Results for Environment

To combat climate change effectively, governments need to ensure that they have access to the best available science in order to make the best policy decisions and to be able to allocate the right resources, policy makers from over 100 countries learned in Bonn, Germany this week.

A huge crack on the Antarctic Peninsula, across the Larsen C ice shelf, set to break free an enormous iceberg six times larger than Tonga’s combined landmass, is being monitored by scientists at Project MIDAS, an Antarctic research group. The crack is more than 100 miles in length and 1,500 feet across and the ice mass could break free within the next few months. The loss of the ice shelf, which acts as a barrier to the flow of land ice, can cause ice to move faster into the ocean contributing to a faster rise of global sea levels.

A new photo has emerged from NASA Earth clearly showing the site of the underwater volcano eruption known as 'Submarine Volcano III' near Tongatapu. NASA Earth states the plume is emerging from a seamount located 33 km (20 miles) from Tongatapu.

On a little stage in Nuku’alofa, a powerful resonating message has emerged from a small group of young performers who, in raising awareness of climate change, are urging everyone to take heed of the imminent danger.

A supermoon is appearing in the sky tonight as the moon gets the closest it’s been to Earth since 1948. The next supermoon won’t occur again until 25 November 2034.

An important agreement to an amendment in the Montreal Protocol was signed by almost 200 countries last week in Kigali, Rwanda, to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) usage and production, which could stop a 0.5 °C rise in temperature by the end of the century.

Litterers will be fined in a new regulation that came into effect in May this year aimed to keep our environment clean by changing the way people dispose of their rubbish and penalizing those who do not do the right thing.

A project to remove invasive rats from two Tongan islands, Malinoa and Motutapu, is proving to be successful with signs that native plants are recovering along with bird life and marine animals. Other islands of Fangasito and Luahiapo in the Vava'u Island Group are now being included in the programme.

The Tongan Whistler, the endemic Hengahenga and other native bird species have increased in population on Mt Talau in Vava’u over the past year due to projects implemented to battle invasive species including rats.