Breaking Waves: Ocean News

More than 4,000 species are targeted by traffickers, with illegal trade active in 80% of countries, says Office on Drugs and Crime More than 4,000 species around the world are being targeted by wildlife traffickers, causing “untold harm upon nature”, a UN report has warned. Wildlife crime is driven by demand for medicine, pets, bushmeat, ornamental plants and trophies. Out of all the mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians seized, 40% were on the red list of threatened or near-threatened species, the report found. Continue reading...

Water campaigner Feargal Sharkey says newly designated sites will join ‘ignoble, floundering list of failure’ Twenty-seven new bathing sites will be designated in England ahead of this summer’s swimming season, the government has announced. Giving waterways bathing status means the Environment Agency has to test them for pollution during the summer months, putting pressure on water companies to stop dumping sewage in them. Church Cliff beach, Lyme Regis, Dorset Coastguards beach, River Erme, Devon Coniston boating centre, Coniston Water, Cumbria Coniston Brown Howe, Coniston Water, Cumbria Derwent Water at Crow Park, Keswick, Cumbria Goring beach, Worthing, West Sussex Littlehaven beach, Tyne and Wear Manningtree beach, Essex Monk Coniston, Coniston Water, Cumbria River Avon at Fordingbridge, Hampshire River Cam at Sheep’s Green, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire River Dart estuary at Dittisham, Devon River Dart estuary at Steamer Quay, Totnes, Devon River Dart estuary at Stoke Gabriel, Devon River Dart estuary at Warfleet, Dartmouth, Devon River Frome at Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset River Nidd at the Lido leisure park in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire River Ribble at Edisford Bridge, Lancashire River Severn at Ironbridge, Shropshire River Severn at Shrewsbury, Shropshire River Stour at Sudbury, Suffolk River Teme at Ludlow, Shropshire River Tone in French Weir Park, Taunton, Somerset River Wharfe at Wetherby Riverside, High St, Wetherby, West Yorkshire Rottingdean beach, Rottingdean, East Sussex Wallingford beach, River Thames, Berkshire Worthing Beach House, Worthing, West Sussex Continue reading...

Among world’s top 60 banks those in US are biggest fossil fuel financiers, while Barclays leads way in Europe The world’s big banks have handed nearly $7tn (£5.6tn) in funding to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris agreement to limit carbon emissions, according to research. In 2016, after talks in Paris, 196 countries signed an agreement to limit global heating as a result of carbon emissions to at most 2C above preindustrial levels, with an ideal limit of 1.5C to prevent the worst impacts of a drastically changed climate. Continue reading...

H5N1 has been found in commercially available milk – but gaps in testing of cattle and humans are hampering effort to stop virus Serious gaps in testing animals and people could be obscuring the true rate of avian influenza cases in the US and make it difficult to understand how the H5N1 virus is spreading – and how to stop it, experts say. Facing reluctance from farms to test workers and animals, scientists are now turning to experimental studies to understand how H5N1, a highly pathogenic bird flu, is spreading through cows and on to other farms. Continue reading...