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Re-using graves means UK cemetery will never run out of space

Re-use of spaces is the sustainable solution to overflowing graveyards, if done sensitively, says one of Britain’s biggest cemeteries

One of Britain’s biggest cemeteries is leading the way on a solution to the nationwide shortage of grave spaces that’s reaching crisis levels.

Experts say finding ways to stop cemeteries overflowing is vital, but the most effective way of doing so – re-using graves – challenges some people’s deeply held beliefs about burial.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Burning the ivory is just the beginning

Jonathan and Angela Scott: After the ivory burn, it’s up to all of us to make sure the pledges made there are honoured

People have always been smitten by the beauty of elephant ivory, as I discovered for myself while travelling overland from London to Johannesburg in 1974.

I am not exactly sure where I bought the small ivory carving that would haunt me in years to come. I think it was Kisangani (formerly Stanleyville), 2000 km upstream from the mouth of the mighty Congo River, home during the 1880s to Mohammed Bin Alfan Murjebi alias Tipu Tip, the infamous Zanzibari who traded ivory and slaves.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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There’s more to Fort McMurray than oil sands – it’s a real community | Aritha van Herk

Raging wildfires have brought an ill-informed focus on this quintessentially Canadian place, which had a character long before the extraction plants

Fort McMurray is a real place, not a Dante-esque metaphor for hell, despite the wildfires currently raging, which has forced its entire evacuation.

An urban service area at the heart of the municipality of Wood Buffalo in north-eastern Alberta, one of Canada’s western provinces and currently in a state of emergency, it is not some frontier gold rush town huddled under a blanket of perpetual snow. It is not a work camp, although different work and service camps located at the mining sites, from 20 to 100 miles away, circle it. And it is not actually very far north in Canadian terms: the boreal forest just nudges the edge of the near north, and the far and the extreme north (yes, Canada has a near, far, and extreme north) are much farther beyond. It lies roughly between the longitudes of Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and no one would dare to call either Edinburgh or Aberdeen remote.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Mariana trench live feed: engrossing viewing from deepest place on Earth

Rare footage from 11km underwater streams on Youtube from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessel

A live video feed of the Mariana trench – the deepest place on Earth – is proving engrossing viewing for those above sea level.

Related: James Cameron dives into the Mariana Trench – in pictures

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Dementia patients calm down when they're not too hot and not too cold

New research has shown the aged care provider Warrigal that sustainable design affects residents’ wellbeing, as well as its bottom line

It’s something none of us like to think about. Aged care is a service many people benefit from, although most of us shudder at the thought of leaving the comfort of home during the last stages of our lives.

Yet given our ageing population, it’s a sector that is in increased demand – and struggling to keep up. According to the recently released 2016 Residential Aged Care Sustainability Review from the global tax advisory firm RSM, projections show the need for aged care in the next 40 years will rise by 68%. And it suggests that $32.9bn needs to be invested in capital stock over the next decade.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Shame on you: six new things to feel guilty about | Brigid Delaney

There’s probably a German word for enjoying an autumn swim thanks to global warming, but since I am Catholic the only word I can think of is ‘guilt’

Yippee! I’ve said every day I’ve woken up this week, looked out the window and seen that today is yet another beach day when we should be rugging up.

“How great is this? The backpackers have gone home, the sun is shining, the water is still warm, and it’s May!” I say to a fellow swimmer on Bondi beach.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Relief in sight for BHP as Brazilian judge agrees dam burst claim

The $5bn deal with the government could weaken the huge class action faced by the mining giant and its local partner Vale

A Brazilian judge has ratified the settlement BHP Billiton and Vale signed with the Brazilian government in March to cover damages for a deadly dam spill last year.

Related: BHP Billiton faces legal spat in which all tactics are deemed fair

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Source: Guardian Environment

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One year in, Richard Di Natale faces first verdict on Greens' new pragmatism

The party leader goes into the election with ambitious plans, having shown his willingness to negotiate with the Coalition

Here’s a quote from Margaret Thatcher warning about climate change. In the 1980s.

“For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world’s systems and atmosphere stable.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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For butterflies, timing is everything

Patrick Barkham on how the late flowering of food species can spell disaster for butterflies emerging after winter

For me, spring truly begins when the first male orange tip passes on its ceaseless jinking search for females. It was late this year, and this small white butterfly with unmistakable orange tips to its wings only materialised in my garden last week.

What worried me was not its tardiness but its food plant’s. The garlic mustard on which superbly-camouflaged (and occasionally cannibalistic) orange tip caterpillars feed (they also devour that lovely spring flower, lady’s smock, in damper spots) had barely sprouted any leaves last week.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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