Breaking Waves: Ocean News

UN secretary general, António Guterres, says ‘we must exit this road to ruin’ in annual new year message The world has endured a “decade of deadly heat”, with 2024 capping 10 years of unprecedented temperatures, the UN has said. Delivering his annual new year message, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the 10 hottest years on record had happened in the past decade, including 2024. Continue reading...

Part of an international initiative to combat organised wildlife crime, similar seizures in Australia and Norway have recovered more than 50,000 eggs More than 6,000 eggs have been seized in the biggest haul of its kind in UK history, after police carried out raids in Scotland, South Yorkshire, Essex, Wales and Gloucester. Thousands of eggs were found secreted in attics, offices and drawers. The UK raids took place in November as part of Operation Pulka, an international effort to tackle organised wildlife crime – specifically the taking, possessing and trading of wild birds’ eggs. The raids began in June 2023 in Norway, and resulted in 16 arrests and the seizure of 50,000 eggs. In Australia, an estimated 3,500 eggs have been seized, worth up to A$500,000 (£250,000). Continue reading...

Exclusive: Report finds poorer areas particularly affected by varying availability and cost of charging electric cars The UK is at risk of a drastic slowdown in its transition to electric cars because of big disparities in the availability and cost of charging points, especially in poorer areas, a report says. The study, by the consultancy Stonehaven, argues that given rapid advances in batteries and car range, persuading more people to move to electric vehicles is now less an issue of technology than one of “urban management and social equity”. Continue reading...

In 2024 horticulturalists made single biggest introduction of rare seeds to collection in the past decade The Codonopsis clematidea smells like a skunk, the Tulipa toktogulica has a peculiar, elongated bulb and the Fritillaria imperialis is exceptionally tall. But to the horticulturalists who journeyed to remote alpine meadows and forests to find these rare flowers growing in the wild this year, they are nothing less than the “jewels of the earth”. Now, the seeds from these and hundreds of other wild plants that were collected in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have entered the living collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Continue reading...