Island Home by Tim Winton review – a love song to Australia and a cry to save it
In his wonderfully honest memoir cum manifesto Tim Winton traces how he came to revere the natural world he grew up in – and long to preserve it Island Home is Tim Winton’s insightful and vibrant testament to what it is to be a non-indigenous Australian living in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Less […]
Microsculpture: hidden beauty of the bugs beneath our feet
When photographer Levon Biss turned his lens on the insects his son was collecting in the garden, it opened up a miniature world in which art meets science to dazzling effect Two years ago, exhausted by the frantic pressures of commercial portraiture, photographer Levon Biss was searching for a way to relax. His son Sebastian, […]
Dozens arrested as anti-fossil fuel protesters join Australian coal blockade
Police arrest 66 people after climate change activists block train tracks and entrance to Newcastle harbour as part of global Break Free From Fossil Fuels actions Police have arrested 66 people in anti-fossil fuel protests in the Newcastle, home to Australia’s biggest coal export port. Hundreds of kayaks and boats blocked the entrance to Newcastle […]
So you think you know David Attenborough? – video
A look back at the best known, and not so well known, achievements of Sir David Attenborough to mark his 90th birthday on Sunday. Attenborough influenced more than just nature documentaries, giving the green light to Monty Python and live snooker while head of a fledgling BBC2. He also has a menagerie of species named […]
My family fell victim to a warming world. Now we need to build for this new reality | Vicki Arroyo
Louisiana’s sinking Isle de Jean Charles shows the urgent need for radical measures to combat climate change As seas rise, as floods and droughts become more extreme, as crops fail and as storms intensify, the world will increasingly face a new challenge – climate refugees. In the US, witness the recent plan by the federal […]
On the frontline of Africa’s wildlife wars
Across central Africa, militias have turned the savannah into killing fields Brigadier Venant Mumbere Muvesevese, a 35-year-old father of four, became the 150th ranger in the last 10 years to be killed protecting lowland gorillas, elephants and other wildlife in Virunga national park last month. He and his young Congolese colleague, Fidèle Mulonga Mulegalega, were […]
The Observer view on marine protection zones
Russia cannot be allowed to block this vital plan to protect the oceans The science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke once observed that our planet has been given a singularly inappropriate name. We should not call it Earth, he observed. We should call it Ocean. It is a well made point. The one truly remarkable […]
The ice cold war: fight for sealife in remote wilds of Antarctica
The Ross Sea is the last intact marine ecosystem on Earth Over the next few weeks, a discreet but vital diplomatic campaign will be launched to try to save one of the most remote regions of the world: the Ross Sea in Antarctica. Marine conservationists, who have been pressing to set up a no-fishing zone […]
‘Congo’s park rangers protect people and ecosystems as war rages all around’
Virunga national park’s warden credits rangers with keeping mountain gorillas and visitors safe despite conflict fuelled by plunder of natural resources A ranger in Virunga national park has a 44% chance of suffering a violent death during their career, the highest rate of service deaths for any national park in the world. Yet, of the […]
Building on a flood plain: how to go with the flow
Rather than hold back the river, this Oxfordshire home allows water to flow under the house and drain back out again Joanna and Martin O’Callaghan, 58-year-old chartered surveyors, married for 30 years and parents of two, are showing strong signs of being middle-aged hipsters. The living room wall of their newly built larch-clad house in […]