Environment news

• Tiger temple scandal exposes the shadowy billion-dollar Asian trade

  04-06-2016 22:44 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners hope the Thai temple raid will stir the world’s conscience – but the trafficking of tiger parts to China is a booming businessA week ago it cost 600 baht (£11.50) to visit the tiger temple in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province, west of the capital, Bangkok. Tourists moved by the spectacle of such splendid creatures living side by side with human beings could also pay the saffron-robed Buddhist monks an extra £15 to help feed the cubs, or to have their pict
  
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• Nigerian militant group urges others not to attack soldiers or kidnap people

  04-06-2016 17:06
  A militant group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks on Nigeria's oil infrastructure urged other groups on Saturday not to attack soldiers or kidnap people. The Niger Delta Avengers militant group, which says its attacks have not killed anyone, also urged a group that said it has anti-aircraft missiles not to target any aircraft. The recent spate of attacks in the Niger Delta, which is Nigeria's oil producing hub, have driven the OPEC member's crude output to a more than 20-year
  
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• EDF plans to sell stake in RTE grid through a holding company - Le Figaro

  04-06-2016 16:40
  French state-controlled utility EDF plans to create a holding company through which it could sell a 50 percent stake in RTE, operator of Europe's biggest high-voltage electricity transmission grid, Le Figaro said on Saturday. Heavily indebted EDF wants to sell off non-core assets in order to invest tens of billions of euros in its nuclear power business over the next decade, including in the UK nuclear reactor project at Hinkley Point. EDF owns all of RTE, which operates independently of the par
  
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• America's water testing problems must and can be fixed, experts say

  04-06-2016 16:04 via theguardian.com
  
  The Flint disaster and other cities’ ‘cheating’ called criminal in nature by some, but scientists believe the remedies are fairly straightforward A tragedy of widespread testing failures in US drinking water is that experts believe the remedies are fairly straightforward – if there is political will.
  As the Guardian has revealed, at least 33 cities across 17 states have used water testing methods that regulators and experts have said may inaccurately reduce lead levels fo
  
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• Great Barrier Reef authority says media, not activists, misinterpreting the data

  04-06-2016 07:36 via theguardian.com
  
  Russell Reichelt says he has no problem with environmental lobbyists portraying the seriousness of the damage but a lot of the reef remains unscathedThe chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt, has played down a report that said he accused activist scientists and lobby groups of distorting maps and data to misrepresent the extent of coral bleaching on the reef.The authority withdrew from a joint announcement from the national coral bleaching taskforce about the
  
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• Great Barrier Reef authority says media, not activists, distorting the facts

  04-06-2016 07:36 via theguardian.com
  
  Russell Reichelt says he has no problem with environmental lobbyists portraying the seriousness of the event but a lot of the reef remains unscathedThe chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt, has played down a report that said he accused activist scientists and lobby groups of distorting maps and data to misrepresent the extent of coral bleaching on the reef.The authority withdrew from a joint announcement from the national coral bleaching taskforce about the
  
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• Graceful quick-step of the grey wagtail

  04-06-2016 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd, Wales They are constantly in motion, dancing out of the gorge in undulating flightPont y Llyn Du on the Afon Gain, in the lonely moors east of Trawsfynydd, above the old gold mines at Gwynfynydd, is one of those places at which you’d never arrive except by design. It’s one of my favourite haunts in the Welsh hills. The peaty hill stream rushes down through a miniature rocky gorge under the old humped bridge to debouch into a round pool of amber depth, encircled
  
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• Transforming the bush: robots, drones and cows that milk themselves | Paul Daley

  04-06-2016 03:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Rural Australia is being progressively hollowed out of its people. Will it be reduced to a vast mechanised place of scant human habitation?These cows are in no hurry. Each just meanders to the dairy, all rolling hindquarters, swishing tails and loping heads, the blue-black and tan Rorschach ink-blot patching of their hides vivid against the washed-out Australian summer light. They stop as they please along the way. Chew cud. Moo. Drop pats. Moo again. They nudge the soft earth or a companion bef
  
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• Human remains found in Queensland crocodile after attack on Cindy Waldron

  04-06-2016 02:28 via theguardian.com
  
  Staff at Environment Department facility in Cairns have all but confirmed it is the reptile responsible for taking the NSW photographer A crocodile caught and killed in far north Queensland where New South Wales photographer Cindy Waldron was attacked contained what police believe are human remains.The 4.3-metres estuarine croc was trapped at Cooper Creek, near Thornton Beach in the Daintree National Park, and killed on Friday. Continue reading...
  
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• Greens to spend $265m on community-owned renewable energy projects

  04-06-2016 01:38 via theguardian.com
  
  Four-year package, to be announced by Adam Bandt on Saturday, will allow the ventures to generate tax-free profits from the electricity createdThe Greens will announce that they will spend $265.2m on community-owned renewable energy projects, including allowing these to generate tax-free profits from the electricity created.The Greens energy spokesman, Adam Bandt, will announce the four-year package on Saturday in North Fitzroy at an apartment block seeking to establish a community-owned renewab
  
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