Comment and opinion from expert environmental writers on green living and making a practical difference to energy, politics, social issues and climate change
Slowly the incidence of bTB in Cumbria has increased without any real outcry from the agricultural lobby. Why then, at the beginning of this month (August), has all of this information suddenly become news asks LESLEY DOCKSEY
Brexit is part of a corporate campaign to remove, undermine and attack European Union regulations and increase the rate of growth and profit. But these very regulations are necessary for the protection of the environment - and life itself. PROFESSOR JOHN McMURTRY, author of The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: from Crisis to Cure, raises the alarm.
Environmental law professor, ROBERT PERCIVAL, who has worked for both the Federal Government and a leading green nonprofit group, says despite the Trump administration's assault on America's environment laws they will survive... and may even be stronger for the attack
Theresa May's government may have come to a grinding halt on environmental regulation but businesses still have a responsibility - and with it huge opportunities - to go green, argues JASON SMITH
There's no doubt that one of the losers in this year's UK election was the environment and that there's clearly been a failure not just in politics, which is failing in so many ways, but also in environmental communication - a failure to reach people's hearts and minds with the urgent need for change, writes NATALIE BENNETT
The G19 pro-climate coalition which agreed both an energy and climate action plan and important steps to help reorient private capital flows and business strategies towards a new sustainable direction has been deemed a success by many environmentalists, writes KATRIN RIEGGER (who was present at the conference for the Ecologist). But others say these agreements still do not go far enough and want to see global leaders adopting even more ambitious strategies to cut emissions and achieve the agreed goals of the Paris Agreement
We need a new paradigm for ocean governance focused on well-being and guided by principles of sustainability, ecosystem health, precaution and interconnectedness, argues MICHELLE BENDER of the US based Earth Law Centre.
Tensions are rising in Kenya as the country approaches local and national elections in August. But we could choose to use our differences as a strength, not a cause of conflict, says DEBORA LANGAT
Whether from environmentalists, media or politicians science and its values are often under attack. In response, the scientific community has started a global Pro-Science Movement. Key agendas of the movement include environmental awareness and action on climate change, writes LUCY EJ WOODS
As Theresa May and her Ministers struggle to make a pact with the DUP, Ecologist Nature Editor, ELIZABETH WAINWRIGHT says we could all do worse than model both leadership and politics on Nature and work together to improve partnership and community, as well as innovation
For social movements and climate justice campaigners, the US abandonment of the Paris Agreement is disappointing, but there is also a unity in understanding that the future of humanity on this planet does not rest on leaders alone, writes DOROTHY GRACE GUERRERO
President Trump's withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate accord - a decision designed to satisfy his campaign pledges - will go down in history as significantly anachronistic and self-harming, writes FREDERIK DAHLMANN
For 80 years Australia's Aboriginal peoples have called for land rights and sovereignty, writes Harry Hobbs. And for 80 years they have been ignored or brushed aside. But now delegates meeting at Uluru have issued a 'statement from the heart' demanding constitutional reform to empower Indigenous people to take 'a rightful place in our own country'. Their call must be heard!
The participation of the fossil fuel industry in UN climate talks represents clear a conflict of interest, writes Pascoe Sabido. And nowhere has this been more apparent than at this month's UNFCCC meeting in Bonn, where fossil fuel representatives have slowed progress to a snail's pace. With just six months to go before November's COP23 negotiations, it's time to defy the US, EU and Australia, and kick fossil fuel lobbyists out!
It's election time and the race is on for public support, writes Eduardo Goncalves. So why on Earth did Tory leader Theresa May come out in favour of foxhunting - an activity loathed or disliked by over 80% of voters - at this crucial time, offering MPs a free vote on repealing the Hunting Act? Now let's put pressure on our candidates to keep the law against this cruel, archaic pastime.
If we are to survive long into this century and beyond, our society will have to learn to re-indigenize (or rewild) itself - both its people and its environment, writes WILLIAM HAWES
Over the past few years newspaper headlines suggesting that various alien invaders are decimating the British horse chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) and that all affected trees should be removed have been making alarming reading. But talk to the experts, and a slightly different, less horror-filled story arises, writes anthropologist, DAWN STARIN.
Mexico's oil looks set to run out within a decade, writes Jeremy Leggett, and it can hardly rely on Trump's America to make up the difference. But Mexico enjoys abundant sunshine, and the cost of solar power generation is falling fast. Let Trump tie America's economy to debt-financed fossil fuels. Mexico's future prosperity will come from harnessing its inexhaustible solar riches.
The mighty Asian Development Bank is celebrating its 50th birthday this week in Yokohama, Japan, writes Hemantha Withanage. But the victims of ADB's $3 billion coal funding have little to be glad of - whether local communities impacted by mines and power stations, or people everywhere suffering climate change. ADB must stop financing coal now!
A $4m plan to move 80 rhinos from South Africa to Australia is inept, patronising, a waste of scarce resources that contributes nothing to conservation, and betrays an outdated neocolonial mindset, writes Matt Hayward. The money should be spent on successful but underfunded community-based rhino conservation initiatives in Africa that benefit entire ecosystems.
Myths of a pagan past in harmony with nature have been a feature of green nationalism, writes Peter Paul Catterall, from its beginnings through to the Anastasia ecovillages in contemporary Russia where - unlike their equivalent hippy communes found in the West - sustainable living is combined with a 'reactionary eco-nationalism'. Could it happen here too?
Mining was imposed on the Salvadoran people as a dream industry to aid development, create jobs and yield taxes to pay for schools and hospitals, write Ricardo Navarro & Sam Cossar-Gilber. But the reality was a nightmare of polluted water, stolen farmland, corporate violence, and murder. After a long campaign, El Salvador has just become the first country to ban all metal mining.
A fresh wave of logging is hitting America's national forests, writes Brett Haverstick. But this time it's all for the sake of 'forest health' and 'fire prevention'. It might look like industrial clear-cutting to you and me, but really, it's in a good cause. And if the forests and precious ecosystems they harbor just happen to perish in the process ... well ain't that just too bad?
There's only one real faultline in farming, writes David R. Montgomery, and it's not the one between organic and 'conventional'. What really matters is whether farming systems are building, improving and nurturing soils - or exploiting them for short term gain. And if we want to keep humans well fed and healthy for the long term, there's only one choice to make.