Christmas Island flying fox numbers have declined as endangered species left without recovery plan
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It’s the last native mammal on the island, but the “incredibly cute and fluffy” Christmas Island flying fox is critically endangered with no recovery plan and severely outdated conservation advice.
The flying fox is smaller and fluffier than many of Australia’s mainland flying fox species, according to animal ecologist Dr Annabel Dorrestein, from Western Sydney University, who has studied the species for nine years.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/14/2025 - 10:00
09/14/2025 - 06:00
Signs tout a natural paradise, but pollution from over-farming has left Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh choked by toxic algae
The bright, cheery signs dot the shoreline like epistles from another era, a time before the calamity.
“Ballyronan marina is a picturesque boating and tourist facility on the shores of Lough Neagh,” says one. “Contours of its historical past embrace the virginal shoreline.”
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Billion-dollar coffins? New technology could make oceans transparent and Aukus submarines vulnerable
09/13/2025 - 15:00
Quantum sensing, satellite tracking and AI are part of an accelerating arms race in detection that should prompt a re-evaluation of Australia’s defence strategy
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Military history is littered with the corpses of apex predators.
The Gatling gun, the battleship, the tank. All once possessed unassailable power – then were undermined, in some cases wiped out, by the march of new technology.
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09/13/2025 - 00:00
As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost
• Photographs by Nicholas JR White
From the slopes behind the village of Ernen, it is possible to see the gouge where the Fiesch glacier once tumbled towards the valley in the Bernese Alps. The curved finger of ice, rumpled like tissue, cuts between high buttresses of granite and gneiss. Now it has melted out of sight.
People here once feared the monstrous ice streams, describing them as devils, but now they dread their disappearance. Like other glaciers in the Alps and globally, the Fiesch is melting at ever-increasing rates. More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers.
The Aletsch glacier viewed from Moosfluh, looking towards the Olmenhorn and Eggishorn peaks
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09/12/2025 - 17:10
The mandatory program, which required 8,000 facilities to report their release, will be ended to reduce ‘bureaucratic red tape’
The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed on Friday a rule to end a mandatory program requiring 8,000 facilities to report their greenhouse gas emissions – an effort the agency said was burdensome to business, but which leaves the public without transparency around the environmental impact of those sources.
The agency said mandatory collection of GHG emissions data was unnecessary because it is “not directly related to a potential regulation and has no material impact on improving human health and the environment”.
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09/12/2025 - 12:25
Sea life needs protection, and the UK’s current system of marine management isn’t up to it
Up to 90% of the ocean floor around Britain is covered with sand and gravel, derived from the erosion of shell and rocks. Other, more unusual habitats include maerl beds, seagrass meadows and kelp forests. These biodiverse landscapes are home to 330 species of fish, as well as seals, seahorses and thousands of lesser‑known species – which share them with the offshore energy, fishing and shipping industries.
Heightened awareness of pollution from sewage and plastics means that the public knows more about marine conservation than it used to. For his 99th birthday this year, the broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough made a film, Ocean, in which he described the seas as the planet’s “greatest life support system”, and urged people to get behind efforts to protect and renew marine nature.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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09/12/2025 - 11:32
Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman acted legally, but residents complained to Southern Water
A Donald Trump-backing billionaire has been stopped from transporting water in tankers to fill a lake on his Wiltshire estate during a drought.
Southern Water has told tanker companies to cease delivering water to Stephen Schwarzman’s 2,500-acre estate after local residents filmed vehicles going day and night to its grounds.
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09/12/2025 - 10:00
Government rules out using taxpayer funds to buy off competing bid as Pacific leaders urge Turkey to step aside as an ‘act of good faith’
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The Albanese government is privately downplaying expectations of winning the bid to host next year’s UN climate conference as rival Turkey refuses to withdraw two months out from the decision date.
The government has ruled out using taxpayer funds to effectively buy off the Turkish bid but experts believe it will need to make other offers if it wants to break the impasse.
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09/12/2025 - 09:00
Research shows majority of shark meat mislabeled or so vaguely labeled buyers do not know what they are eating
A recent study has revealed that the majority of shark meat available to American shoppers is mislabeled, with much of it coming from endangered species.
The research, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tested products from supermarkets, fish markets and online retailers. Astonishingly, 93% of the samples were either falsely labeled or so vaguely described that buyers had no way of knowing the species they were eating. Only one item carried an accurate, species-specific label.
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09/12/2025 - 06:00
The corporate-financed backlash to calls for global climate progress has been greatly empowered by the Trump administration. It’s never been more critical to challenge the misinformation that could turn a crisis into a catastrophe
Support the Guardian’s independent, fact-based journalism today
A little over a decade ago I published a book, This Changes Everything, which explored the reality of the climate crisis as a confrontation between capitalism and the planet. For a few years after the book came out, it seemed like we might just win a breakthrough. A cascade of large and militant mobilisations pressed the case for keeping warming below 1.5C as global calls for a green new deal grew louder and louder. Countries across the world announced long-term plans to reduce emissions and to hit net-zero targets; so did some of the largest corporations on the planet.
And then … well, we all know what happened. A corporate-financed backlash on all fronts. In the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, his administration took more than 140 actions to roll back environmental rules and push for greater use of fossil fuels. He signed executive orders to ease restrictions on their extraction and export, filled his cabinet with oil industry supporters, gutted federal agencies on the forefront of the climate crisis, and cancelled life-saving environmental justice projects.
Join George Monbiot and special guests on 16 September for a special climate assembly to discuss the growing and dramatic political and corporate threats to the planet. Book tickets – in person or livestream
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