Speaking at summit in France, António Guterres calls for bold pledges to stop deep sea becoming ‘wild west’
Nations must move from “plunder to protection” in order to save the world’s seas from crisis, the UN chief, António Guterres, told the ocean summit on Monday.
All countries must come forward with “bold pledges” including a biodiversity target to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030, to tackle plastic pollution, overfishing and for greater governance of the high seas, he said at the opening ceremony. Guterres also stressed the importance of multilateralism and warned, in an apparent swipe at the US, which was not present at the conference: “The deep sea cannot become the wild west.”
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/09/2025 - 11:56
06/09/2025 - 10:00
Call to include forest comes amid frustration at how long it is taking Minns government to declare park’s boundaries and meet its election commitment
Australia news live: latest politics updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Forest advocates say an important area that is home to endangered koalas and southern greater gliders has been left out of the Minns government’s assessment for its proposed great koala national park in northern New South Wales.
WWF-Australia, the National Parks Association of NSW and community forest groups from the mid-north coast region have urged the state’s environment minister, Penny Sharpe, to consider including the 528ha area in the promised park after drone surveys detected a “high density” of threatened species.
Continue reading...
06/09/2025 - 06:29
Party joins MPs across political spectrum in supporting bird conservation amendment similar to one blocked by Labour
UK politics live – latest updates
Reform UK has joined MPs from across the political spectrum in supporting an amendment to provide every new home in England with at least one swift brick to help endangered cavity-nesting birds, after a similar amendment was blocked by Labour in the committee stage.
Richard Tice, a former housing developer and the Reform deputy leader, said his party’s MPs would support a revised amendment tabled by Labour’s Barry Gardiner to incorporate the measure in the government’s increasingly controversial planning bill.
Continue reading...
06/09/2025 - 06:00
US power sector would be world’s sixth largest emitter of planet-heating greenhouse gas if it were a country – study
Donald Trump’s administration is set to claim planet-heating pollution spewing from US power plants is so globally insignificant it should be spared any sort of climate regulation.
But, in fact, the volume of these emissions is stark – if the US power sector were a country, it would be the sixth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
Continue reading...
06/09/2025 - 04:50
Israeli forces have taken command of a vessel that tried to circumvent its naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, sending the boat and its crew of 12 – including the activist Greta Thunberg – to a port in Israel, according to officials. The UK-flagged Madleen, operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), was trying to deliver a symbolic amount of aid to Gaza on Monday to raise international awareness to the humanitarian crisis there. However, the boat was boarded by Israeli forces before it could reach the shore, the FFC said. The foreign ministry confirmed that the vessel was under Israeli control
Israeli forces take control of Gaza aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg
Middle East crisis – latest updates
Continue reading...
06/09/2025 - 02:00
Chances are, wherever you live, if there’s greenery around there will be owls there too
It is dusk, a short walk from the big Ikea in Croydon, and a barn owl is emerging from its nest to hunt. In the fading light, the male owl sits on a fence post to survey the rough grass below. He has a busy evening ahead: he is responsible for feeding a roosting female for the next few weeks while she cares for their chicks. The owl hops to another fence post. Suddenly, he dives into the grass below, emerging a minute later with an unlucky rodent, and flies back into the nest.
“I still get really excited,” says Tomos Brangwyn, a local enthusiast who monitors the site, lowering his binoculars. “He’ll do that most of the night. It’s a great sign that there’s a female in there that we haven’t seen for a while, as she’s on the eggs,” he says.
Continue reading...
06/09/2025 - 01:06
For millions of years, large herbivores like mastodons and giant deer shaped the Earth's ecosystems, which astonishingly stayed stable despite extinctions and upheavals. A new study reveals that only twice in 60 million years did environmental shifts dramatically reorganize these systems once with a continental land bridge, and again with climate-driven habitat change. Yet the ecosystems adapted, with new species taking on old roles. Now, a third, human-driven tipping point threatens that ancient resilience.
06/09/2025 - 00:27
Murray Watt tells UN conference in France a review of Australia’s marine parks will ‘lay the foundation’ for increasing ocean protections
Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here
The Australian government plans to declare 30% of its ocean “highly protected” by 2030, raising expectations from conservationists it will ban fishing and drilling in nearly a third of the country’s waters.
The environment minister, Murray Watt, told the UN Ocean Conference in France a review of 44 of Australia’s marine parks would “lay the foundation” to increase the area of the country’s ocean with higher levels of protection.
Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter
Continue reading...
06/09/2025 - 00:00
Vast areas of land are now dominated by one species – purple moor-grass – and good luck with seeing a bird or insect there. How do we revive these habitats?
Deserts are spreading across great tracts of Britain, yet few people seem to have noticed, and fewer still appear to care. It is one of those astonishing situations I keep encountering: in which vast, systemic problems – in this case, I believe, covering thousands of square kilometres – hide in plain sight.
I realise that many people, on reading that first sentence, will suspect I’ve finally flipped. Where, pray, are those rolling sand dunes or sere stony wastes? But there are many kinds of desert, and not all of them are dry. In fact, those spreading across Britain are clustered in the wettest places. Yet they harbour fewer species than some dry deserts do, and are just as hostile to humans. Another useful term is terrestrial dead zones.
Continue reading...
06/08/2025 - 23:00
In seas around the world pH levels are falling – and scientists are increasingly frustrated that the problem is not being taken seriously enough
Read more: ‘Ticking timebomb’: sea acidity has reached critical levels, threatening entire ecosystems – study
On a clear day at Plymouth marina you can see across the harbour out past Drake’s Island – named after the city’s most famous son, Francis Drake – to the Channel. It’s quite often possible to see an abundance of marine vessels, from navy ships and passenger ferries to small fishing boats and yachts. What you might not spot from this distance is a large yellow buoy bobbing up and down in the water about six miles off the coast.
This data buoy – L4 – is one of a number belonging to Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), a research centre in Devon dedicated to marine science. On a pleasantly calm May morning, Prof James Fishwick, PML’s head of marine technology and autonomy, is on top of the buoy checking it for weather and other damage. “This particular buoy is one of the most sophisticated in the world,” he says as he climbs the ladder to the top. “It’s decked out with instruments and sensors able to measure everything from temperature, to salinity, dissolved oxygen, light and acidity levels.”
Continue reading...
