Breaking Waves: Ocean News

England’s farmers to get new payments for cleaning up waterways

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 17:24:50 +0000

Environment secretary says Defra will be launching changes to post-Brexit scheme for sustainable farming

Farmers in England will get new payments for cleaning up the waterways near their land, the environment secretary has said.

Agricultural pollution affects 40% of Britain’s lakes and rivers, as fertiliser and animal waste washes off the land into waterways.

I was terrified of bees – until the day 30,000 of them moved into my house | Pip Harry

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:00:34 +0000

Two huge swarms have made themselves at home inside author Pip Harry’s house – but learning to live together revealed bees can be excellent housemates

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Self-imposed lockdowns, surveillance fears and forced separations: life for California’s undocumented farmworkers

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:00:31 +0000

Undocumented migrants form the backbone of the ‘salad bowl of the world’ – Trump’s crackdown has led to hyper-vigilance

Driving into the Salinas valley, about two hours south of San Francisco, hand-painted signs fly by, advertising cherries, pistachios, avocados and garlic.

From above, the valley looks like a quilt stitched together out of a thousand shades of green – the fields of lettuce, spinach and strawberries that give the region its nickname, “the salad bowl of the world”.

The life of microplastic: how fragments move through plants, insects, animals – and you

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:00:19 +0000

Microplastics have been found in the placentas of unborn babies, the depths of the Mariana Trench, the summit of Everest and the organs of Antarctic penguins. But how do they travel through the world, and what do they do to the creatures that carry them? Here is the story of how plastic contaminates entire ecosystems – and even the food we eat. Illustrations by Claire Harrup

Trial to remove shark nets from three Sydney and Central Coast beaches a good first step, scientists say

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 07:29:36 +0000

Experts welcome move by NSW government, saying nets are ineffective at preventing shark bites and ‘indiscriminately’ kill marine life

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Missionaries using secret audio devices to evangelise Brazil’s isolated peoples

admin — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 08:00:17 +0000

Exclusive: Solar-powered units reciting biblical passages have appeared in the Javari valley, despite strict laws protecting Indigenous groups

Read more on this story: ‘A computer, a radio, a drone and a shotgun’: how missionaries are reaching out to Brazil’s isolated peoples

Thousands of tons of invasive seaweed ‘overwhelming’ Spanish beaches

admin — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 04:00:11 +0000

Alga from east Asia is major threat to biodiversity, say experts as they warn of environmental catastrophe

Thousands of tonnes of an aggressive invasive seaweed from east Asia are piling up on the beaches of the strait of Gibraltar and Spain’s southern coast in what local environmentalists say is a major threat to the region’s biodiversity.

Since May, the local authority in Cádiz has removed 1,200 tonnes of the alga Rugulopteryx okamurae from La Caleta, the city’s most popular beach, including 78 tonnes in a single day.

Rare water world: Australia’s Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre from the air – in pictures

admin — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 00:00:06 +0000

The vast salt lake in the South Australian outback is dry for most of its life, having only filled to capacity three times in the past 160 years. So when water does arrive, this enormous landscape becomes a riot of colour

Call to make wet wipe producers pay for polluting England’s waterways

admin — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 06:00:45 +0000

Water firms claim wet wipes, which shed microplastics and cause blockages, are main source of sewage pollution

Wet wipe producers should be charged to remove their pollution from England’s waterways, the author of a government review into reforming the sector has said.

‘The sorest my legs have ever been’: hordes to descend on Hackney for litter-picking world cup

admin — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 06:00:45 +0000

The public-spirited sport of spogomi is catching on across Britain, which boasts its world champion team

Armed with gloves, metal tongs and plastic rubbish sacks, hordes of determined litter-pickers will descend on Hackney Marshes in east London this weekend.

Spogomi, a Japanese litter-picking sport, has come to the UK. Invented in 2008, it was intended as a competition to encourage people to clean up public spaces. It is now played in schools across the country as people gamify collecting rubbish.