Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Barracuda, grouper, tuna – and seaweed: Madagascar’s fishers forced to find new ways to survive

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 05:00:05 +0000

Seaweed has become a key cash crop as climate change and industrial trawling test the resilient culture of the semi-nomadic Vezo people

Along Madagascar’s south-west coast, the Vezo people, who have fished the Mozambique Channel for countless generations, are defined by a way of life sustained by the sea. Yet climate change and industrial exploitation are pushing this ocean-based culture to its limits.

Crayfish, weevils and fungi released in UK to tackle invasive species such as Japanese knotweed

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 05:00:03 +0000

Scientists working for government breed biological control agents in lab to take on species choking native wildlife

Crayfish, weevils and fungi are being released into the environment in order to tackle invasive species across Britain.

Scientists working for the government have been breeding species in labs to set them loose into the wild to take on Japanese knotweed, signal crayfish and Himalayan balsam, and other species that choke out native plants and wildlife.

Observations of mariculture associated N2O loss: a need for system specific studies

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 24 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00180-z

Observations of mariculture associated N2O loss: a need for system specific studies

Conserving key coastal areas for mangrove expansion and eco-tourism secures ecosystem services under sea-level rise

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 24 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00170-1

Conserving key coastal areas for mangrove expansion and eco-tourism secures ecosystem services under sea-level rise

The Guardian view on animal welfare: a timely reminder that cruelty is wrong | Editorial

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 18:25:48 +0000

New protections for hares, and more humane conditions on farms, should be welcomed by all

Shropshire canal breach caused by collapse of artificial embankment

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:07:05 +0000

Work under way to refloat boats on emptied waterway after earthwork more than 200 years old fails

The dramatic breach of a canal in the early hours of Monday, which sent two narrowboats tumbling into a hole and left others stranded, was caused by the collapse of an artificial embankment that had stood for more than 200 years.

Ministers raise inheritance tax threshold for farms after backlash

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:53:48 +0000

U-turn lifts limit from £1m to £2.5m after protests and warnings that family farms were at risk

Ministers will increase the threshold for taxing inherited farmland from £1m to £2.5m after months of pressure from campaigners and MPs representing rural areas.

In a statement slipped out just before Christmas, the environment department announced the U-turn, which will apply from April when the tax kicks in.

Deputy leader Lucy Powell says Labour must ‘stick to manifesto’ over EU customs union, in implicit rebuke to Streeting – as it happened

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:12:46 +0000

No 10 has largely played down health secretary’s comments

The Treasury has published this explainer setting out in detail how the inheritance tax rules will apply to farms after today’s announcement.

When the government first announced its plan to extend inheritance tax to farms, it said that this would raise around £520m a year from 2028-29.

Something gnawed your oak tree? Sink hole in your road? How Zurich’s beaver hotline is reassuring residents

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 09:00:52 +0000

As the number of the semi-aquatic creatures soars so can tensions. But the Swiss have a tried and tested system to calm the neighbours and restore harmony

“I hate beavers,” a woman tells the beaver hotline. Forty years ago she planted an oak tree in a small town in southern Zurich – now at the frontier of beaver expansion – and it has just been felled: gnawed by the large, semi-aquatic rodents as they enter their seasonal home-improvement mode.

Forecasters say 2025 ‘more likely than not’ to be UK’s hottest year on record

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:00:49 +0000

Met Office says temperatures are tracking ahead of 2022 after year of heatwaves and drought, though late cold spell could yet intervene

Forecasters say 2025 is “more likely than not” to break the record for the hottest year in the UK since records began, after a summer of heatwaves and drought followed by a mild autumn.

According to the Met Office, the official forecaster, the mean temperature for 2025 is tracking well ahead of the previous highest year, set in 2022. However, a colder spell expected from Christmas until the new year makes it too close to call definitively.