NZ$180bn worth of housing and $26bn of infrastructure at risk of flooding and storm damage, new government report finds
New Zealand’s oceans are warming 34% faster than the global average, with NZ$180bn (US$104bn) worth of housing at risk of flooding, a new report about the nation’s marine environment has revealed.
The ministry of the environment and Stats NZ’s three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains – air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine – to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand’s marine environment.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/07/2025 - 19:57
10/07/2025 - 18:01
Exclusive: Letter from 170-plus organisations calls on government to drop proposed changes to planning law
Plans to water down protections for national parks such as Dartmoor and the Lake District in a “kneejerk bid for growth” will be devastating for nature, more than 170 organisations have told the prime minister.
The Treasury is understood to be pushing for a weakening of protections for England’s national parks and national landscapes in changes to planning law to make it easier for developers to build houses and infrastructure projects.
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10/07/2025 - 18:01
Experts call for urgent strategy to end overfishing as report shows just 41% of stocks of species such as cod and mackerel considered healthy
The UK’s populations of fish such as cod, herring and mackerel are still being “grossly mismanaged” by politicians and overfished, despite hitting unhealthy levels, a study has found.
British fish stocks have been under growing pressure for decades, but during the Brexit campaign some politicians promised that leaving the EU would allow the UK to take control.
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10/07/2025 - 14:56
New research shows massive glaciers in Sierra Nevada projected to melt away by the beginning of the next century
Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, massive glaciers are disappearing and projected to melt away completely by the beginning of the next century, leaving ice-free peaks for the first time in human history, new research has found.
The mountain range’s glaciers are older than previously known, dating back tens of thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to an article published last week in Science Advances.
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10/07/2025 - 09:00
Spotting tawnies is a bit like completing a crossword: it’s easier once you are familiar with the patterns yet you can always get stumped
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The most popular family in my neighbourhood is also one of its shyest. The adults, bedecked in a mottled silvery-grey, tend to fade into their surroundings. Their children are strange goggly creatures with saucer-like eyes, and usually well-hidden from passersby. The whole family keeps nocturnal hours. For those who know them, however, visiting at any hour becomes a kind of compulsion.
So it was for my partner and me when we moved to a new house and found tawny frogmouths in a nearby park.
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10/07/2025 - 09:00
Prof Christian Downie points to the Business Council of Australia and News Corp newspapers as examples of deliberate obstruction
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Political and media attacks on renewable energy and climate action in Australia in recent months have come “out of the climate obstruction playbook” that has been honed over decades around the world by fossil fuel interests.
Prof Christian Downie, an Australian researcher, says he has studied techniques used by business groups and lobbyists all over the world which are now being seen in Australia.
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10/07/2025 - 06:28
Exclusive: Luis Vayas Valdivieso says he is quitting for personal and professional reasons after reports of pressure behind the scenes
The chair of stalled UN plastics treaty talks, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, is preparing to step down, after accounts of behind-the-scenes pressure from the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep).
The move will be announced at a UN meeting on Tuesday, with an official announcement expected by Thursday. Vayas Valdivieso confirmed in an interview with the Guardian that he was resigning and said: “There have been some challenges in the process.”
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10/07/2025 - 04:00
Scientists find 10% chance that similar events to the ‘unheard of’ temperatures in 2023 could occur each year
The unprecedented marine heatwave of 2023 was in line with climate modelling, research shows, as scientists warn such events will become more frequent.
The “unheard of” heatwave off the UK and Irish coasts during a summer of 40C temperatures raised concerns that fish, shellfish and kelp would not be able to survive.
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10/07/2025 - 03:53
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called environment department bureaucrats ‘weak’ - though later withdrew the remark
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Australian government officials are investigating whether a coal mining company is putting threatened greater gliders and koalas at risk by illegally clearing bushland in central Queensland without approval under federal law.
The revelation came in a fiery Senate estimates hearing in which the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young criticised the Albanese government for not doing more to stop the clearing and described environment department bureaucrats as “weak” – an allegation she later withdrew.
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10/06/2025 - 23:00
Young people in Whitehaven on England’s north-west coast rely on the power plant for everything from jobs to civic investment. But for those who see their future elsewhere, options can be limited
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Photographs by Polly Braden
It is a rainy Thursday in Whitehaven on the north-west coast of England, but the seafront is buzzing with activity. This Saturday is Harbour Fest, a day of music, performance and activities. An array of colourful street food vendors are already setting up.
It’s unusual to see such excitement on the seafront, says 18-year-old Lacey Ritson. Growing up, Lacey and her friends would gravitate to picturesque Saint Bees along the coast or the nearby Lake District if they wanted to spend time by the water. And sometimes, she says, “we’d sit by the river and look at people, guessing who worked at Sellafield – like, ‘they’ve got a nice car – they’re from Sellafield’”.
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