Survival International says Mashco Piro seen in nearby Amazon village in alarming sign group is under stress
Members of an Indigenous tribe who live deep in Peru’s Amazon rainforest and avoid contact with outsiders have been reported entering a neighboring village in what activists consider an alarming sign that the group is under stress from development.
The sightings of members of Mashco Piro tribe come as a logging company is building a bridge that could give outsiders easier access to the tribe’s territory, a move that could raise the risk of disease and conflict, according to Survival International, which advocates for Indigenous rights.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/28/2025 - 11:35
Ministers should find out what the regulator says before signing away a further £1.8bn of public money
There is already a scandal of bad accounting at Drax, one could say mischievously. It’s the one that maintains that transporting wood pellets from North America to burn in North Yorkshire is a “carbon neutral” activity because replacement trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. You don’t have to be a green lobbyist to think there’s something wrong there. As the research group Ember regularly reminds us, Drax is the UK’s biggest emitter yet qualifies for renewables subsidies.
That weirdness in the methodology is one for the government to justify. The Financial Conduct Authority’s investigation is into the grittier issue of Drax’s “historical statements” about its sourcing of wood pellets. Three sets of annual accounts – 2021, 2022 and 2023 – are in the spotlight for adherence to listing rules for quoted companies and transparency disclosures.
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08/28/2025 - 10:32
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Feargal Sharkey back campaign to save the animal, which once inspired placenames, songs and stories
When the Somerset Levels flood in winter, their reed-fringed waterways swell into a glinting inland sea – haunting and half forgotten.
Generations ago, these wetlands pulsed with the seasonal arrival of eels: twisting through rhynes – human-made water channels – and ditches in their thousands, caught in baskets, sung about in pubs and paid as rent to Glastonbury Abbey. Today those same waters flow more slowly, more sparsely: once-teeming channels now show only the barest traces of what was here.
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08/28/2025 - 10:00
Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout
The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.
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08/28/2025 - 09:04
Volunteers are tasked with logging about 150,000 park trees by hand – and for some, it’s become a strange obsession
On a recent morning, as the late August sun began to beat down, a few dozen New Yorkers stood in the shade of one of the nearly 500 trees adorning Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, worrying a bit about hurting its feelings.
We had already identified the species – bald cypress – thanks to its feathered leaves and “strong pyramidal shape”, measured its trunk’s circumference (17in; 43cm), and noted that its roots appeared normal, its leaves were healthy and its branches had suffered some damage from improper pruning. But now we were tasked with assigning the tree an overall grade – on a scale of “poor” to “excellent” – and no one seemed to want to say.
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08/28/2025 - 08:58
Exclusive: Analysis of responses shows firms are urging parliamentarians to limit regulation of ‘forever chemicals’
Chemical firms are lobbying MPs not to ban “forever chemicals” in the same way as proposed in the EU, using arguments disputed by scientists and described as “big tobacco playbook” tactics, it can be revealed.
Pfas, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and commonly known as forever chemicals owing to their persistence in the environment, are a family of about 10,000 chemicals, some of which have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including certain cancers. They are used across a range of industries, from cosmetics to firefighting.
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08/28/2025 - 07:00
Particles are small enough to burrow into lungs, says report, with health impacts ‘more substantial than we realize’
Every breath people take in their homes or car probably contains significant amounts of microplastics small enough to burrow deep into lungs, new peer-reviewed research finds, bringing into focus a little understood route of exposure and health threat.
The study, published in the journal Plos One, estimates humans can inhale as much as 68,000 tiny plastic particles daily. Previous studies have identified larger pieces of airborne microplastics, but those are not as much of a health threat because they do not hang in the air as long, or move as deep into the pulmonary system.
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08/28/2025 - 04:00
The invaders present a devastating threat to Britain’s pollinators – constant watchfulness and clever technology are needed to thwart their progress
Were it not for the bags of destroyed hornets nests in the corner, you could be forgiven for confusing Peter Davies’ office with the set of a TV detective show. Maps dotted with Post-it notes cover the wall in the repurposed hotel suite just off the M20 in Kent. There is no natural light: the only window looks down on an atrium below, and is partly obscured by a flip chart with the plan for the day. From here, Davies and his team run the national command centre for holding back the Asian hornet, an invasive species that preys on honeybees and other pollinators.
“In effect, I’m the incident commander to tackle the hornet. We have a forward operating base at the hotel so we can get anywhere in Kent quickly, because that’s where we’ve had the most incursions,” he says.
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08/28/2025 - 03:03
Steps to make electricity cheaper, such as ending levies, could transform prospects for pumps, thinktank shows
Heat pumps could save households hundreds of pounds a year on heating bills, if the government took simple measures to reform the energy system, an analysis has found.
The average household’s heating bills could be roughly halved, saving about £375 a year with a heat pump instead of a gas boiler, if steps were taken to make electricity cheaper.
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08/28/2025 - 02:00
A tournament in Cornwall will pit anglers against these magnificent creatures, as part of a rising trend for so-called ‘sportfishing’
It’s the UK equivalent of bullfighting. Next week, in Falmouth in Cornwall, anglers will compete to fish for bluefin tuna in a three-day tournament. Sponsored by companies including Suzuki and Shimano, it’s a festival of cruelty and destruction, waging war on a magnificent giant which, in a rare instance of ecological hope, has begun returning to our shores.
Where’s the sport in this “sportfishing”? While some forms of angling require knowledge and skill, in this case the paying customer (the angler) sits in a boat while the professional skipper motors up and down, trailing a set of lures. When a tuna is hooked, the angler, strapped into a harness, either stands or sits in what is called the “fighting chair” and “plays” the fish to exhaustion: a one-sided fight of 30 minutes or more. It’s a risk-free means of pitting yourself against nature, a truly pathetic form of macho gratification. You can imagine my surprise on discovering that Nigel Farage is a big fan.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
The Guardian’s climate assembly with George Monbiot and special guests On 16 September, join George Monbiot, Mikaela Loach and Emma Pinchbeck as they discuss the forces driving the big climate pushback, with an address by Feargal Sharkey
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