Breaking Waves: Ocean News

The image of huge, glorious landscapes, where wildlife runs free under the protection of the state, is far from reality England’s national parks overseen by ‘bloated’, mostly white male boards What do you think of when you think of a national park? Is it a wide area of glorious natural beauty, where wildlife runs free under the protection of the state? Or is it a wide area mostly farmed by private landowners, in which nature is faring worse than outside its boundaries, and largely off-limits to the public? In England, the reality is the latter, and this matters. The country is one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world, in the bottom 10% of nations for biodiversity. “Nature is in freefall in our national parks,” says Dr Rose O’Neill, the chief executive of the Campaign for National Parks (CNP). Continue reading...

Government’s communication called ‘unconscionable’ after one of largest spills of toxic ‘forever chemicals’ A former US navy base in Maine has caused among the largest accidental spills of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” ever recorded in the nation, and public health advocates suspect state officials are attempting to cover up its scale by reporting misleading and incomplete data. Meanwhile, state and regional officials were slow to alert the public and are resisting calls to immediately test some private drinking water wells in the area despite its notoriously complex hydrology, which could potentially spread the contamination widely. Continue reading...

Court rules against West Cumbria Mining’s fossil fuel development in Whitehaven The UK’s first new deep coalmine in 30 years will not be allowed to go ahead after a ruling in the high court. On Friday morning, Justice Holgate ruled that plans to build the facility in Whitehaven, Cumbria, would not proceed, in what campaigners called a “victory for the environment”. The headline and body text of this article were updated on 13 September 2024 to clarify that the Cumbria development would have been the UK’s first new deep coalmine, rather than its first new coalmine of any kind, in 30 years. Continue reading...

The factoid about biodiversity and Indigenous peoples spread around the world, but scientists say bad data can undermine the very causes it claims to support The statistic seemed to crop up everywhere. Versions were cited at UN negotiations, on protest banners, in 186 peer-reviewed scientific papers – even by the film-maker James Cameron, while promoting his Avatar films. Exact wording varied, but the claim was this: that 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is protected by Indigenous peoples. When scientists investigated its origins, however, they found nothing. In September, the scientific journal Nature reported that the much-cited claim was “a baseless statistic”, not supported by any real data, and could jeopardise the very Indigenous-led conservation efforts it was cited in support of. Indigenous communities play “essential roles” in conserving biodiversity, the comment says, but the 80% claim is simply “wrong” and risks undermining their credibility. Continue reading...