Environment

• Thursday, January 23rd 2020 - 08:45 UTC

  Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne again threatened by high temperatures and bush fires

  

  Soaring temperatures are set to stoke simmering bushfires in Australia's southeast on Thursday with Sydney forecast to hit 41 degrees Celsius following a few days of reprieve.

• Wednesday, January 22nd 2020 - 08:34 UTC

  Bolsonaro pledges to create an “Amazon Council” to protect the rainforest

  

  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday he will create an “Amazon Council” to coordinate the protection and sustainable development of the world's largest rainforest.

• Wednesday, January 22nd 2020 - 08:02 UTC

  Mining giant Vale's ex CEO charged with homicide for massive dam collapse killing 250 people

  

  Vale's former chief executive officer was charged with homicide for the massive dam collapse that killed more than 250 people in Brazil last January (2019). Fabio Schvartsman is the highest-profile executive facing criminal charges for Brazil's worst environmental disaster.

• Friday, January 17th 2020 - 16:11 UTC

  Amazon deforestation soared 85% in twelve months of 2019, Brazil's Space Research

  

  Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil soared 85% in 2019, compared with the previous year, official data showed Tuesday. The 9,166 square kilometers cleared was the highest number in at least five years, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.

• Friday, January 17th 2020 - 12:28 UTC

  Magellanic penguins rookery discovered in Tierra del Fuego remote island

  

  Just in time for Penguin Awareness Day on January 20th, WCS researchers announced the discovery of a new colony of Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) on a remote island in Argentina.

• Friday, January 17th 2020 - 12:03 UTC

  Amazon indigenous leaders summit to form alliance against Bolsonaro's environmental policy

  

  Dozens of Amazon indigenous leaders have gathered in the heart of the threatened rainforest to form an alliance against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy and his threats to throw their homelands open to mining concerns.

• Thursday, January 16th 2020 - 19:15 UTC

  Brazilian Antarctica base reopened from its ashes after eight years

  

  Brazil Wednesday reopened its scientific Comandante Ferraz base in Antarctica, which had been destroyed in a fire in 2012. In the incident two soldiers died and more than two thirds of the facilities were destroyed.

• Thursday, January 16th 2020 - 08:51 UTC

  Secret operation in Australia to save prehistoric species “dinosaur trees”

  

  A secret operation by specialist firefighters has saved the world's last stand of Wollemi Pines, a pre-historic species known as “dinosaur trees”, from Australia's unprecedented bushfires, officials said.

• Thursday, January 16th 2020 - 08:47 UTC

  Past decade the hottest on record, but higher temperatures can be expected

  

  The past decade has been the hottest on record, the UN said on Wednesday warning that the higher temperatures were expected to fuel numerous extreme weather events in 2020 and beyond.

• Thursday, January 16th 2020 - 08:28 UTC

  “Contaminated drinking water” in Rio: run on bottled-water in supermarkets

  

  Widespread complaints over foul-smelling drinking water in Rio de Janeiro have triggered a run on supermarket bottled water, though the public utility denied any health risk on Wednesday.