Environment news

• Protecting the Green Triangle: experts warn of ‘irreversible’ groundwater decline

  19-10-2024 21:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The groundwater system in western Victoria and south-east South Australia has begun to show signs of collapse, threatening the water security of SA’s second biggest citySign up for the Rural Network email newsletterSome of the best-quality groundwater in Australia underlies the upper and lower south-east of South Australia and parts of south-western Victoria.But almost 200 years of drawdown for agriculture, farming and domestic use has changed the surface drainage. Underground water in som
  
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• ‘The bully of the bird table’: how the humble starling conquered the world

  19-10-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Some celebrate them, others despise them. Yet this mimicking, competitive and acrobatic songbird still exerts a powerful fascinationA stream of people heads steadily down the path, towards the viewpoint over the reedbed. As I walk alongside them, I’m reminded of a crowd ­heading to a football match, or a ­gathering of medieval pilgrims hoping for a miracle.There is usually a moment, about 20 minutes before sunset, when the gathering falls strangely silent, anticipating wh
  
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• US approves first-ever tribal marine sanctuary: ‘Our community’s hard work has come to fruition’

  19-10-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Chumash Heritage national marine sanctuary, a 4,543 sq mile expanse of ocean along the California coast, will now be protectedAfter years of campaigning by Indigenous Americans in central California, the US has finally approved the country’s first Indigenous-nominated national marine sanctuary, a 4,543 sq mile expanse of ocean that will protect marine life from mining and oil drilling.The Chumash Heritage national marine sanctuary – which will be nearly four times the size of Yosemit
  
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• ‘Humanity would watch helplessly as space junk multiplies uncontrollably’: has the number of satellite launches reached a tipping point?

  19-10-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  From chaotic collisions to depletion of the ozone layer, the thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth have the potential to wreak havoc in coming decades. What are the solutions to a growing menace?“Since the start of the space age, we’ve had a throwaway culture – a bit like plastics in the ocean,” says Nick Shave, managing director of Astroscale UK, an in-orbit servicing company headquartered in Japan.Getting a satellite into orbit around the Earth used to be a big
  
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• Hamza Yassin looks back: ‘I lived in my car for nine months while I cut my teeth as a wildlife cameraman’

  19-10-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The TV presenter on pet lions and monkeys, moving to the UK from Sudan, and his love for the Scottish HighlandsBorn in Sudan in 1990, Hamza Yassin is a wildlife cameraman and TV presenter. With a BA in zoology with conservation, and a master’s in biological imaging and photography, Hamza had his first presenting experience on The One Show, and went on to front Countryfile and CBBC’s Ranger Hamza’s Eco Quest. The champion of 2022’s Strictly Come Dancing, he lives
  
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• The stench of my local landfill points to a massive problem that Britain isn’t solving | Jennifer Sizeland

  19-10-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Toxic emissions, health risks and leaching pollution – better management of landfill sites is a matter of urgencyLast summer, people living around the perimeter of Pilsworth South landfill in Bury, Greater Manchester, couldn’t open their windows because of the elevated levels of hydrogen sulphide in the air. Referred to as “sewer gas”, its rotten-egg stench can be particularly unbearable at night. Even driving past with the windows closed on the M66, as I do regularly to
  
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• Sale of Essex acid grassland for homes would set ‘catastrophic precedent’

  19-10-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Idea that every habitat is replaceable is a misuse of biodiversity net gain, say ecological expertsIt is the second-best place for nightingales in the country, a sanctuary for rare barbastelle bats and home to nearly 1,500 invertebrate species, including a quarter of all Britain’s spider species. But Middlewick Ranges on the edge of Colchester is poised to be sold by the Ministry of Defence for 1,000 new homes.Conservation scientists have written to the UK defence secretary, John Healey, u
  
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• Country diary: The alchemical wonder of turning apples into juice | Anita Roy

  19-10-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Wiveliscombe, Somerset: The process is messy, miraculous and deeply satisfying. We load up on Newton Wonder and Blenheim Orange, and set to workIt’s juicing day! The highpoint of the year for Transition Town Wellington (TTW), and a cloudy‑sunshiney mixed autumn day it is. Perfect apple weather.The team rock up early at Brendon Orchards’ community press, and unload the crates. Run by a cooperative, the press was set up in 2007 in order to “stop the tragic waste of apples&r
  
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• Sydney reopens beaches after mysterious tar ball scare

  19-10-2024 06:18 via bbc.com
  
  They were closed earlier this week after thousands of mysterious black tar-like balls washed ashore.
  
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• Anti-fossil fuel comic that went viral in France arrives in UK

  19-10-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  World Without End topped bestseller lists but was criticised for embracing nuclear powerIn 2019, France’s best known climate expert sat down to work with its most feted graphic novelist. The result? Perhaps the most terrifying comic ever drawn.Part history, part analysis, part vision for the future, World Without End weaves the story of humanity’s rapacious appetite for fossil fuel energy, how it has made possible the society people take for granted, and its disastrous effects on the
  
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