Local sites important to England's wildlife could be under threat from the government's controversial planning reforms, the Wildlife Trusts warned on Tuesday. The trusts are concerned that under the proposed changes to the planning system, which slim down around 1,000 pages of policy to just 52, England's 40,000 local wildlife sites will not have the protection they currently enjoy. Ministers say the reforms, which focus on a "presumption in favour of sustainable development", are necessary to boost growth while protecting the environment and communities. But the Wildlife Trusts said local wildlife sites, which cover an area four and a half times the size of London, are not formally recognised in the draft national planning policy framework (NPPF).

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The UK's parks, lakes, forests and wildlife are worth billions of pounds to the economy, says a major report.The health benefits of merely living close to a green space are worth up to £300 per person per year, it concludes. The National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) says that for decades, the emphasis has been on producing more food and other goods - but this has harmed other parts of nature that generate hidden wealth. Ministers who commissioned the NEA will use it to re-shape planning policy.

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Jeremy Biggs stomps through the ice, plunges his net in and shakes it vigorously in the chill water, churning up silt, broken reeds and shards of frozen pond. He tips the debris into a white tray and everybody gathers around. At first the melee looks simply dirty, then tiny flecks begin to dart and squiggle, and minute legs and tissue-thin wings start to show. Biggs, Pond Conservation's director of policy and research, identifies whirligig beetles, the pea-sized curl of a keeled ramshorn snail, a louse-like water slater, mayflies, freshwater shrimp, water-beetles, and a lentil-sized pea muscle.

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Gas from waste could heat almost half the homes in the UK, according to a new report from National Grid. It says obtaining more gas from waste will help cut carbon emissions, improve energy security and compensate for the shortage of landfill sites. Renewable gas from landfill sites and sewage works provide 1% of the UK's gas at present. Today's report says an extra £10 billion investment could increase that to between 5 and 18%. The cost would be similar to that of other forms of renewable energy.

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Barack Obama has named physics Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu as his energy secretary and tasked him with finding alternatives to fossil fuels.

The US president-elect said the new administration's priorities were to end US dependence on foreign oil and fight climate change.

Naming his environment team, he said US energy dependence had grown even as global resources were disappearing.

Mr Obama has pledged to make big changes in environmental policies.

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Many of the 'midnight regulations' open wilderness for oil and gas drilling, and loosen environmental safeguards. President Bush has pushed 53 through in three weeks, researchers say.

As the hour grows late, President Bush, like many chief executives before him, seems to hear the call of the wild.

Honoring a tradition that dates at least to the Reagan administration, Bush is pushing through a bundle of controversial last-minute changes in federal rules -- many of them involving the environment, national parks and public lands in the West.

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Conservationists are planning to bring the sea eagle, the UK's largest bird of prey, back to the skies above England. The bird, known as "flying barn doors" because of its size, could be reintroduced into Norfolk next summer if the scheme gets the go-ahead. The government's conservation agency Natural England, the RSPB and Anglian Water hope to bring back the species. It was driven out of England more than 200 years ago and had disappeared from the UK by 1918. The plans come after the sea eagle, also known as the white-tailed eagle, was brought back to west Scotland in a project that began in 1975. There are now more than 40 breeding pairs in the area, with 34 chicks produced last year, and another scheme has begun in east Scotland.

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Four beaver families have arrived in the UK as part of a historic plan to reintroduce the mammals to Scotland for the first time in more than 400 years. The beavers were flown into Heathrow Airport on Thursday night from Norway. They will spend six months in quarantine before being released in Knapdale, Argyll, on a trial basis in spring 2009. The release will be the first-ever formal reintroduction of a native mammal into the wild in the UK. The Scottish Beaver Trial is being carried out by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

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An otter has survived a "perilous" three-mile sea crossing to the Farne Islands for the first time, the National Trust has said. The animal, more commonly found in rivers, has swum from the coast of Northumberland despite rough seas. Head warden David Steel said he was stunned to find 60 yards of otter tracks on Brownsman Island, which is famed for its bird colonies. The mammal has not yet been sighted, but it is thought to be still there. Agitated behaviour by the island's gulls and puffins suggest the new predator has settled in.

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Both sides are claiming victory in a lawsuit over construction of a gymnasium complex next to UC Berkeley's California Memorial Stadium that has had tree-sitters occupying a grove of oaks on the site for the past 18 months. The activists have been living in the Memorial Oak Grove to protect it from destruction while awaiting a court decision.

An Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that further environmental review is required before the University of California-Berkeley can build the gym, so the trees will remain standing - for now.

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The U.S. Supreme Court today decided not to hear a plea by two environmental groups to limit the Bush administration's power to waive laws in order to construct a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

In April, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that he was waiving 36 federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, in order to speed up construction of over 300 miles of border wall.

In their lawsuit, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club allege that the secretary's use of the waiver is unconstitutional. They argue it would take an Act of Congress to set these laws aside.

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Planned Buckinghamshire development could contribute £15m to £150m East-West railway

Plans to use part of the profit from building an eco-town in Buckinghamshire to help pay for a rail link between Oxford and Milton Keynes are being discussed.

If given the go-ahead, the development of a 5,000-home eco-town in the Aylesbury Vale, north of Winslow, could contribute about £15m towards the £150m East-West rail link, which would run through the town.

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