Governors Island, a 172-acre island in New York Harbor only accessible by ferry, attracts nearly a million visitors each year. More recently, it has evolved into an educational hub and incubator for solutions to facing the city’s climate and environmental challenges
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/04/2025 - 08:00
08/04/2025 - 06:00
A licence to dig in the Cajas region has been welcomed by some as an answer to economic woes. Yet many fear it will devastate a fragile ecosystem and set the tone for further projects in the country
Golden grasses, mossy hummocks and scattered lakes unfurl across the highlands of Macizo del Cajas, Azuay province. The vastness of this high-altitude Ecuadorian moorland combines with its near-silence to create an empty, alien atmosphere.
But this unique landscape teems with life. The páramo – a high-altitude tropical ecosystem that stretches across the northern Andes – is a living sponge, quietly drawing moisture from the clouds that drift at more than 3,000 metres (9,800ft) above sea level.
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08/04/2025 - 04:01
Company to carry out more tests on its Santos basin find as it continues shift from renewables back to fossil fuels
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BP has made its largest oil and gas discovery of the past 25 years off the coast of Brazil as it continues to shift its focus away from renewables and back to fossil fuels.
The Santos basin oil and gas discovery, which is located in deep waters, is the company’s 10th oil discovery of the year and could be its largest since its discovery at the Shah Deniz gasfield in Azerbaijan in 1999.
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08/03/2025 - 23:36
Visitors to pay up to NZ$40 to access certain attractions in coming years amid overhaul of conservation laws
New Zealand plans to start charging international tourists fees to enter its famous natural sites and will make it easier for businesses to operate on conservation land as part of a controversial proposal to “unleash” growth on ecologically and culturally protected areas.
The government plans to start charging foreign visitors NZ$20-40 ($12-24) per person to access some sites. Initially, those would probably include Cathedral Cove/Te Whanganui-a-Hei, Tongariro Crossing, Milford Sound and Aoraki Mount Cook. The fees are likely to be imposed from 2027.
This story was amended on 5 August 2025 to reflect new information provided by the government that fees will apply to Milford Sound, not Milford Track.
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08/03/2025 - 23:16
An intriguing new study reveals that over 80% of parasites found in the ancient poo of New Zealand’s endangered kākāpō have vanished, even though the bird itself is still hanging on. Researchers discovered this dramatic parasite decline by analyzing droppings dating back 1,500 years, uncovering an unexpected wave of coextinctions that occurred long before recent conservation efforts began. These hidden losses suggest that as we fight to save charismatic species, we may be silently erasing whole communities of organisms that play crucial, yet misunderstood, ecological roles.
08/03/2025 - 18:01
Citizen Zoo to map habitats in the capital and consult boroughs and the public about reintroduction of the birds
An urban rewilding group is seeking the public’s views on the potential return of white storks to London as part of a project to see if the birds could make a home in the capital.
White storks could once be seen flying in Britain’s skies and building their huge nests on roofs and in trees, but they disappeared centuries ago as a breeding bird as a result of hunting and habitat loss.
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08/03/2025 - 17:30
Plastic production has increased more than 200 times since 1950 and hits health at every stage from extraction to disposal, says review in the Lancet
Plastics are a “grave, growing and under-recognised danger” to human and planetary health, a new expert review has warned. The world is in a “plastics crisis”, it concluded, which is causing disease and death from infancy to old age and is responsible for at least $1.5tn (£1.1tn) a year in health-related damages.
The driver of the crisis is a huge acceleration of plastic production, which has increased by more than 200 times since 1950 and is set to almost triple again to more than a billion tonnes a year by 2060. While plastic has many important uses, the most rapid increase has been in the production of single-use plastics, such as drinks bottles and fast-food containers.
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08/03/2025 - 10:00
The Australian Wildlife Conservancy in July moved 147 brush-tailed bettongs from an 8,000 hectare fenced 'safe haven' to the surrounding sanctuary. With the conservancy managing the population of cats and foxes in the area, they're hoping the bettongs will be able to survive and thrive
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08/03/2025 - 07:30
Interim report on investing in cheaper, cleaner energy and the net zero transformation sets out reforms
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The Productivity Commission says clean energy subsidy programs should not be extended beyond 2030, and that “market-based incentives” should guide investment in the clean energy transition over the coming decades.
The commission’s interim report on investing in cheaper, cleaner energy and the net zero transformation is one of five which will be released over two weeks and which set out a series of reforms to reinvigorate Australia’s productivity.
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08/03/2025 - 06:00
Critics say Gretchen Whitmer deposed Alessandra Carreon at the behest of state energy supplier DTE Energy
Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has effectively ousted a clean energy advocate from serving on a board that regulates the state’s energy utilities monopoly, and replaced her with someone who environmental groups charge is an “industry ally”, campaigners say.
The groups allege the move was made at utility giant DTE Energy’s behest because it was unhappy with Michigan public services commission (MPSC) board member Alessandra Carreon’s position on clean energy and opposition to rate increases, among other issues.
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