Inspired by cockroaches, Swiss researchers have developed a new drone which can push away obstacles and move past them. In the future, it will be used to measure biodiversity in remote areas. Environmental monitoring in areas with dense vegetation is a major challenge for scientists, according to a press release issued by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) on Wednesday. Although it is possible to take samples from individual branches, it has not yet been possible to penetrate further into the canopy. According to the researchers, the greatest difficulty is that the branches are flexible and cause the drone to vibrate. The WSL researchers led by Emanuele Aucone, with researchers from the federal technology institute ETH Zurich and the University of Pisa, sought a solution to this problem. They found it in the body structure of cockroaches, which is streamlined and consists of low-friction material.

Fire is sucking the life out of parts of the Amazon rainforest. In Roraima State, in northern Brazil, the number of fires in February were more than five times the average, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, and blazes continued to burn through March. “We are losing the Amazon rainforest. These changes in the climate right now provoked by El Niño makes this forest fire season even worse than we are used to seeing in the forest,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Brazil’s Climate Observatory. Wildfires in the normally humid, tropical rainforest have been supercharged by a disastrous combination of elevated temperatures, historic drought and deforestation. Even as the year-old government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has brought down the rate of deforestation in Brazil by more than 20 per cent, a hot dry 2023 stressed the trees within the Amazon, which stretches into eight countries.

Tasmania’s practice of logging centuries-old trees received international attention – and condemnation – last year when one was trucked through the centre of Hobart. Now, the state’s public forestry company, which trades as Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT), has changed its policy around the logging of “giant” trees. It would previously give “protection” to giant trees based on whether they were taller than 85 metres, or greater than 280 cubic metres in volume. …This has been updated to protect trees wider than four metres in diameter. …The policy change brings Tasmania into line with Victoria’s definition, although that state no longer logs native forest at all. It is also behind a similar policy in Canada, where trees greater than 2.5 metres in diameter are protected. …Bob Brown Foundation takayna/Tarkine campaign manager Scott Jordan said setting the definition at 4 metres still meant centuries-old trees – and all hollow-bearing trees – were still available for logging.

The native forestry industry in New South Wales has come under growing scrutiny about its environmental impact amid efforts to ban the practice in line with some other states. Last year, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) issued a stop-work order in Tallaganda State Forest following the discovery of a dead greater glider, an endangered marsupial. The order lasted 160 days from August last year to early February 2024. Stop-work orders usually last up to 40 days, but timber workers said prolonged decision-making by the EPA on how best to protect endangered greater gliders meant the pause in operations in Tallaganda and Flat Rock State Forests lasted almost six months. …Forestry Corporation of NSW said contractors impacted by the stop-work orders were assisted through stand-down payments. Environmental advocates and the timber industry were unhappy with the EPA’s approach and the protracted decision-making time frame.