Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Report commissioned by conservationists suggests some recorded new growth is misclassified or otherwise not equivalent to losses in species-heavy forests Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast At face value, the amount of forest in Australia is officially increasing, and has been since 2008. But if an old-growth tree is felled in a forest and seedlings grow elsewhere, is the official account ecologically sound? Not according to new analysis, which suggests that the way Australia calculates forest cover obfuscates the impacts of ongoing deforestation. Continue reading...

In an unorthodox move, the Brazilian organisers have hatched a plan to wrap up the trickiest topics at the climate summit by this evening, two days earlier than normal Mother Earth is watching over Cop30. “I am taking care to watch over all the decisions taken here about me,” she told the Guardian. The blessing card she presented said: “Knowing the powerful impact my thoughts can have on others and the environment, I choose to create a positive mindset.” This beautiful vision is in everyday life Nazaré Oliveira, an indigenous woman from Belém, and a descendant of the Potyguar people. She is part of the international spiritual organisation Brahma Kumaris, led by women and which uses meditation to emphasise the concept of identity as souls rather than bodies and the idea that humanity and nature are one. This is my fifth COP. I’ve been around since COP26 in Glasgow and this has been the most militarised COP I’ve attended. We had really high expectations because I’m from Latin America, and this is also the Latin American COP – apart from the Amazonian and the Brazilian Cop. So we had really high expectations of also being able to demonstrate, protest and exercise our right to the civic space. But we have encountered heavy militarisation and a heavy crackdown on civil society protesting outside the venue. I think it’s very disconcerting. Like it was definitely a very racist letter where the UN seems to want to inflict power over the autonomous territory of Brazilian authorities. I think this is a confrontation that is needed. What’s happening in between civil society, the military and the UN, it’s a reflection of the tension that exists within this space. So I hope for this COP that the United Nations authorities and the Brazilian authorities open their eyes and they realise that what they are doing, what they are inflicting with the militarisation of COP is completely opposite of what they have been preaching in the last three years. Brazil knew that they wanted to host this COP since three years ago, probably even earlier. So the way that they are responding to it does not show that they were ready to receive all this flow of international civil society. So my hope is that they can release, relax the heavy militarization that they’re putting in the space and allow us to use the civic space to demonstrate. Continue reading...

Drone footage shows hundreds of tonnes of rubbish piled up in a field in a small village in Oxfordshire. The illegal waste was left by fly-tippers between the River Cherwell and the A34 near Kidlington. It is said to be 150 metres long and at least 6 metres high, according to local media Fly-tippers dump ‘mountain’ of waste in Oxfordshire field Continue reading...

Massive Sargassum blooms sweeping across the Caribbean and Atlantic are fueled by a powerful nutrient partnership: phosphorus pulled to the surface by equatorial upwelling and nitrogen supplied by cyanobacteria living directly on the drifting algae. Coral cores reveal that this nutrient engine has intensified over the past decade, perfectly matching surges in Sargassum growth since 2011. By ruling out older theories involving Saharan dust and river runoff, researchers uncovered a climate-driven process that shapes when and where these colossal seaweed mats form.