Environment minister defends ‘balanced and sensible’ changes amid questions of how ‘rushed legislation’ would work
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The Albanese government’s new bill to protect Tasmanian salmon farming has passed the lower house, despite experts warning it could stop communities challenging other decisions, including coal and gas developments, and may not even be effective in its principal aim.
Labor’s changes to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act sailed through the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening, with 111 votes in favour and 14 votes in opposition, and were due to be dealt with in the upper house on Wednesday.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
03/24/2025 - 21:03
03/24/2025 - 20:27
From our broken environmental laws to the role of gas, there are some big questions that remain unanswered by both major parties
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Gina: the billionaire who wants to make Australia great
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A national election campaign is days away and the focus in Canberra is on a federal budget that wasn’t going to happen until a tropical cyclone threatened southern Queensland a fortnight ago. The climate crisis and environment are expected to get passing mentions.
But there is a strong case that they should be at the forefront of debate over the next six weeks, understandable cost-of-living concerns notwithstanding.
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03/24/2025 - 12:48
Downing Street says PM focusing on ‘bringing durable peace in Ukraine’ after Steve Witkoff’s comments
There have been a lot of claims recently, in the rightwing papers and on social media, that the government is wasting a fortune on expensive cars for disabled people getting benefits, through the Motability scheme. Archie Bland has a very good explainer setting out how the scheme actually works, and showing why many of these allegations are false or misleading.
The forthcoming plan to fix the NHS will see funds allocated to social care, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has suggested. PA Media reports:
Streeting said spending NHS resources “more effectively though social care” will be better for patients and deliver better value for taxpayers.
At present, social care is most often paid for by councils, but thousands of people at any one time are stuck in NHS hospital beds even though they are fit to be discharged.
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03/24/2025 - 10:38
The introduction of exotic species can pose significant challenges in the sustainable management of coastal ecosystems, yet researchers have found that Pacific oysters introduced to the Port River in Adelaide have influenced surprising benefits.
03/24/2025 - 09:00
This is my last column in this series. ‘Farewell, all joys!’
This morning I learned the word “limn”. It looked at first like a typo, and I almost ignored it. But I pressed on the letters on my phone, which caused its meaning to pop up in a little box, like a window appearing in a wall. To limn is to “depict or describe in painting or words”.
I was drinking cold coffee in my kitchen, and preparing to write this column – my last. Because I knew that I would do the swan, a large, long-necked water bird had started gliding around my mind, so it seemed clear that the word limn looks like a swan: the tall l with the tiny flick of a dipped head, and the letters after.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can
Her heart inform her tongue, –the swan’s
down-feather,
That stands upon the swell at full of tide,
And neither way inclines.
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03/24/2025 - 07:44
A carbon crime or bright new future? For nearly four years, a fierce debate raged over demolishing the site’s high-rise flats
For nearly four years, a fierce debate raged over the future of the Wyndford estate in Glasgow, dividing residents and sparking wider national controversy. Was the demolition of its high-rises an environmental travesty or the first step toward much-needed regeneration?
The dispute began in November 2021, days after the city hosted the UN climate conference Cop26, at which politicians and businesses promised to curb wasteful building destruction. Yet residents of Wyndford soon found leaflets on their doorsteps heralding a “bright new dawn” – one that involved the demolition of all four high-rise blocks on the estate. The decision set off years of protests, legal challenges and community divisions.
The four high-rise blocks of the Wyndford estate one week before demolition. Three blocks were demolished by controlled explosion on 23 March – the block on the left will be brought down floor by floor because of its proximity to other homes on the estate
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03/24/2025 - 07:00
Exclusive: RSPB and National Trust among groups saying rhetoric from Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer at odds with public sentiment
Nature charities with a combined membership of about 8 million people are pressing the prime minister and chancellor to stop demonising wildlife and to urgently strengthen environmental protections in new planning laws.
Organisations which are household names, such as the RSPB, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts, are calling on MPs to back amendments to the planning and infrastructure bill to end what they say is the scapegoating of nature for the failures of the planning system. They say the anti-nature rhetoric employed by Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer, who has labelled environmental objectors as “blockers”, is at odds with public sentiment.
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03/24/2025 - 06:46
H5N1 virus found in single animal in Yorkshire but risk to general public is very low, say experts
Bird flu has been detected in sheep for the first time in the world, UK experts have announced, although they stress the risk to livestock and the general public is low.
The H5N1 virus was detected in a single animal in Yorkshire, England, after routine testing that was carried out because the flock was kept on a site where avian influenza had previously been found in birds. No other sheep in the flock was found to be infected.
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03/20/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 21 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00108-7
Strengthening the seascape of global environmental assessments to support ocean sustainability
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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