Independent: Europe's rarest seabird, the Zino's Petrel, found only in Madeira, has suffered potentially devastating losses from a forest fire which struck the birds' breeding area on the Atlantic island. The fire on Madeira's central mountain massif killed 25 chicks -- 65 per cent of this year's young birds -- with only 13 fledglings found alive in their underground burrows. These remaining few will have to contend with the effects of severe soil erosion which the fire has caused. Three adult ...

Business Green: Has your company developed a genuinely innovative solution to an environmental challenge? Then WWF wants to hear from you. The global environmental group will next week launch a major new initiative, dubbed Green Game-Changers, which is designed to identify and promote the best sustainable business case studies from around the world. The crowd-sourcing exercise will invite firms to submit examples of green products, business models and government policies that have demonstrably ...

BBC: "Night night, sleep tight, don't let the bed-bugs bite"¦" It's long been a favourite rhyme to send children off to sleep. But with experts warning of a worldwide bedbug pandemic, will any of us be able to sleep once we've turned out the light?, asks Tom de Castella. Vampire fiction may be all the rage. But the true bloodsuckers after twilight are not charismatic updates of Dracula but tiny insects living in our mattresses, headboards and pillows. Yes, bed-bugs are back with a ...

BBC: The UK government's chief environment scientist has called for more openness in admitting Britain's apparent cuts in greenhouse gases are an illusion. Robert Watson says that if emissions "embedded" in imported goods are counted, UK emissions are up, not down. He says the same syndrome is true for other rich nations which off-shored manufacturing industry. That means developing countries - particularly China - are blamed for goods they buy for export to the ...

BBC: Ultrafine measurements of atmospheric gases could help track down persistent sources of CFCs thought to be slowing the recovery of the ozone layer. The use of the refrigerants and aerosol propellants was restricted by a global treaty in 1987, but they have stayed in the air longer than many expected. A UK-German team has now shown how it is possible to chemically "fingerprint" CFCs to potentially trace their origin. The group's work is published in the journal ...

Reuters: A fuel tanker loaded with 9 million liters (2.4 million gallons) of diesel fuel has run aground in Canada's Far North but none of the fuel has spilled, the Canadian Coast Guard said on Thursday. The 117 meter (384 foot) vessel, called the Nanny, got hung up on a sand bar southwest of the community of Gjoa Haven in the territory of Nunavut on Wednesday, said Larry Trigatti, superintendent of environmental response in the Canadian Coast Guard's central and Arctic region. "There's ...

AFP: Millions of Africans may lose a key source of livelihoods as a fifth of freshwater African species are threatened with extinction, the updated Red List of endangered species showed Thursday. Scientists conducting a survey on 5,167 African freshwater species found that some 21 percent of species of fish, molluscs, crabs, dragonflies and aquatic plants were at risk of becoming extinct, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said in a statement. As fish is ...

AP: Four Greenpeace activists who clung to an oil rig off western Greenland using rock-climbing gear have been arrested after an Arctic storm forced them to abandon their protest. The four men -- from the US, Finland, Poland and Germany -- faced preliminary charges of violating a 1,650ft security perimeter around the Stena Don rig and trespassing by climbing on to the installation. The activists had been suspended under the rig since Tuesday to protest over British oil exporter ...

Christian Science Monitor: A fire on an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico has been extinguished, and officials say oil does not appear to be leaking from the facility. The US Coast Guard is at the platform roughly 80 miles south of Vermillion Bay in Louisiana, and will continue to monitor the facility for signs of a leak, a Coast Guard official said on Thursday. The announcement was welcome news along the beleaguered Gulf coast "" a region that is still working to overcome the effects of the ...

Reuters: Hurricane Earl began to strafe North Carolina's barrier islands with dangerous surf and winds on Thursday as it spun parallel to the U.S. East Coast on a northward trek toward New England and Canada. Earl was downgraded to a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity and had top sustained winds of 110 mph after weakening on Thursday from its Category 4 peak, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Additional weakening was expected but Earl was still a ...

National Geographic: Hurricane Earl--now a Category 3 hurricane with winds of up to 115 miles (185 kilometers) an hour--is expected to nearly miss North Carolina's Outer Banks (map) early Friday morning. But the storm could be the first of several intense hurricanes to menace the U.S. East Coast as the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season heats up, according to Jeff Masters, meteorological director for the Weather Underground website. Hurricane Earl's path is expected to pass about a hundred miles (160 ...

Mongabay: 21 percent of African freshwater plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, according to a five year assessment of 5,167 freshwater species by 200 scientists. The IUCN study cites pollution, invasive species, increased water diversion for agriculture, and dams as the chief threats to aquatic biodiversity. "Freshwaters provide a home for a disproportionate level of the world's biodiversity. Although they cover just one per cent of the planet's surface, freshwater ...

Mongabay: A sweep of restaurants in Vietnam's Lam Dong Province turned up hundreds of pounds of illegal wildlife products, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). More than 100 officers from the Lam Dong Forest Protection Department confiscated over 850 pounds of wildlife including meat, animal parts, and skins during raids conducted last week in Da Lat City and surrounding towns. Animals included pangolin, porcupine, mouse deer, black-shanked duoc langurs, clouded leopard, ...

Guardian: The star of an Oscar-winning film about dolphin hunting in Japan delivered a petition to the country's US embassy calling for an end to the practice. Ric O'Barry, 70 – who appeared in The Cove and trained dolphins for 1960s TV show Flipper – was flanked by police and dozens of supporters carrying banners. The petition was signed by 1.7 million people from 151 countries. O'Barry had hoped to deliver it to the Japanese fisheries agency but cancelled the plan after threats from a ...

redOrbit: Side-by-side comparisons of organic and conventional strawberry farms and their fruit found the organic farms produced more flavorful and nutritious berries while leaving the soil healthier and more genetically diverse. "Our findings have global implications and advance what we know about the sustainability benefits of organic farming systems," said John Reganold, Washington State University Regents professor of soil science and lead author of a paper published today in the ...

AFP: UN climate chief Christiana Figueres on Thursday warned that a string of weather calamities showed the deepening urgency to forge a breakthrough deal on global warming this year. Speaking before some 40 countries were to address finance, an issue that has helped hamstring UN climate talks, Figueres said floods in Pakistan, fires in Russia and other weather disasters had been a shocking wakeup call. "The news has been screaming that a future of intense, global climate disasters ...

Reuters: An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames on Thursday and unleashed a mile-long oil sheen into the Gulf of Mexico, in the region's first major offshore disaster since BP's oil spill began in April. All 13 crew members were rescued with no injuries from the ocean near the burning platform and were taken to another offshore platform, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The fire has been contained but is not yet extinguished. It is not known whether the oil sheen ...

AFP: The Amazon, the world's biggest river, is at its lowest level in over 40 years near its source in northeastern Peru, causing havoc in a region where it is used as the only form of travel, authorities said. According to officials in Loreto province, the Amazon on Tuesday in the northeast city of Iquitos fell to 105.97 meters (347.67 feet) above sea level, 50 cm (1.6 feet) lower than it was in 2005, so far the lowest reference point in four decades. Low levels have brought ...

Himalayan: The United States Geological Survey in its report -- published in collaboration with 39 international scientists -- says that glaciers throughout the Asia region -- Russia, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan -- are retreating. However, the report says the time period for the retreat is different among the glaciers. "In Bhutan, 66 glaciers have decreased by 8.1 per cent over the last 30 years. Rapid changes in the Himalaya ...

Australian: JULIA Gillard has agreed to a historic pact with the Australian Greens in a bid to end the nation's parliamentary deadlock, promising action on climate change in return for guaranteed support to govern. The deal includes the establishment of a climate change committee to consider a price on carbon, big changes to the rules on political donations and a major parliamentary debate on the war in Afghanistan. The Greens will, in effect, have more power than Labor backbenchers, with ...