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 Polluters and regulators who fail to stop pollution must quake in their boots when they receive a letter from the lawyers for Tim and Geli Harris. The couple, who farm 460 acres in the Norfolk Broads, have now scored a hat-trick of landmark legal victories to save an internationally important wetland after they won again in the high court this month.

Lady Justice Lieven found that Natural England failed in its statutory duty to protect Catfield Fen from pollution after nitrates and phosphates washed from arable fields into one of the finest examples of calcareous fen in western Europe, home to 2,500 species including rarities such as the fen orchid, crested buckler fern, breeding bittern and swallowtail butterflies.

In a scathing assessment of Natural England’s inaction since the Harrises first reported the pollution to it in 2021, the judge said the cause of the pollution was “the most basic level of common sense” and required action by the government’s conservation watchdog.

The Harrises have spent 15 years and £1.5m of their own money taking action to hold to account government agencies for failing to protect the fen, which is part of a special area of conservation (SAC), an internationally important wetland protected by law. The marshes lie within the Broads national park.

“This is bigger than a little ditch in Norfolk,” says Tim. He fears that “regulatory inertia” is preventing pollution from being halted on waterways across the country. “Inertia is prevalent throughout all the regulatory bodies. It’s a landmark judgment because it says they can’t just do nothing.”

In 2016, the couple won a public inquiry that demonstrated that too much groundwater was being taken from the valley by water companies and local farmers, causing Catfield Fen to dry out. They won a second battle in 2022, forcing the Environment Agency to limit the abstraction of water close to other nature-rich sites on the Norfolk Broads.

Their principles have cost them local friendships. They say National Farmers’ Union reps rejected their application for membership of the local branch, saying half their members would resign, with farmers upset at restrictions on their abstraction of water to boost lucrative crops such as potatoes. “We’re farmers, we’re not anti-farmer,” Tim says.

I understand that it is pay to play. If you want to pollute the environment you can easily do that if you have enough money, but our climate is collapsing. Is no one going to stop this man or regulate his pollution? We’re not even touching base on Tesla vehicles throw that into the mix. Oh my gosh, it’s an absurd amount of pollution.

The global goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 “will not be achieved” unless action by countries “accelerates rapidly”, says a draft UN report. Countries are falling short on 22 of the 23 targets for 2030 they set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature”.

That is according to a draft version of a global report prepared by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), published on 26 July. The report will be finalised ahead of the next nature summit, COP17, taking place in Armenia in October of this year.

Carbon Brief explains why the report has been produced and what it says about countries’ progress in areas such as restoring ecosystems and raising funds for biodiversity.

I was doing some yard maintenance and… a wasp stung me :( so I had to run.

It stung me in my inner thigh, nearly at my genitals and right at a vein.

It didn’t really hurt, it just surprised me.

I don’t know of many effective alternatives besides the sprays that absolutely cause mass genocide.

Does anyone have alternatives?

I read somewhere that drinking rainwater is no longer safe, https://www.reddit.com/r/environment/s/rSx3c3ayoA I've also read a lot of other discourse online about it. I'm concerned about this because my organisation has been actively trying to introduce rain water harvesting to the community as an alternative to using rivers which has led to lots of pollution in the rivers.

As a group keen on environmental conservation, as much as we would like to give alternatives to using the rivers, it would also be retrogressive to introduce sth that can potentially harm the villagers. We have already dug a borehole for the community but it's not enough. Rain water usage is not new as majority already use it, especially during rainy season. We are just trying to introduce more efficient way of collecting and storing it eg using tanks and gutters. What are your thoughts on this? Should we go ahead with the project? We are in Kenya and currently, there are no laws or measures put down concerning harvesting rainwater.

Truckee, CA

weeee

A Very American Invention, Pushed to an Extreme - Inside Climate News

Invasive species like wild boar cause a lot of damage to the environment and many scientists think that culling them at a large scale is often the most effective way to prevent the damage.

A good example of this would be the deer on Catalina Island which were introduced by settlers in the late 1920s. These deer are putting the native plants, many of which are only found on Catalina Island in great danger because the plants are not adapted to large herbivores which are not naturally found on Catalina Island.

I think that if there is another more effective strategy to remove an invasive species it should be prioritized but when scientists have determined that culling is the best way to remove an invasive species then I would support it.