Environment news

• Male wheatears spy out the land: Country diary 100 years ago

  27-03-2016 23:30
  
  Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 30 March 1916Wheatears have come; they were nearer than I thought when I last wrote; one, in fact, was seen by a friend in a field at Ashton-on-Mersey on Sunday. On the same day, a correspondent tells me, there were five near Aberystwyth, a place where early wheatears, coasting round Cardigan Bay, are often met with. It is interesting that all the six birds were males, for the cock birds appear to come in advance, as if to spy out the land or te
  
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• If the rains fail – so could the cocoa beans

  27-03-2016 22:30
  
  Yesterday many of us overindulged in chocolate, but Easter is not the only time we munch our way through mounds of cocoa-based treats. Globally, chocolate consumption is on the rise and the majority of this demand is met by cocoa farmers in southern West Africa. Now there are concerns that pollution in the region could interfere with the West African monsoon, potentially drying up the world’s main supply of cocoa beans.Like many other cities in southern West Africa, Abidjan on the Cô
  
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• The explosion of countryside TV helping treat our ‘nature deficit disorder’

  27-03-2016 20:05
  
  Countryfile’s ratings success shows the public appetite for the pretty and the grittyLast month, BBC1’s Countryfile achieved its highest ratings ever. A whopping 8.7 million live viewers tuned in on 7 February, making it the most popular programme on British television that week (beating War & Peace, Six Nations rugby and Call the Midwife). Countryfile’s figures just keep rising, from an already-impressive average of 5.9 million viewers a week in 2014 and 6.2 million in 201
  
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• Activists launch legal action against French marine park over orcas

  27-03-2016 20:05
  
  People protest at Marineland in Antibes against conditions that killer whales are kept in following deaths in storm last yearEnvironmental campaigners have said they are taking legal action against a French marine park over the treatment of its orca whales and other animals after a number were killed during a storm.
  Marineland in Antibes reopened a week ago after suffering severe damage in deadly storms that struck the Côte d’Azur in southern France in October. Continue reading...
  
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• 8 things to know about Channel 4's Lost Tribe of the Amazon

  27-03-2016 17:56
  
  Documentary on indigenous peoples in Brazil and Peru omits crucial information and uses some extremely misleading languageThe UK’s Channel 4 broadcast a documentary on 23 February titled First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon. It focused on a group of 35 “uncontacted” indigenous people, the “Tsapanawas” or “Sapanahuas”, who were filmed in June 2014 turning up at a village in Brazil’s Amazon near the border with Peru. The Tsapanawas’ arrival
  
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• Pictures of the day: 27 March 2016

  27-03-2016 10:04
  
  Today: Elephants in a tangle, Easter celebrations and bullock cart racing
  
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• VIDEO: Polar bear romance in Scottish highlands

  27-03-2016 09:23 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Hopes are growing that the UK may soon have its first polar bear cub in 25 years, after Victoria and Arktos, two bears at the Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland, started mating.
  
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• Subjugating nature is not the way to defend against floods | Alice Roberts

  27-03-2016 08:00
  
  The Somerset Levels’ ancient landscapes can teach us how to cope with 21st-century floodsThe Mendips form an east-west hilly ridge, framing the Chew Valley to the north and the Somerset Levels to the south. They are mostly gently rolling hills, though cut into by deep gorges such as Burrington Combe and Cheddar Gorge. But towards the western end of the ridge, and rising to 191m, sits the only true peak in the Mendips. Some place names are exciting, poetic and laden with history. This conic
  
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• Scientists fly glacial ice to south pole to unlock secrets of global warming

  27-03-2016 01:03
  
  High on Mont Blanc, huge ice cores are being extracted to help researchers study the alarming rate of glacial meltIn a few weeks, researchers will begin work on a remarkable scientific project. They will drill deep into the Col du Dôme glacier on Mont Blanc and remove a 130 metre core of ice. Then they will fly it, in sections, by helicopter to a laboratory in Grenoble before shipping it to Antarctica. There the ice core will be placed in a specially constructed vault at the French-Italian
  
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