Rugged
hills with woodland and grassland 'help butterflies'
Rugged, hilly areas with a mix of habitats such as woodland and
grassland can help maintain more stable butterfly populations, research using
satellite images has found.
DEFRA, the UK government agency with responsibility for fisheries,
has been awarded a ‘Shark Champion’ award from the Shark Trust for taking the
decision to end the permits that allow sharks fins to be removed at sea.
A sinister-
looking bird can be seen sitting on hedge-tops and telephone wires in a few places
in the country. This is the great grey shrike, which nests in northern Europe
up to the Arctic Circle.
Grand
designs on Valentine's Day? Get into the groove...
This Valentine’s Day, would you consider building a new house
from scratch for your loved one? Or performing an elaborate and world-renowned
dance to impress and win their love forever? No? You could learn a thing or two
about romance from our native wildlife, say The Wildlife Trusts.
New
laws to help endangered eels swim against the tide
New laws could help save critically endangered eels in English
and Welsh rivers, the Environment Agency said today. The legislation will require
eel passes and screens to be installed in rivers as barriers may prevent from
going up or downstream.
The
Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, part of Cornwall
Wildlife Trust, is launching Pond Check, a free service aiming to raise awareness
of the threat of non-native plants that are invading ponds and waters.
Archaeology
expert calls Scots power line 'rape of countryside'
TV archaeologist Neil Oliver has joined the controversy over
the Beauly-Denny power line and also compared onshore wind farms to "raping" the
countryside.
Scotland is on track to beat its target to get 31 percent of
its electricity from renewables by 2011 and aims to one day generate all its power
from green energies, the country's First Minister said Monday.
Scientists have confirmed a deadly link between a toxic Black
Country lake and the deaths of hundreds of animals over the last decade, the Sunday
Mercury can reveal.
Scottish forests
should be replanted with Lebanon cedars, Italian elders and Macedonian pines and
not native species, according to a leading expert in a Forestry Commission study.
China
has an estimated 50 or fewer tigers left living in the wild, but efforts to stabilize
one population in the bleak northeast are starting to pay off, a conservationist
said on Monday.
Scientists probe Southern Ocean black smokers for first time
Scientists on the British research ship RRS James Cook have explored
deep-sea volcanic vents in the Southern Ocean for the first time with a remotely-operated
vehicle.
Despite speaking on a bad
line from somewhere off Antarctica, the message from Paul Watson was loud and
clear: "We will never retreat or surrender the southern oceans till we drive the
Japanese whaling fleet out of here."
Navigational locks and gates in Chicago-area waterways may be
opened less frequently than usual in a stepped-up campaign to prevent Asian carp
from overrunning the Great Lakes, federal officials said Monday.
Oceana welcomes CITES call for protection of marine species
The CITES Secretariat has joined the international consensus
on the need for a bluefin tuna international trade ban, says the marine campaign
group Oceana.
Government warns UK might struggle to meet renewables
targets
The UK may struggle to meet
its EU renewables targets if demand for electricity is too high, according a Government
forecast submitted to the European Union.
The UK
could slash its deficit by £12bn a year by scrapping tax breaks for carbon-intensive
industries and halting investment in projects that will increase carbon emissions,
according to a study from sustainable business think-tank the Green Alliance.
A proposed
new U.S. NOAA Climate Service is meant to help businesses adapt to the impact
of climate change, and to spur development of new technologies to cope with it,
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on Monday.
The main
impact of climate change will be on water supplies and the world needs to learn
from past cooperation such as over the Indus or Mekong Rivers to help avert future
conflicts, experts said on Sunday.
