House sparrows
are singing, although it does not sound much of a song to human ears. It is just
a series of feeble, second-rate chirps, very like their normal chirps but now
loosely strung together.
Snow blanket is good news for rare mountain
species
While much of the country
has moaned as it struggled to cope under Britain’s thickest and most prolonged
blanket of snow for many years, climbers and walkers have been able to take advantage
of the rare winter conditions on many of our hills and mountains.
The
Golden Eagle Trust has appealed to farming organisations to tackle the issue of
illegal toxin use, following confirmation that a ten-month-old Irish-born golden
eagle chick was poisoned in the northwest.
Campaigners calling
for tougher penalties against people who kill birds of prey descended on the Scottish
Parliament yesterday to hand over a petition signed by more than 21,500 people.
A rare bittern injured
when it hit an overhead cable has been released back into the wild after being
nursed back to health at an animal rescue centre.
Two Inverness
councillors who are openly opposed to onshore windfarms and both members of the
local area planning committee have been rapped for their public outspokenness
on the issue.
130 objections lodged against Shell licence application
The Department of the Environment has received more than 130
submissions in response to a foreshore licence application by Shell EP Ireland
for investigative work in north Mayo's Sruwaddacon estuary.
Proposed
motorway could lead to further flooding, warns An Taisce
Lobby group An Taisce has warned there is no justification in
building a major motorway in north-west Cork, claiming it could inadvertently
cause further flooding in the area.
Stackpole centre in
Pembrokeshire to have £3m facelift
A
2,000 acre heritage and environmental centre owned by the National Trust in Pembrokeshire
is to undergo a £3m transformation over the next two years.
Planning minister John Healey has marked the news that the Infrastructure
Planning Commission (IPC) is now ready to accept applications by visiting its
headquarters in Bristol.
Environment secretary Hilary
Benn has announced he is “minded” to direct Thames Water’s proposals for a Thames
Tunnel to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC).
Plant Talk
invited Jennifer Lee from the University of Liverpool to share her knowledge on
modern day wild food foraging and its implications for plant conservation.
The introduction of a genetically modified potato in Europe risks
the development of human diseases that fail to respond to antibiotics, it was
claimed last night.
Biodiesel
and other "green" fuels that Europeans put in their cars can have unintended consequences
for tropical forests and wetlands, European Union reports show -- the first evidence
of EU misgivings.
Japan will not comply if a total ban on international trade in
Atlantic bluefin tuna is imposed, a government official was quoted as saying on
Thursday ...
Indonesia's protected forests now open to development
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has signed a decree to allow
mining, power plants and other projects deemed strategically important to take
place in protected forests.
Large amounts of a
powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia,
raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists
said.
Glacier melting a key clue to tracking climate change
The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier
in Alaska. Like many low-altitude glaciers, it's steadily melting, shrinking two
miles over the past 200 years as it tries to strike a new balance with rising
temperatures.
Global
warming is likely to make marine turtles to hatch more females than males and
may reduce nesting success, according to a review of the effects of increasing
temperature on the turtles' biology.
Bumblebees
are beautiful, hard working and important pollinators. The UK had 27 species,
but sadly 3 are nationally extinct, and others are seriously threatened.
Help
us to conserve bumblebees.
The renewable power industry has warned that it needs £500m from
the government over the next two years if it is to help ministers meet energy
and climate change targets.
Ireland met its targets for generating 15 per cent of electricity
from renewable sources by 2010 in January, a conference in Dublin was told this
morning.
New research
addressing climate change questions ... documents that American pika in the Sierra
Nevada and southwestern Great Basin are thriving and persist in a wider range
of temperatures than previously discovered.
Houses with low energy efficiency will lose value in government
plans
Houses with low energy efficiency
will lose value under government plans to intervene in the property market to
help cut greenhouse gas emissions from homes by a third by 2020.
