Critics say move to axe Bill Clinton’s ‘roadless rule’ that protected key old-growth forests will be devastating to environment
In 1999, Bill Clinton ascended one of the highest summits in Virginia to announce that “the last, best unprotected wild lands anywhere in our nation” would be shielded by a new rule that banned roads, drilling and other disturbances within America’s most prized forests.
But today, this site in George Washington national forest, along with other near-pristine forests across the US that amount to 58m acres, equivalent to the size of the UK, could soon see chainsaws whir and logging trucks rumble through them amid a push by Donald Trump to raze these ecosystems for timber.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/06/2025 - 06:00
10/06/2025 - 04:00
The insects’ brilliant hues evolved in lush ecosystems to help them survive. Now they are becoming more muted to adapt to degraded landscapes – and they are not the only things dulling down
Photographs by Roberto García-Roa
The world is becoming less colourful. For butterflies, bold and bright wings once meant survival, helping them attract mates and hide from prey. But a new research project suggests that as humans replace rich tropical forests with monochrome, the colour of other creatures is leaching away.
“The colours on a butterfly’s wings are not trivial – they have been designed over millions of years,” says researcher and photographer Roberto García-Roa, who is part of a project in Brazil documenting how habitat loss is bleaching the natural world of colour.
Amiga arnaca found in a eucalyptus plantation, where scientists observed butterflies were less colourful than in native forests
Continue reading...
10/06/2025 - 02:07
Local community group says whatever the cause ‘kids shouldn’t be in the water’ with dead fish
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Queensland authorities are investigating the deaths of thousands of fish that washed up on a popular Gold Coast beach.
The state environment department said dead baitfish had been observed at The Spit, at the northern end of the Gold Coast since last Wednesday, but no obvious source of pollution had been found.
Continue reading...
10/05/2025 - 19:05
You can now vote in the 2025 Australian bird of the year poll. Guardian Australia's Matilda Boseley explains how voting works, while remaining surprisingly neutral about her bird of choice
2025 bird of the year: vote for your favourite now
‘Baudin’s or bauxite?’ Stark warning black cockatoo won’t survive mining expansion
Continue reading...
10/05/2025 - 09:00
It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I realised birds could have a powerful significance even for people who weren’t bird-nerds like me
Vote now in the 2025 Australian bird of the year poll
See more bird of the year content
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
For a long time, I thought that I and my fellow obsessive twitchers were the only ones for whom birds made life worth living. The sheer delight birds brought to my life was both the remedy for – and perhaps instigator of – the social awkwardness of my teen years. But then in my tumultuous 20s, when everyone I knew seemed to be going through some sort of painful, emotional turmoil, it dawned on me that birds could have powerful significance beyond the bird-nerds.
One day I got a lift with a friend who was really struggling. As she sped through inner city streets sobbing uncontrollably, things started resembling that scene from Vanilla Sky when Cameron Diaz drives Tom Cruise off a bridge. I persuaded her to pull over, and we parked beneath some trees. As I sat, clueless about how to ease her distress, a white-plumed honeyeater flitted down and started hopping around in front of us, searching for insects.
Continue reading...
10/05/2025 - 09:00
Over 80% of Wayne national forest classified as suitable for logging, drawing concern from locals
In the Appalachian foothills outside Athens, Ohio, more than 20,000 acres of forest land was mined for coal in the early 20th century, destroying miles upon miles of pristine woodlands.
By the 1930s, the federal government had to step in, taking it out of private hands and establishing the Wayne national forest in an attempt to prevent further degradation. In the decades since, maple, oak and other hardwood trees have taken over, returning to nature a region previously better known for extraction.
Continue reading...
10/05/2025 - 08:30
Exclusive: Differences over changes to environmental and legal provisions to prompt economic growth hint at chaos at heart of government
Rachel Reeves is set to announce a round of planning changes before the budget as a way to kickstart Britain’s sluggish economic growth, but ministers are at odds over how radical to be.
The chancellor will announce a number of moves designed to make it easier for developers to build houses and infrastructure projects, in the hope that they will fill about £3bn of her estimated £30bn black hole.
Continue reading...
10/05/2025 - 07:30
Sunrise Movement, which led calls for a Green New Deal, will organize against Trump’s attacks on universities
As the Trump administration cracks down on both environmental policies and progressive activism, the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate justice organization that popularized calls for a Green New Deal, is widening its mission to fight authoritarianism.
“Every day, Donald Trump is seizing power and shredding the Constitution,” Sunrise’s executive director, Aru Shiney-Ajay, wrote in an open letter to Sunrise members, funders and allies. “What ordinary people do in the coming months will determine whether he and his billionaire cronies can cement their grip on power and turn this country into a playground for the rich and powerful.”
Continue reading...
10/05/2025 - 05:00
As well as embracing ‘beautiful coal’, the president has set about obliterating clean energy projects
Continue reading...
10/04/2025 - 21:40
Warm weather follows deluges in more than a dozen places in NSW and Queensland which topped daily records for the month
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Sydney and Brisbane are in for a hot public holiday on Monday, with temperatures set to pass 30C in both capitals.
The warm weather comes after a soaking September on Australia’s east coast smashed monthly rain records across 21 places in Queensland and six in New South Wales following a record-breaking rain in August.
Sydney – sunny, minimum 20C, maximum 31C
Brisbane – sunny, minimum 15C, maximum 32C
Melbourne – shower or two, minimum 12C, maximum 16C
Adelaide – shower or two, minimum 11C, maximum 17C
Canberra – shower or two, minimum 11C, maximum 23C
Perth – sunny, minimum 8C, maximum 21C
Hobart – possible shower, minimum 7C, maximum 14C
Darwin – partly cloudy minimum 25C, maximum 35C
Continue reading...
