Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Salmon is often marketed as the sustainable, healthy and eco-friendly protein choice. But what you may not realise is that most of the salmon you buy is farmed, especially if you live in the UK, because Scottish salmon producers are no longer required to tell you. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out why it is important for consumers to know where their salmon comes from, and examines the gap between the marketing of farmed salmon and the reality for our health, the environmental and animal welfare Scottish government must do more to control salmon farming, inquiry finds Scottish salmon producers allowed to remove ‘farmed’ from front of packaging Norway rules out fish farm ban despite ‘existential threat’ to wild salmon Continue reading...

From the rock sea-spurrey, which appears to grow out of solid rock, to the slender centaury that lives on a landslip, these plants exist where they do for good reason I first encountered coastal wildflowers when I was 11. I was visiting my grandmother’s friend in Devon and a lady said: “Here, dear,” and dug up a clump of Warren crocuses – a rare plant that, at the time, was only thought to grow in the seaside resort of Dawlish Warren. She gave them to me to grow in my garden at home. But of course they didn’t grow away from the sea. That was when I realised there was something special about coastal wildflowers. They fascinate me because, as well as being beautiful flowers, they often grow in tough locations. Take the rock sea-spurrey: a delicate little plant that appears to grow out of solid rock, such as a crevice in a cliff base. It can put up with being splashed with sea spray and baked by the summer sun. And yet it seems to thrive in that difficult, harsh environment. Continue reading...

Up and down the country, volunteers are coming together to plant more of these nature-rich reserves The 30-metre ridge runs across the moor near Yar Tor on Dartmoor, one of several faint lines that crisscross the land like aeroplane contrails. Although the open moorland looks wild, we are standing on some of the UK’s oldest farmland. These ridges, called reaves, are the ghosts of farming’s most wildlife-rich legacy: hedges. “These reaves sadly have no function today other than to delight us. Or some of us,” says ecologist Rob Wolton. But Dartmoor’s reaves are the skeletons upon which more recent hedges were built: hundreds of thousands of miles of them. After Ireland, the UK is believed to be the most hedge-dense country in the world, and Wolton says the majority of them are more than 280 years old. Recent laser scanning shows England has enough hedges to wrap around the world almost 10 times. They are, by far, the country’s biggest nature reserve, which is why community groups, farmers and charities are rallying together to plant hedges of the future that will offer the same support to wildlife as the ancient hedges of the past. Continue reading...

When asked if he accepts we are already seeing the impacts of climate change, the opposition leader responded 'there's an impact', but said the real question is what Australia can do about it. Pressed further, Dutton said 'I don't know' and 'I'm not a scientist' when asked if he was willing to say 'this is climate change happening right now' Dutton looks shaky as he fights Albanese to a draw at best – and he’s fast running out of chances to get ahead Continue reading...