Exhausted firefighters, foresters and volunteers wage ‘war of attrition’ against blaze that forced 200,000 people from their homes
By noon it is time for a break. The temperature is about 35C, the smell of ash, cinders and burnt wood hang acrid in the air. At tables laid out in the shrinking shade on the desiccated grass and sand outside the sports centre in Le Porge, 200 men and a handful of women have gathered. Firefighters, soldiers, police, gendarmes, officials, first aid teams, foresters and volunteers sit elbow to elbow, plates of sausages, steak and potatoes in front of them.
The village was evacuated just over 14 hours after the “megafire” – as it has become known in France – broke out 6km away last week. The blaze has consumed 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres) of mainly forestland west of Bordeaux. Though finally contained, there are outbreaks every day, pushing to the limit emergency services and the hundreds of amateurs who have come to their aid.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/31/2026 - 23:00
07/31/2026 - 23:00
Exclusive: As wildfires rage, Frank Elderson says more work needed to assess risk from collapse of ecosystem services
A senior policymaker at the European Central Bank has said the climate emergency and the breakdown of nature poses a dramatically growing risk to the global economy.
Frank Elderson, a member of the ECB’s executive board, said the eurozone lender of last resort was stepping up its monitoring of the financial risks linked to the destruction of “ecosystem services”, which are nature-related processes or assets that support human activity.
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07/31/2026 - 12:38
Federal government plan outlines cuts of roughly 40% to California, Arizona and Nevada but fix is likely to be only temporary
The US government released its anxiously awaited plan for how to manage the Colorado River crisis on Friday, which includes the potential for harsh cuts in water supplied to California, Arizona and Nevada.
Under the proposal, the so-called lower basin states stand to lose up to 3m acre-feet (3.7bn kiloliters) a year – enough water annually to serve more than 25 million people and roughly 40% of their collective total. The so-called upper basin states – Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming – were spared from mandates restricting their supply.
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07/31/2026 - 11:24
António Guterres says strengthening El Niño will help push the world’s climate crisis into ‘uncharted territory’
India’s monsoon is in danger and hotter, drier conditions are forecast across much of the world as a stronger El Niño weather system is taking hold, weather experts have warned.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said the strengthening El Niño was “adding fuel to a planet already on fire” and pushing the world into “uncharted territory”.
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07/31/2026 - 08:39
Exclusive: Danielle Kirton calls on Ed Miliband to help her get answers about why evacuation order came too late
The bereaved daughter of a British couple who died in a Spanish wildfire is calling on the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, to get answers from Spain’s government about why her parents were not told to evacuate until it was too late.
Severe wildfires have burned across Spain and France since early July, killing people, destroying thousands of homes and forcing more than 300,000 people to flee.
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07/31/2026 - 07:00
Contender, largest tagged male great white, heading north as overheating oceans alter range of several shark species
The largest tagged male great white shark in the Atlantic Ocean has been identified traveling up the US and Canada coastline amid a surge in sightings of sharks that are increasingly shifting their movement patterns due to the overheating of the oceans.
The great white shark, named Contender, is nearly 14ft long and weighs more than 1,650lbs. The hulking fish has been pinged in several locations off North Carolina and Maine as he headed north for the summer, with Contender’s last known location located off Nova Scotia in Canada on 11 July.
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07/31/2026 - 03:22
Emergency crews say situation remains ‘dynamic’ as more than 100 firefighters battle Dunwich Heath blaze
A wildfire near Britain’s biggest nuclear power station has caused “total devastation” to one of the UK’s most important landscapes, as fire crews said the situation remained “dynamic”.
More than 100 firefighters have been battling the blaze on Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, on the Suffolk coast since Wednesday evening. The fire service said on Friday afternoon the situation was stabilising but remained a “major incident” that was “dynamic and potentially changeable”.
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07/29/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 30 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00235-9
Blue SIA: the case for social impact assessment in the blue economy
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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