State government and the Nature Conservancy jointly purchase Vergemont station, which contains habitat for endangered night parrots
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A Queensland outback cattle station the size of Yosemite national park which includes key habitat for the elusive night parrot has been acquired for conservation following an anonymous donation of $21m.
Vergemont station, 110km west of Longreach, was acquired in a joint purchase by the Queensland government and the Nature Conservancy, which brokered the deal. The group said it is likely the single largest philanthropic contribution to land protection in Australia.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/16/2024 - 18:00
04/16/2024 - 17:07
El Niño weather phenomenon depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plants
Ecuador has begun to ration electricity in the country’s main cities as a drought linked to the El Niño weather pattern depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plants that produce about 75% of the nation’s power.
“We urge Ecuadorians to cut their electricity consumption in this critical week,” the ministry of energy said in a statement late on Monday. “And consider that each kilowatt and each drop of water that are not consumed will help us face this reality.”
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04/16/2024 - 12:00
The law will come into force in national parks within two years and in all of the country’s marine protected areas by 2030
Greece has become the first country in Europe to announce a ban on bottom trawling in all of its national marine parks and protected areas.
The country said will spend €780m (£666m) to protect its “diverse and unique marine ecosystems”.
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04/16/2024 - 10:59
New research has found that spaces with a diverse range of natural features are associated with stronger improvements in our mental wellbeing compared to spaces with less natural diversity.
04/16/2024 - 10:00
The challenge for a resource-rich, medium-sized economy such as Australia is to identify the right green industries to focus on, while minimising the risks to taxpayers
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It’s taken a while to get here but Anthony Albanese is on the verge of promising what some economists and most clean energy advocates have been urging Australian governments to do for years. Or at least a version of it.
The prime minister’s promised “Future Made in Australia” act is clumsily named, and the announcement last week had few details, but the idea – that the government will need to use its weight to help develop green industries if the country is to make a rapid transition from fossil fuels to a clean economy – has been a long time coming.
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04/16/2024 - 10:00
Hybrids outsold pure electrics in the past three quarters, according to new figures, while petrol and diesel sales fell 8%
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Australians are choosing hybrid over electric vehicles, but sales of both continue to climb while internal combustion engines record a decline.
Hybrids outsold EVs in three consecutive quarters with 95,129 sales – overtaking 69,593 EVs sold, according to the Australian Automobile Association’s quarterly EV Index released on Tuesday night.
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04/16/2024 - 08:00
Minnesota’s Lower Sioux Indian Community is pioneering green building with its fully integrated hempcrete facility – a first in the country
When Earl Pendleton first heard about building houses out of hemp more than a decade ago, it seemed like a far-fetched idea.
To start, it was still illegal to grow hemp – the non-psychoactive strain of Cannabis sativa – in the US. Importing it from overseas was prohibitively expensive. But Pendleton, a member of the Lower Sioux Indian Community, was intrigued by early research that showed hemp could be transformed into non-toxic construction materials that allow for faster build times and result in low-carbon, energy-efficient houses.
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04/16/2024 - 06:00
As the soundscape of the natural world began to disappear over 30 years, one man was listening and recording it all
Read more: World faces ‘deathly silence’ of nature as wildlife disappears, warn experts
The tale starts 30 years ago, when Bernie Krause made his first audio clip in Sugarloaf Ridge state park, 20 minutes’ drive from his house near San Francisco. He chose a spot near an old bigleaf maple. Many people loved this place: there was a creek and a scattering of picnic benches nearby.
As a soundscape recordist, Krause had travelled around the world listening to the planet. But in 1993 he turned his attention to what was happening on his doorstep. In his first recording, a stream of chortles, peeps and squeaks erupt from the animals that lived in the rich, scrubby habitat. His sensitive microphones captured the sounds of the creek, creatures rustling through undergrowth, and the songs of the spotted towhee, orange-crowned warbler, house wren and mourning dove.
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04/16/2024 - 06:00
Loss of intensity and diversity of noises in ecosystems reflects an alarming decline in healthy biodiversity, say sound ecologists
Read more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silent
Sounds of the natural world are rapidly falling silent and will become “acoustic fossils” without urgent action to halt environmental destruction, international experts have warned.
As technology develops, sound has become an increasingly important way of measuring the health and biodiversity of ecosystems: our forests, soils and oceans all produce their own acoustic signatures. Scientists who use ecoacoustics to measure habitats and species say that quiet is falling across thousands of habitats, as the planet witnesses extraordinary losses in the density and variety of species. Disappearing or losing volume along with them are many familiar sounds: the morning calls of birds, rustle of mammals through undergrowth and summer hum of insects.
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04/16/2024 - 06:00
The 2013 documentary Blackfish turned orca trainers into pariahs in the US. Now some are hitting it big in China
Some people spend a long time deciding what they want to do in life. Hazel McBride feels lucky that she’s always known. As a child in Scotland, she watched a VHS tape of Free Willy on repeat. That was the first time she felt a connection with killer whales. The second time was at age eight, on a trip to SeaWorld Orlando in 2000. Shamu was the animal world’s greatest celebrity, and in the US, SeaWorld ads were ubiquitous. Kids wanted to see the killer whales, and after they saw them, they told their parents they wanted to become killer whale trainers. McBride actually did it.
It wasn’t easy. Scotland didn’t have a SeaWorld, or warm water, or anywhere, really, where McBride could get experience with marine mammals. She had horses she cared for, and she was on the national swim team – a modest start. She sent out volunteer applications to local zoos and worked with California sea lions at a safari park. She reached out to trainers online and one told her a psychology degree would help, so she got one.
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