Judge finds ‘reliance of trust’ breached when Parks Australia built walkway near rock art without permission
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A landmark case has resulted in Parks Australia having to pay more than $700,000 in fines and compensation after pleading guilty to disturbing a sacred site in Kakadu national park.
Sitting by Gunlom Falls on Wednesday, Judge Elizabeth Morris ordered Parks Australia to pay a $200,000 fine for building a walkway near rock art without permission from the sacred sites watchdog, the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/23/2024 - 03:36
10/23/2024 - 02:00
Exclusive: Those with ‘interest in keeping world hooked on fossil fuels’ should not oversee climate talks, say report authors
Azerbaijan, the host of the Cop29 global climate summit, will see a large expansion of fossil gas production in the next decade, a new report has revealed. The authors said that the crucial negotiations should not be overseen by “those with a vested interest in keeping the world hooked on fossil fuels”.
Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, and its partners are set to raise the country’s annual gas production from 37bn cubic metres (bcm) today to 49bcm by 2033. Socar also recently agreed to increase gas exports to the European Union by 17% by 2026.
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10/22/2024 - 23:01
National Audit Office questions value for money as predicted bill for decommissioning increases by £21bn
The cost of cleaning up Sellafield is expected to spiral to £136bn and Europe’s biggest nuclear waste dump cannot show how it offers taxpayers value for money, the public spending watchdog has said.
Projects to fix buildings containing hazardous and radioactive material at the state-owned site on the Cumbrian coast are running years late and over budget. Sellafield’s spending is so vast – with costs of more than £2.7bn a year – that it is causing tension with the Treasury, the report from the National Audit Office (NAO) suggests.
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10/22/2024 - 22:06
The state Labor government is steering Australia’s climate policy, letting emissions soar unbridled as it paves the way for massive fossil fuel projects
Western Australia sometimes feels more than three hours behind the rest of the country.
The tyranny of our distance has always meant it’s been hard to get the attention of the east coast.
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10/22/2024 - 21:24
A sulphur-crested cockatoo named Mickey that had been 'living on brioche' inside a Sydney supermarket for four weeks has been captured by wildlife services and is expected to be set free soon. On Tuesday morning, another cockatoo, Old Lady Doris, was taken into the supermarket by the Feathered Friends bird rescue director Ravi Wasan to comfort the lost bird, allowing Wasan to successfully capture him. Wasan said Mickey looked 'physically fine' and was not hungry because he was eating 'really well' in the supermarket. The NSW environment minister announced on Tuesday evening the bird had 'been safely captured by wildlife rescuers after spending way too long in Macarthur Square' shopping centre
Cockatoo rescued after ‘living on brioche’ for four weeks inside Sydney supermarket
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10/22/2024 - 20:12
Gardens offer a steady and reliable source of nectar all year round, helping to keep pollinators fed when farmland sources are limited, researchers have discovered.
10/22/2024 - 17:30
Comprehensive review suggests that adding more parks, trees and greenery could improve public health
Green spaces in cities play a vital role in reducing illness and deaths caused by climate breakdown, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind.
The findings of the review suggest that adding more parks, trees and greenery to urban areas could help countries tackle heat-related harms and improve public health.
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10/22/2024 - 16:00
Defra body, created to overhaul system amid public fury, may force firms to be run for public good rather than shareholder returns
New water regulator must create environmental enforcer that is feared | Nils Pratley
Water companies in England could be banned from making a profit under plans for a complete overhaul of the system.
The idea is one of the options being considered by a new commission set up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) amid public fury over the way firms have prioritised profit over the environment.
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10/22/2024 - 16:00
The division of responsibilities between Ofwat, the Environment Agency and Drinking Water Inspectorate hasn’t worked
New regulator may ban English water companies from making a profit
An independent commission into the English and Welsh water sector would have been an excellent idea about 20 years ago. It is hard to pinpoint precisely when the industry went seriously off the rails but Ofwat’s infamous price review of 2004 is one starting point. That is when the undoubted gains from higher investment in the decade after privatisation in 1989 started to evaporate and the story turned into one of financial engineering and grossly inadequate regulation.
The 2004 settlement was wildly generous to the companies and kickstarted the disastrous take-private buyout boom by private equity and global infrastructure funds. Dividend extraction and “whole business securitisations” followed, tolerated by an economic regulator that, absurdly, took the view that sky-high debt levels and Cayman Islands financing vehicles were not its job to worry about.
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10/22/2024 - 14:38
Flathead catfish -- native to the Mississippi River basin -- were first detected in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In the two decades since then, the invasive species has spread throughout the river basin. The impact of the large predator on the waterway's food webs and ecology was unknown, but now a research team is beginning to understand what Susquehanna flatheads are eating and how their presence is affecting native aquatic species in the river.
