Nonbinding vote at state conference sends strong signal to state and federal Nationals leaders
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The New South Wales Nationals have voted to abandon Australia’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at the party’s weekend state conference in Coffs Harbour, increasing pressure on the federal Nationals leader, David Littleproud, to follow suit.
Attendees at the conference said the motion, moved by the Tweed state electorate council, passed easily with 60 to 65% support, after vigorous debate for nearly an hour among the 300-odd delegates.
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06/14/2025 - 23:07
06/14/2025 - 15:00
Among the dead in the internationally significant wetland are estuarine snails, shore crabs, baby flounder and ‘a thick stew of polychaete worms’
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When South Australia’s algal bloom arrived in the Coorong, it stained the water like strong tea before turning it into a slurry of dead worms.
Many had hoped the storm in late May would break up the bloom of Karenia mikimotoi algae, which has killed more than 200 different marine species. Instead, high tides swept the algae into the Coorong, an internationally significant Ramsar wetland at the mouth of the Murray River.
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06/14/2025 - 11:19
A University of Queensland-led project has developed a tool to standardise genetic testing of koala populations, providing a significant boost to conservation and recovery efforts.
06/14/2025 - 11:19
Ten thousand years after mastodons disappeared, scientists have unearthed powerful fossil evidence proving these elephant cousins were vital seed spreaders for large-fruited trees in South America. Using dental wear, isotope analysis, and fossilized plant residue, researchers confirmed that mastodons regularly consumed fruit supporting a decades-old theory that many tropical plants evolved alongside giant animals. The extinction of these megafauna left a permanent ecological void, with some plants now teetering on the edge of extinction. Their story isn t just prehistoric it s a warning for today s conservation efforts.
06/14/2025 - 05:00
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06/14/2025 - 01:00
A slew of global leaders met in the south of France to discuss the future of the oceans. There was ‘momentum’ and ‘enthusiasm’, but there were critical voices too
The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope … and we are all in the same boat.” So said Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer, oceanographer and pioneering film-maker, who notably pivoted from merely sharing his underwater world to sounding the alarm over its destruction.
Half a century later, David Attenborough, a year shy of his 100th birthday, followed Cousteau’s trajectory. In the naturalist’s acclaimed new film, Ocean, which highlights the destructive fishing practice of bottom trawling, he says he has come to the realisation that the “most important place on Earth is not on land but at sea”.
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06/13/2025 - 16:46
Kimberley Terrell’s research into health and job disparities had triggered a backlash from state and Tulane leaders
This story was originally published by Floodlight
Environmental advocates are questioning the actions of a private university in Louisiana after the resignation of a scientist who researches the health and job disparities in a heavily industrialized part of the state known as Cancer Alley.
Kimberly Terrell served as a director of community engagement and a staff scientist with Tulane University’s Environmental Law Clinic before resigning and accused university leaders of trying to censor the work she is doing to spotlight the harms to local communities plagued by industrial pollution.
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06/13/2025 - 13:26
Among other concerns, the US military parade will produce as much pollution as created to heat 300 homes for a year
Donald Trump’s military parade this weekend will bring thousands of troops out to march, while dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers roll down the streets and fighter jets hum overhead.
The event has prompted concern about rising autocracy in the US. It will also produce more than 2m kilograms of planet-heating pollution – equivalent to the amount created by producing of 67m plastic bags or by the energy used to power about 300 homes in one year, according to a review by the progressive thinktank Institute for Policy Studies and the Guardian.
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06/13/2025 - 10:11
Groups say president ‘grievously wrong’ after withdrawing from Biden-led deal to protect fish in Pacific north-west
Donald Trump has pulled the US federal government from a historic agreement to recover the salmon population in the Pacific north-west, calling the plan “radical environmentalism”.
A presidential memorandum issued by Trump on Thursday removes the US from a deal brokered by Joe Biden with Washington, Oregon and four Native American tribes to work to restore salmon populations and develop clean energy for tribes.
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06/13/2025 - 10:00
Environment minister Murray Watt is returning from oceans conference where he pledged to curb the scourge of plastics and ratify a treaty to protect the high seas
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The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, is returning from a UN oceans conference where he pledged to curb the scourge of plastics and make good on Australia’s promise to ratify a treaty to protect the high seas.
The five-day meeting in Nice, France finished on Friday, and conservationists celebrated some key steps towards protecting wildlife in international waters.
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