What if the renewable power generation opportunity is not where the electricity is needed?

Construction on the longest under water high voltage cable in the world is about to begin. Due for completion in 2023, this cable will run from Denmark to the UK covering 475 miles. It will leave Denmark in Revsing, and make landfall in UK in Lincolnshire.

This this cable will have the capacity to power 1.5 million houses, which given that there is currently just under 30 million houses in the UK this would account for roughly 5% of domestic electricity necessary to go carbon neutral.

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Bison are to be released into Kent in a couple of years

In the not too distant past European bison were part of the British ecosystem. With the ability to browse trees and therefore to halt there expansion, and highly important ecosystem engineers in the same way that beavers are.

European Bison or ‘Wisent’

The plan is to initially release a male and two or three females into a small enclosures in Kent, however there is a bigger area into which people would be allowed to walk that they would be released into as their numbers increase. Furthermore the idea would be that over time as they reproduce bison would be reintroduced to other parts of the UK from this founding herd.

While bison are not predators this would be one of the bigger reintroductions to happen in the UK ever if it was allowed to proceed fully.

They would likely be highly beneficial to all sorts of areas of the UK, both in terms of their tourism and the the services they would offer to the local environment.

We will have to watch this space to see if this is actually allowed to go ahead fully.

Where have South Africa’s great white sharks disappeared to?

South Africa is home to a large number of wonderful wildlife. One of the things that was most well known for its great white sharks. Big draw as being the shark boats which go out with a cage attached to the side and then tourists are able to get into the cage so as to get up and close to the great white sharks while safe.

Great white shark
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Large group of Cross River gorilla photographed in the wild for the first time

There are only thought to be around 300 cross rver gorillas left in the wild. It’s population is space between the far Western ocean of Nigeria and the portion of Cameroon just across the border. The cross river gorilla is a subspecies of the Western gorilla, what is separated by ran 300 km from its nearest population of these Western gorillas. They were only filmed for the first time back in 2009 by a professional filmmaker.

This family group of cross rver gorillas numbering around 30 or about 10% of the world’s population. Including a wide range of ages with several young gorillas it is clearly a healthy population.

Better information about how the cross rver gorilla behaves and where it chooses to forage for food and leaves will help it to be protected more effectively.

CO2 emissions are taking us to atmospheric conditions not seen for 15 million years

The last time CO2 levels in the atmosphere were is high as they currently are was 3.3 million years ago. At this time not only were are temperatures 3 to 4 degrees higher that also sea levels where around 20m higher than they currently are. 

To put this sea level rise in perspective, currently 10% of the world’s human population live 10 mm or less above sea level (around 650 million people). An estimated 47% of world residents live at 20m above sea level or less. The idea of almost half of the world’s population having a find new places to live in the space of a relatively short period of timewould destroy the world economy for years at a time. 

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There are 20000 gold miners within theYanomami Park in Brazil but they only have to get out because of coronavirus

Under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, there has been a distinct lack of respect for protected areas and dislike of enforcing the rules by the government.

A judge has ordered the 20,000 gold miners with in the Yamonami park out of the park for the duration of the coronavirus outrage to protect the tribal people within it.

The fact that the gold miners have absolutely zero right to be there in the first place seems to have been ignored. Sure get the miners out to protect tribes from coronavirus – but when the coronavirus is over don’t allow them to go back in,make sure that things are set up so that the part can return to the way it should be. The park is for the protection of tribal people and the wildlife of the region not for land grabbers to mine gold.

More than 60 lions have been shot by British citizens in the last few years-since the death of Cecil

in 2015 the world was in uproar when a dentist from the States went to South Africa and shot a lion.T he shooting of lions is not unusual in South Africa, indeed they do more huntings than many countries. What was considered unacceptable was that this lion was tempted out of a protected area so that it could be shot.

After the outrage over the killing of Cecil the lion British senior ministers in the conservative government promised to ban the import of lions to the UK. Indeed, it was also included in the Conservatives most recent manifesto for their landslide re-election.

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Hundreds of elephants have died in Botswana in the last couple of months

Aerial surveys in the Okavango Delta have now counted more than 350 elephant bodies. Having died and falling flat on their face, samples have been taken and tested and and many different possibilities have been ruled out.

It seems unlikely to be some sort of poisoning, as it’s only currently appears to be affecting elephants. Investigations are ongoing.

I will write on this again as we have more information

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