By Matt Nippert  

NIWA research vessel Tangaroa. Photo / SuppliedA Government funded mission to survey the mineral wealth beneath New Zealand waters is raising fears the seafloor could one day be dug up by miners.

National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (Niwa) research vessel Tangaroa will set sail on Wednesday with a team of 16 scientists to survey two underwater volcanoes and ascertain their value.

The volcanoes, about 200km north-east of Auckland, are believed to be rich in iron, and copper and contain lesser concentrations of gold.

Expedition leader and Niwa marine geologist Dr Geoffroy Lemarche said one reason the project had Government funding was the "economic potential".

Mining critics, buoyed by last weekend's protest in Auckland, expressed concern about where the surveying could lead.

Forest & Bird spokeswoman Karen Baird said the Resource Management Act ended 19km from the shore.

The biologically unique region was home to hundreds of underwater volcanoes and stringent controls were needed "before you even thought of seabed mining".

"There's potentially so much good down there, not just in terms of biodiversity, but what we can learn about life itself."

The survey area is close to the Kermadec Islands Marine Sanctuary, described by the World Wildlife...

Mark Goodwin plucks yet another yellow German wasp out of the syrupy container put out to attract golden honeybees and squashes the intruder against the wooden table.

The HortResearch scientist does this over and over, using tweezers to put an end to the unsuspecting foreign wasps which keep landing and which are just another of the many enemies of the poor old ravaged and really quite seriously threatened honeybee.

Warnings about the demise of the honeybee are clocking up.

The varroa bee mite has already decimated them around the globe and now we keep hearing about a strange new phenomenon, known as colony collapse disorder in America, which is the latest threat to the humble little pollinator.

This disorder is known as Mary Celeste Syndrome in Britain because, like the famous ship found deserted in the ocean in the 1870s, bee-keepers return to what appeared to be healthy hives only to find them deserted.

The bees presumably fly away to die but no one is sure why.

All manner of theories are being mooted, from pesticides, to...

L and M Coal Seam Gas and L and M Central Otago Lignite hold exploration permits for the Hawkdun lignite deposit, over 98sq km in the upper Manuherikia Valley, near St Bathans.

The boundaries of the 65,000ha Oteake Conservation Park were amended last year to exclude a 195ha area over the Hawkdun deposit.

L and M Group financial controller Shirley Herridge says Hawkdun is one of five lignite projects in Otago and Southland being explored by the company. The others are at Kaitangata and Ashers-Waituna, near Invercargill.

Forest and Bird conservation advocate Quentin Duthie said the organisation was likely to oppose any move by L and M to seek a mining permit for the Hawkdun deposit.

"That's the sort of thing we would think was inappropriate for an area beside a conservation park, both from a climate change point of view - converting the coal to fuel involves the production of greenhouse gases - and the impact mining would have on conservation values," he...

Aucklanders will have a chance to say what kind of rubbish and recycling service they want after the Super City decides on a plan in April next year.

A spokesman for the Auckland Transition Agency, which is setting up the Super City, said issues such as how many bins were given to each household and whether there was a collection for kitchen scraps would be one of the first things to be decided after the new council was elected in October.

Consultants advising the transition agency say the city needs a single rubbish collection system to cut waste and save money - and recommend the council should set up a business unit to take control of rubbish and recycling from private operators.

The confidential report by PricewaterhouseCoopers does not support any particular bin system - that will be a matter for officials to weigh up before the Super City is formed.

But one suggestion is that each household could get either two wheelie bins (rubbish and recycling) or three bins (rubbish, recycling and compost) under a standardised regional system.

The transition agency has asked officials working in its planning and environment team to draft a Super City...

Al Gore. Photo / APAl Gore, the self-styled squeakiest-clean and deepest-green politician in American history, has some explaining to do.

His environmental organisation has taken money to raise awareness about the need for clean water from a controversial chemicals company involved in the aftermath of one of the world's worst pollution disasters.

Dow Chemical, the United States firm which now owns the leaking pesticides factory responsible for thousands of deaths in Bhopal, India, was sponsoring Live Earth events in 150 cities yesterday. The events aim to raise money for clean water programmes.

Research by environmental organisations has found dangerous levels of highly toxic chemicals in rivers, lakes and other water supplies close to several factories owned by Dow and its subsidiaries in countries including the United States, Brazil and South Africa.

Dow's factories at its global headquarters in Midland, Michigan, have been accused of contaminating the region, including the Tittabawassee River floodplains, with high levels of dioxin - one of the "dirty dozen" most dangerous chemicals.

In 2007, the highest level of dioxin contamination ever measured by the US Environmental Protection Agency was found in the Michigan Saginaw River. Residents were advised to avoid contact with river...

Honda's FC Sport hydrogen fuel cell concept. Shrink BERLIN - Hydrogen, one of Earth's most abundant elements, once was seen as green energy's answer to the petroleum-driven car: easy to produce, available everywhere and non-polluting when burned.

Hydrogen energy was defeated by a mountain of obstacles - the fear of explosion by the highly flammable gas, the difficulty of carrying the fuel in large, heavy tanks in the vehicle, and the lack of a refuelling network. Vehicle manufacturers turned to biofuels, electricity or the gas-electric hybrid.

But hydrogen, it turns out, never was completely out of the race. Now Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs claim to have brought hydrogen energy a step closer by putting it in much smaller, lighter containers.

Rather than using metal or composite cylinders of compressed gas that look like bulky scuba gear, hydrogen is packed into glass filaments which, once out of the lab, will be only slightly thicker than a human hair.

These 370 glass capillaries are bundled into a glass tube called a capillary array, about the width of a drinking straw. The scientists say 11,000 such arrays will fuel a car for 400 kilometres, take less than half the space...

Countries gearing up for the next round of top-level climate talks have been warned the agreement hashed out in the dying minutes of the Copenhagen conference could lead to 3C warming or more.

The Copenhagen Accord could allow developed countries to emit more greenhouse gases than they would have if they did nothing new to combat climate change between now and 2020, says a new analysis.

New Zealand climate scientists say a report published in the scientific journal Nature today is a wake-up to world leaders, who will re-start negotiations in Cancun, Mexico in November.

It said that even if countries made the biggest cuts offered, they would be left with a task akin to "racing towards a cliff and hoping to stop just before it" to stop the world warming more than 2C.

The comments are in an analysis by 10 climate researchers at the Potsdam Institute, Climate Analytics and Ecocyfs in Germany, which estimates pledges made by countries since Copenhagen will result in global emissions rising 10 to 20 per cent by 2020.

Under the accord, rich countries' emissions by 2020 could be anywhere between a 6.5 per rise or 15.6 per cent fall from...

Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales is leading the meeting of thousands of social activists and officials, who want greenhouse emissions reduced 50 per cent by 2020, and an international climate court to penalise non-complying nations.

The conference was born out of opposition to the Copenhagen Accord brokered by President Barack Obama at a December summit, that would raise nearly US$30 billion over three years to help poor countries combat the effects of climate change.

- AP

Hardest-hit were boreal forests - the world's far northern sub-arctic forests - which account for about one-third of this loss, said the report, published in the April 26-30 issue of the Annals of the National Academy of Sciences.

There are several causes of forest destruction, including human cutting and natural phenomena such as fires ignited by lightning, the report said.

The total forest loss was estimated to be 1,011,000sq km, the researchers said.

The report, prepared by DoC's national compliance team, will go to Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson's office and also to Norwegian authorities with a number of recommendations, said DoC senior communications adviser Reuben Williams.

DoC has identified the five Norwegian men who posted a clip on YouTube last month of them shooting a wide range of New Zealand wildlife over five weeks during summer.

The clip showed a hunter shooting at a kereru, the bird falling from a tree and one of the tourists holding two dead, bloody birds.

The video also showed the tourists shooting a paradise shelduck with a rifle. Paradise ducks can only legally be hunted with licence and a shotgun during the shooting season starting in May. Illegal hunting can bring a fine of up to $5000.

DoC initially looked at pursuing the men, who have since returned to Norway, through an international treaty Cites (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) to which both countries are signatories.

However, that treaty was more to...