Environment news

• Fine days for harvesting: Country diary 50 years ago

  21-08-2016 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Originally published in the Guardian on 26 August 1966HAMPSHIRE: The wondrous fine days of last week have come just right for the harvesters. Although tractors with trolleys are not so picturesque as horses with wains, there remains a flavour of the sacred earth at harvest-time. The more especially in large fields with men and girls scattered at various jobs. And I have seen a young fellow, stripped to the waist, and as brown as a South Sea islander, with a girl beside him, her hair neatly plait
  
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• A collared pratincole pays a rare visit to Somerset

  21-08-2016 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  An exotic visitor, that should should have been sunning itself by the Mediterranean, attracts crowds of birdwatchers to the Ham Wall reserveMy birding friend Rob may have got married only the day before, but nothing stops him from looking regularly at his pager to check out the latest sightings of rare birds. Fortunately, he then took the trouble to text me the news: that a collared pratincole had turned up at the RSPB’s Ham Wall reserve, just down the road from my home.It would have been
  
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• Listen to the sand eels on climate change | Letters

  21-08-2016 19:43 via theguardian.com
  
  Michael Grange (Letters, 19 August) recommends “not asking the frogs first” before building tidal barrages on the Severn. But we are already being spoken to by the sand eels, mosquitoes, birds, butterflies and even the humble Highland saxifrage (Climate change threatens UK’s mountain plant life, 18 August) if only we would listen.They are on the move already. The environmental effects of sea-level rise will dramatically alter the Severn estuary, and all its inhabitants, if we d
  
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• Radon from fracking will not be a threat | Letter from Prof Averil MacDonald

  21-08-2016 19:42 via theguardian.com
  
  In his letter (11 August) Dr David Lowry raised the issue of radon and shale gas quoting studies in Pennsylvania and sought to reinforce his own views by quoting from a study undertaken by Public Health England in 2014. Let me quote the same study, which states, “caution is required when extrapolating experiences in other countries to the UK since the mode of operation, underlying geology and regulatory environment are likely to be different” and “the PHE position remains, ther
  
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• National parks must be for people, plants, pumas - not Big Oil

  21-08-2016 18:40 via theguardian.com
  
  Huge swathe of new “protected natural area” in Peru’s Amazon is included within an oil and gas concession run by Canadian companyThe creation of the 1.3 million hectare Sierra del Divisor National Park in the western Amazon in November 2015 generated considerable elation and Peruvian and international media coverage. Logging, gold-mining, coca cultivation and narco-trafficking were highlighted by some media as ongoing threats to the new park, but why such failure to acknowledge
  
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• Oil rig stranded off Isle of Lewis to be refloated at high tide

  21-08-2016 18:18 via theguardian.com
  
  Salvage experts plan operation two weeks after 17,000-tonne Transocean Winner ran aground near Carloway, ScotlandSalvage experts have said they will try to refloat at high tide a 17,000-tonne oil rig that has been stranded on the coast of the Isle of Lewis for two weeks. The semi-submersible rig Transocean Winner ran aground close to Dalmore beach near Carloway, Scotland, on 8 August. It was being towed from Norway to Malta when a towline snapped in rough seas. Continue reading...
  
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• Nigerian militant group says agrees on ceasefire, ready for dialogue with government

  21-08-2016 13:08
  By Tife Owolabi YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian militant group, which has claimed a wave of attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta, said it was ready for a ceasefire and a dialogue with the government. Any ceasefire agreement would be very difficult to enforce as the militant scene is divided into small groups dominated by unemployed youth driven by poverty, who are difficult to control even by their "generals". "We are going to continue the observation of our announced ceasefire o
  
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• Nigerian militant group says ready for dialogue with government

  21-08-2016 11:58
  YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian militant group, which has claimed a wave of attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta, said it was ready for dialogue with the government. "We are going to continue the observation of our announced ceasefire of hostilities in the Niger Delta against ... the multinational oil corporations," the group said in a statement received by Reuters on Sunday. "But we will continuously adopt our asymmetric warfare during this period" should Nigerian security agenc
  
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• Calls to halt McArthur River mine operations over safety and remediation concerns

  21-08-2016 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Report demands mining stop until it can be determined how and at what cost the operation can be made safe The huge McArthur river mine must stop operations until a public commission of inquiry is set up and has examined whether it can be made safe and at what cost, according to an independent report being released on Monday.Based on the limited public data on the mine, up to $1bn will need to be spent to safely remediate the site, according to Gavin Mudd from Monash University and the Mineral Po
  
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• Anger in the Delta keeps oil majors quiet - and Nigeria's crude offline

  21-08-2016 10:07
  By Libby George and Ulf Laessing LONDON/LAGOS (Reuters) - Oil companies and even Nigerian officials are losing faith in a deal anytime soon with militants who have slashed the nation's oil output, casting doubt on a production recovery in what is typically Africa's largest oil exporter. In the six months since the first major attack on Nigeria's oil – a sophisticated bombing of the subsea Forcados pipeline – dozens of attacks have pushed outages to more than 700,000 barrels per day (
  
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• ‘Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice’

  21-08-2016 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Scientist Peter Wadhams believes the summer ice cover at the north pole is about to disappear, triggering even more rapid global warmingPeter Wadhams has spent his career in the Arctic, making more than 50 trips there, some in submarines under the polar ice. He is credited with being one of the first scientists to show that the thick icecap that once covered the Arctic ocean was beginning to thin and shrink. He was director of the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge from 1987 to 1992 and professo
  
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• If US national parks are to continue to thrive they must reflect the diversity of our population

  21-08-2016 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As the National Park Service turns 100, a new campaign aims to make the country’s natural spaces more appealing to all Americans, regardless of race, over the next century. It’s vital they succeedIn the sweltering heat of a summer day, I walked along the visitor trails of Yosemite national park. I had just made the five-hour drive from my childhood home in Los Angeles to glimpse a vision of the future. There in the valley surrounded by high towers of stone, I watched as thousands of
  
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• The eco guide to air pollution

  21-08-2016 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  We call it ‘smog’ or ‘haze’ but it’s a real killer. There are ways to find out where it’s worst, and clean air campaigns which are well worth supportingThese days fresh air is hard to find, even in parks. Nearly a quarter of London’s green open spaces now breach laws on nitrogen dioxide pollution (the stuff that spews out of diesel exhausts).When the air in the park is worse than at the side of the road, that’s a new low. If you’re a Londoner
  
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• Yellowstone fish deaths: 183 miles of river closed to halt spread of parasite

  21-08-2016 03:51 via theguardian.com
  
  Ban on all fishing, rafting and other river activities in the US river will remain until fish stop dying, say officialsClosures on a 183-mile stretch of the Yellowstone river and hundreds of miles of other waterways could continue for months while biologists try to prevent the spread of a parasite believed to have killed tens of thousands of fish.The closures will remain until the waterways improve and fish stop dying, according to officials from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The ban include
  
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• Inuit fear they will be overwhelmed as ‘extinction tourism’ descends on Arctic

  21-08-2016 01:05 via theguardian.com
  
  Visit of giant cruise ship will bring money and tourists to the Northwest Passage, but fears grow for the area’s people and its ecosystemIn a few days, one of the world’s largest cruise ships, the Crystal Serenity, will visit the tiny Inuit village of Ulukhaktok in northern Canada. Hundreds of passengers will be ferried to the little community, more than doubling its population of around 400. The Serenity will then raise anchor and head through the Northwest Passage to visit several
  
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