desperate to be among the first to try its unique selling point: the ski slope on the roof.
“I live so close by that I could follow the development,” says Ole Fredslund, who lives in neighbouring Amager, as he helped his sons Felix and Victor strap on their boots as the slope opened its lifts for the first time on Tuesday. “I guess 90% of the focus is on the fact that there’s a skiing hill coming, so in a way it’s very clever. Everybody talks about the ski hill to be, not the waste plant to be.”
Continue reading...Global study sets out how industry could make waste reduction pay, using data taken from across 12 countries
Restaurants can make a profit of £7 for every £1 they invest in cutting food waste, a global report reveals today, in findings that are hailed as proving the business case for stopping edible food from being binned.
The study is based on research for Champions 12.3, a group of political, business, NGO and farmers’ leaders from across the world who have united to tackle waste, using data taken from 114 restaurant sites across 12 countries.
Continue reading...Four Nigerian women bring landmark case over state executions of nine activists in a military court
Four Nigerian women at the centre of a long-running legal battle against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell saw their historic case reach the Hague on Tuesday.
The company is accused of complicity in the state execution of nine Ogoni protesters and human right abuses dating back to 1993. The allegations concern the 1990s violent government crackdown in Ogoniland, in the oil-rich Niger delta region, where oil spills inflicted environmental damage on a huge scale.
Continue reading...Ricardo Salles’ comments fuel criticism of administration’s stance, which environmentalists say is excessively pro-business
Brazilian environmental groups have blasted Jair Bolsonaro’s environment minister after he dismissed the murdered Amazon rain forest defender Chico Mendes as “irrelevant”.
Related: Climate change a 'secondary' issue, says Brazil's environment minister
Continue reading...As the world’s first junior cycle mayor, Lotta Crok wants to draw attention to the obstacles kids on bikes face – and inspire other children to cycle
During Amsterdam’s chaotic rush hour, nine-year-old Lotta Crok cycles to a very busy junction. “Look,” she says. “There’s traffic coming from everywhere. Four trams from four different directions. For a child on a bike that’s really confusing!”
Lotta is the first junior cycle mayor in the world and her working area is the Dutch capital. It is her mission to inspire children to cycle every day and draw attention to the obstacles that kids on bikes are facing.
Continue reading...Experts deployed to remove dozens of hungry bears besieging Novaya Zemlya
Analysis: what the polar bears reveal about the climate crisis
Russian environmental authorities have deployed a team of specialists to a remote Arctic region to sedate and remove dozens of hungry polar bears that have besieged the people living there.
The move came after officials in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, with a population of about 3,000 people, appealed for help.
“There’s never been such a mass invasion of polar bears,” said Zhigansha Musin, the head of the local administration. “They have literally been chasing people.”
Continue reading...Eight women from rural Malawi travelled to India to train as solar engineers. Now they are lighting the way for their communities, in a country where just 10% of households are powered by electricity
Photographs by Peter Caton/VSO
Exclusive: Insects could vanish within a century at current rate of decline, says global review
The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.
More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.
Continue reading...Proposal law would protects any shark or ray in state waters and be first of its kind in US
Sharks could soon become more numerous in Hawaii waters – and advocates say that’s a good thing.
Lawmakers in Honolulu advanced a proposed ban on killing sharks in state waters on Wednesday, after receiving hundreds of calls and letters of support from around the country. The law, which would provide sweeping protection for any shark, rather than select species, could be the first of its kind in the United States.
Continue reading...Five hundred people told to leave area around Sul Superior tailings dam at mine near Belo Horizonte
Brazilian authorities have ordered the mining company Vale to evacuate hundreds of people from the vicinity of a dam in Minas Gerais, two weeks after a dam breach at another Vale mine in the state killed an estimated 300 people.
Vale said it was evacuating 500 people from three communities around the Sul Superior tailings dam at the Gongo Soco mine, near Belo Horizonte, on the orders of the national mining agency. It said it was a preventive measure after an engineering consulting firm, Walm, refused to give the dam a declaration of stability.
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