photo by Hector Garcia (Flickr CC)

Europe’s commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, has stated that the current model for economic growth is not sustainable and could result in a global economic crisis if continued.

Hedegaard equated the current Eurozone crisis with a future one of global scale. She said that economic models based solely on production and consumption are a recipe for failure and only serves to encourage overconsumption. Furthermore, the environment must be taken into account and these issues must be comprehensively addressed at the upcoming summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The summit in Rio this June takes place on the 20-year anniversary of the 1992 summit which launched the global environmental movement to address climate change.

From the Guardian:

The 21st century must have a more intelligent growth model, or else it’s really difficult to see how we feed 7 billion people now and 9 billion people [by 2050]. Resources were cheap before, but it seems we are in for a period where resources become more and more expensive. Oil is coming up in price, so many other commoditiesare coming up in price. Food prices are rising. We need to deal with this.

Hedegaard is far from alone in the opinion that economic growth only based on GDP is no longer adequate and that natural resources like water, clean air and biodiversity can no longer be considered as free commodities which we can exploit heedlessly. Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz has also been a leading voice for the change from GDP-based model of economic value.

Hedegaard also recently told reporters in New Delhi that the countries meeting in Rio in June should double the world’s energy efficiency.

Read more about that story on Bloomberg.

What is also crucial is the twinning of environmentalism and global inequality. Currently the wealthiest 20% of the planet consumes 80% of its resources, while the poorest 20% can scarcely survive – if even that. So we know who is responsible for the environmental crisis and whose leaders are responsible for the economic one.

Source: sxc.hu

The practice of having sex with animals is becoming an epidemic in Germany.

“There are even animal brothels. The abuse seems to be increasing rapidly and the internet offers an additional distribution platform”, said Madeleine Martin, the animal protection official for Hessian state government.

The law needs to be changed to make it possible to prosecute and punish these animal abusers.

“It is punishable to distribute animal pornography, but the act itself is not”, Madeleine Martin told the ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’.

Sex with animals was illegal until 1969 and according to animal rights activists, this kind of animal abuse is no longer single cases, they are talking about a new fashion and lifestyle.

There is already an obscene amount of animal abuse and cruel treatment in the world, without this happening.

image by Nobu Tamura www.palaeocritti.com

Scientists recently made an eye-opening discovery at Golden Gate Highlands National Park in South Africa.

Several nests of Massospondylus, a 20ft (6m) long sauropod, including fossilized eggs and hatchling footprints, is increasing scientists knowledge of the nesting, breeding and mothering habits of dinosaurs.

The dinosaur nesting site is believed to be 190 million years old, some 100 million years older than any dinosaur nest previously found.

At least 10 nests were uncovered at several different rock levels. Each contained up to 34 round eggs in tightly clustered clutches. The distribution of the nests indicated that dinosaurs returned repeatedly to the same spot to lay their eggs.

–UKPA

For more on the story, see this article by the UK Press Association and check out the below video report from ITN News.

Image from ARKive.org media library

Image courtesy of ARKive.org media library

Species: Giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis)

Status: Endangered (EN)

Interesting Fact: The giant otter is also known as the ‘river wolf’.

The giant otter is one of South America’s top carnivores, and is the largest of the otter species. The giant otter generally lives in family groups of three to ten individuals, composed of a monogamous, breeding pair and their offspring born during previous years. These groups rest, play, travel, fish and sleep together. When cubs are born, they are cared for in a den by both the adult pair, and the older siblings. At two to three weeks of age, the cubs are taken to the water by the female, and at three to four months the cubs begin hunting and travelling with the family. The patch of cream coloured fur on the throat and chin is unique to each individual from birth. The diet of the giant otter is composed almost exclusively of fish, but it is also known to eat caimans, anacondas, other snakes and even the occasional turtle!

Up until the late 1970s the giant otter was excessively hunted for its valuable fur, with its naturally curious disposition making it a particularly easy target. Today, however, habitat destruction is the major threat to this species, with the areas in which the giant otter lives being destroyed and degraded by mining, logging, and damming.

For more information on the giant otter, visit the IUCN Otter Specialist Group.

View images and footage of the giant otter on ARKive.

Becky Moran, ARKive Species Text Author

A "Blue Marble" image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's Suomi NPP satellite. Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring.

By Andrew Freedman

NASA released a new, high-resolution “Blue Marble” image of Earth this week, taken from instruments aboard the recently launched Suomi NPP satellite. The image is actually a composite of many pictures from Jan. 4, 2012 that were stitched together, and shows North America in stunning detail. One feature that is notably absent from the picture is snow cover, which is confined to parts of the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada.

In many parts of the country, snowfall has been running well below average so far this year.

The image was taken by one of the five instruments aboard the NPP satellite, known as the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS. According to an article in the LA Times, the image was put together by a NASA oceanographer named Norman Kuring, as a favor to a NASA scientist who asked for a visual image to use for a talk at a scientific conference.

The LA Times explained how the image was put together:

“VIIRS is not really a camera — rather it has a scanning telescope that measures the difference between the amount of light coming down to the surface of Earth from the sun as compared to the amount of light that is reflected back to the telescope. Kuring made the image above by running code that translates that data into an image.

“VIIRS only scans one swatch of Earth at a time, measuring about 1,900 miles across. Kuringer says you can think of it as if you were walking down the street with a broom and sweeping as you go. The images are then pieced together to make a whole.”

The original “Blue Marble” image, which had the effect of encouraging people to look at their planet in an entirely different light, was taken from the moon by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972.

This week, NASA renamed the NPP satellite in honor of the late Vernor Suomi, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin who “pioneered remote sensing of Earth from satellites in polar orbits.” Specifically, Suomi invented a “spin-scan camera” that paved the way for the satellite images seen on television weathercasts.

image source: hiriko.com

Folding bikes are great. I’ve owned two inexpensive models and even used one of them in the snow. You can park them everywhere, keep them indoors in your apartment or house so they aren’t at risk of being stolen and take them on trains and buses. Germans are often spotted on them on holiday. I guess they bring them on boats or in their cars.

A folding car, however, makes me think of the Jetsons or some other comical view of the future as envisioned in the 1950s during the Space Race. But now the folding car has become a reality and if you’re in Europe, you may soon start spotting them on the street.

Named the Hiriko, the folding car was developed at MIT in the US, but built in Spain’s Basque country, where it gets its name, meaning ‘urban’ or ‘city’. That’s right: a folding car with a Japanese-sounding name, which is actually a European product with a Basque name.

The Hiriko was recently revealed at the EU headquarters in Brussels, where European Commission’s President, José Manuel Durao Barroso called it ‘an answer to the crisis’.

From a hiriko.com press release:

Projects such as the electric car by HIRIKO play an important role in responding to the crisis, for it combines new business possibilities with the creation of employment and social innovation.

–José Manuel Barroso

Cute and easy to park, the Hiriko is a fully electric, plug-in vehicle designed for the city, as its name suggests. Though it may have a passing resemblance to the Smart Car, the design is something completely new.

From Deutsche Welle:

This design choice explains how the car can be less than two meters (6.5 feet) long: the engine is split up and contained in the wheels, so it has four-wheel steering and four-wheel drive, powered by two lithium-ion batteries. In fact, each wheel can turn 90 degrees so the car can parallel park extremely easily.

Priced starting at only 12,500 euros ($16,000), the Hiriko tries to tackle the twin issues of environmentalism and saving money, something many hybrid and electric vehicles have failed to do.

image source: hiriko.com

photo by Noticias de tu Ciudad (Flickr CC)

Rubbish is piling up in Mexico’s capital after the city’s largest waste dump, Bordo Poniente, was closed after the landfill was, for lack of a better word, filled.

The landfill, in fact, was meant to close back in 2005, but the city managed to delay closure by 6 years. Now garbage is accumulating in illegal dumps in Mexico City, on street corners and even in front of monuments.

The fact that Mexico lags behind in waste reducing measures, such as recycling programs, compounds the problem in the DF.

From the Guardian:

The demise of the Bordo Poniente exposed how acutely the Mexican capital is struggling with the challenge of moving from a chaotic refuse collection system to more modern waste management. While Buenos Aires and Bogotá receive regular praise for their efforts to generate less rubbish and recycle more, Mexico City is held up as an example of what not to do.

And it’s not just Mexico City that is suffering from excess trash. Remote deserts on the Mexican-US border are strewn with waste left behind by illegal immigrants crossing into the US in search of a better life.

From the Daily Mail:

The problem was compounded as immigrants and drug traffickers responded to ramped up vigilance on the U.S.-Mexico border by taking increasingly remote routes, leaving more waste behind in out-of-the way and hard-to-clean areas, authorities say.

Clean-up efforts are largely dependent on volunteers from the US state of Arizona.

Then there are the plastic and garbage covered beaches on Mexico’s Caribbean coastline, in an area called Mahahual. This has nothing to do with the habits of locals or tourists, but simply the misfortune of the beaches being located along the path of a regional ocean current which channels the rubbish into the area and washes it up on shore.

The area is home to the Banco Chinchorro, a large coral reef that is a diver’s paradise, and the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, a sprawling, government-protected zone populated by egrets, cormorants and other waterfowl. Tourism tends to be on a small scale, with the exception of cruise ships that pull up to a pier in Mahahual that was rebuilt in 2008, after Hurricane Dean

–Los Angeles Times

According to some estimates 46,000 pieces of plastic waste are in every square mile of the Earth’s oceans. I’m assuming this is an estimated average, but it’s shocking however you interpret it.

Read more on that story in the Los Angeles Times.

photo by mytvdinner (Flickr CC)

In general, conservatives don’t like social welfare programs. They do claim, however, to value freedom of choice, so long as it has nothing to do with social welfare programs – those are gifts from taxpayers to welfare queens and they have strings attached.

So it’s no surprise that Florida Republican state senator Ronda Storms thinks federal food stamps should only be used for healthy foods – but maybe she’s right. A bit of good old-fashioned social engineering is what welfare is all about or at least what it should be about.

I mean why should the poor be encouraged (by advertising) and facilitated (by the government) to buy food that kills them, especially when Florida is cutting Medicaid, education funding and state jobs? Sounds like a recipe to keep the poor poor, make a bit of money off of them, and then kill them.

Of course they shouldn’t be cutting jobs, education and healthcare benefits either. Not if they want social and economic mobility to increase and crime and health problems to decrease. Opposition to the Republican state senator’s bill is coming from both Democrats and (of course) junk food producers and sellers, who make money killing people.

Strange bedfellows or just different issues colliding?

And there are other issues of course, like the shaming of the poor and the fact that everyone deserves to enjoy a nice sweet snack, regardless of their income. But come on; let’s be more practical than sensitive. Health is more important than hurt feelings and indulgence, which can be dealt with in other ways than food stamps perhaps.

Come on, Florida. Get creative!

Read more in the Los Angeles Times.

photo by Toban Black (Flickr CC)

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability is presenting its report today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to address global problems of growing inequality, economic instability and environmental crisis.

The report, entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing ‘contains 56 recommendations to put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible’.

From the report:

The signposts are clear: We need to change dramatically, beginning with how we think about our relationship to each other, to future generations, and to the eco-systems that support us. Our mission as a Panel was to reflect on and formulate a new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity, along with mechanisms for achieving it.

Some of the UN report’s s include stopping subsides for the fossil fuel industry and to include the environmental cost of producing products into the products’ end purchase prices.

From BBC News:

Subsidies that damage environmental integrity would be phased out by 2020. The UN estimates that governments spend more than $400bn each year subsidising fossil fuels, while OECD countries alone spend nearly the same amount on agricultural subsidies.

Good luck with that one!

Read an overview of the report here and the entire unformatted text for ‘Resilient People, Resilient Planet’ here (both in PDF form).

image by Sweetie187 (Flickr CC)

US Republican presidential candidate and blowhard Newt Gingrich has stated that he will build a base on the moon by his second term should he get elected.

Gingrich said he’d like to get there before the Chinese do. Well, the US did put someone there before the Chinese and everyone else back in 1969, though it was the Soviets who first put an unmanned craft on the lunar surface. OK, so they didn’t stay there and colonize as Newt would like.

Republican rival Mitt Romney countered that while Gingrich’s moon colony vision is a big idea, it’s not good one.

Read more on Politico.

Space tourism on the other hand, seems to be gaining ground in the ambitious and apparently sometimes idle minds of the mega rich. Virgin Galactic has already built a spaceship and soon hopes to fly tourists into space. In related news, everybody’s favorite rude a-hole Simon Cowell wants the next Britain’s Got Talent winner to perform in space.

Back in reality, two Canadian students recently put a Lego man into space and filmed it.

Check out the BBC News video report here and see the ITN News report below.

Image courtesy of ARKive.org

Image courtesy of ARKive.org

Species: American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus)

Status: Critically Endangered (CR)

Interesting Fact: The American burying beetle buries a whole carcass to feed its young!

The largest carrion beetle in North America, the American burying beetle is an attractive species with bright orange markings. These beetles are named for their specialised mechanism of parental care that involves providing the growing larvae with carrion upon which to feed. At night, beetle pairs will locate a suitable carcass and then cooperate to bury it in the soil, thus protecting their find from competition with other species. Once the carcass is beneath the soil, the beetles strip away the fur or feathers and produce a compact ball; the female then lays her eggs in a chamber created above the carcass. Unusually for insects, the parents both remain to provide for the larvae after they have hatched, regurgitating food for the growing grubs until they are able to feed for themselves. Roughly a week later, the larvae pupate in the soil nearby, having consumed the entire food supply; they will emerge as adults around a month later and overwinter in this stage.

The American burying beetle has disappeared from much of its former range, with one of the major causes of the decline believed to be loss and fragmentation of available habitat. This species is now being monitored, with plans to breed it in captivity and reintroduce it in the future.

Find out more about the American burying beetle from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

View images of the American burying beetle on ARKive.

Becky Moran, ARKive Species Text Author

photo by Matthieu Godbout (Wikimedia Commons)

Due to recent storms in Europe, over 100 baby harp seals have washed up on the northern shores of the Netherlands.

The amount of seals found on the country’s beaches has increased within the past two to three years.

An animal rescue center in England has also received stranded seals because of the storms and is now caring for 41.

The incident is an extreme example among a recent increase in pup strandings, experts say. Overfishing has reduced the seals’ available prey, and the polluted fish the animals do catch often make them sick.

–National Geographic

For more on the story plus pictures of the baby harp seals in rehab see this National Geographic piece.

Harp seals are taking a real hit this year.

In early December I posted about an estimate of ‘1 million’ seal pups drowning off the coast of Canada due to a lack of sea ice cover. Further reports suggest that climate change is a real threat to the continued survival of the seals.

From AFP:

The kind of mortality we’re seeing in eastern Canada is dramatic. Entire year-classes may be disappearing from the population in low ice years – essentially all of the pups die. It calls into question the resilience of the population.

–David Johnston, Duke University Marine Lab

Read more on CBC News.

Image by bekkli (source: Morguefile)

Urban Forestry is a growing trend in cities looking to actively clean their air and water while making streets aesthetically pleasing for pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers as well. While I could list any number of benefits trees in urban areas have been shown to produce, there was one advantage that I didn’t expect to see: safer, more eco friendly carsdriving through cities.

Now, you might be wondering how trees help to slow drivers down and create an atmosphere where greener cars and greener driving habits prevail. It’s quite simple; trees help create a natural, visual wall that drivers are constantly aware of. Imagine, for a moment, that you are driving down a deserted highway with nothing but flat land in every direction. An open road, if you will. Even if you’re generally a safe driver who abides by all the rules of the road, it’s easy to rationalize that driving 5 MPH above the posted 65 MPH speed limit, on a highway with no one in sight, won’t hurt anyone and will only get you to your destination faster. So you speed up to 70 MPH, turn up your radio a notch, and get comfortable for the rest of the ride.

Without any trees lining the streets of a city, there is very little differentiation between the sidewalk and the road ahead of you, minus a curb or street light. This is the thought process behind tree-lined roads, a product of the Urban Forestry movement. Not only do trees that line sidewalks and streets make a safer pedestrian environment, but that same “wall” of trees helps to slow drivers down and reduce emissions, a win-win situation for all. Not to mention that instead of speeding up quickly in these pedestrian-friendly areas, drivers could be saving money on gas by accelerating slowly.

Next time you drive through your city, take a look at the trees around you. You might not have realized the effect they’ve had on your driving habits.

Earthgarage – Greener Car. Fatter Wallet.

photo by Arthur Chapman (Flickr CC)

Alaska’s main animal predators are now at risk of being shot from helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. It is already legal to bait and snare bears in Alaska, a practice even some hunting advocates find inhumane.

In order to increase the hunting of caribou and moose in the state, Alaska’s Board of Game has lifted a ban on the aerial shooting of grizzly bears, a threatened species in most US states.

State wildlife officials may now cull grizzlies by shooting them Sarah Palin style – from the sky. But its not just the bears that are at risk. It is also state policy to exterminate wolves.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The controversial “intensive management” moves are the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive control methods targeting bears and wolves in Alaska. In some parts of the state, wolf pups can be gassed in their dens, bear cubs and sows can be hunted, and wolves shot from helicopters.

The National Parks Conservation Association has made their case by testifying against what they see as ‘objectionable’ practices of culling wolves and bears.

From the Environmental News Service:

The need for regulations against bear baiting, snaring, spotlighting and shooting bear cubs in national preserves, among other issues, were raised at the hearing. Backed by letters from nearly 1,700 NPCA supporters in Alaska and throughout the northwestern United States, the group presented its strongest case.

Is this simply a case of humans competing with predators for food sources or is there something more sinister at play?

photo by Douglas Sprott (Flickr CC)

Freckles the goat is part spider. Her milk is loaded with spider silk protein. The silk from Freckles has potential uses in medicine (as a ligament replacement), is stronger than Kevlar and extremely elastic.

So why not just harvest the silk from spiders?

Spiders can’t be farmed because they are cannibalistic, while goats have been farmed for 10,000 years or so. Genetically engineered ‘spider goats’ also produce vast amounts of spider silk in their milk when compared to tiny golden orb spiders.

Freckles is the creation of Randy Lewis, a professor of genetics at Utah State University. The farm is a university outpost where they research modern farming techniques, teach animal husbandry and raise what are inevitably referred to as “spider-goats”.Randy, like many of the other scientists here in Logan, Utah, has farming in his blood. So although a creature that is part goat, part spider might seem like an idea born of science fiction, as far as Randy is concerned it’s simply advanced farming: breeding animals to produce things that we want.

–Observer

Other advances in synthetic biology include a living cell with a genetic code assembled by a computer, creating glowing bacteria by using fluorescent proteins from phosphorescent jellyfish and the production of synthetic biodiesel from brewer’s yeast.

Read more in the Observer and the Canadian Press.

Goats are not alone in producing super-strong silk. Silk worms have also been genetically crossed with spiders to produce silk that is 48% stronger than normal silk and has 61% of the strength of spider silk, which is already stronger than steel.

Read more on that story in the Christian Science Monitor.

photo by Chris Yunker (Flickr CC)

It may sound like a Dutch version of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society: the government cuts social programs and individuals volunteer to pick up the slack.

But in Amsterdam it’s also tourists who are expected to chip in. Imagine a tourist cleaning up your street or telling you to close your shop door in order to save energy by not letting the heat out.

The organization Tourist Save the World puts tourists to work doing good deeds instead of just gawking and buying stuff. But will people start to love tourists or just hate them more?

Well, it’s not as horrific as it sounds. The do-gooder tourists in this case will be part of organized tours and not simply busy bodies poking their noses into local people’s business. The Tourist Save the World scheme may even boost local economies, which do not normally benefit from the tourist trade.

Feitsma said the project aims to attract some 2,400 of the 12 million people who come to Amsterdam every year. Participants are given a map and whatever gear they might need in order to carry out their tasks. A tour lasts three to four hours to complete and there’s a 15 euro ($19) fee. Starting in February, visitors will also have the option to make use of a tour guide.

–Deutsche Welle

In Amsterdam, tourists actually pay to do good. They also sightsee off the beaten path, like in Amsterdam’s multicultural neighborhood of Indischebuurt.

Read more on the story in Deutsche Welle.

Source: Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

“What is beautiful about this project, is that it doesn’t demand expensive urban areas, while the wildlife on the ”Tree Sea” will affect the areas around it on the distance of many kilometres”, says the architect.

Source: Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

“Tree Sea” can function at various  altitudes. Its layers – above water – will be a habitat for birds, bees, insects, bats and other small animals. Beneath water, various species of fish and others aqueous creatures will find a shelter. If the climate is suitable, even artificial coral reef might sustain and develop.

Source: Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

According to Waterstudio.NL  building of this structure would take only two years to complete.

Image courtesy of ARKive.org media library

Image courtesy of ARKive.org media library

Species: Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink (Tiliqua adelaidensis)

Status: Endangered (EN)

Interesting Fact: The Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink shelters in burrows created by spiders!

Surprisingly, the tongue of this skink is not blue as the name suggests, but is instead a rose pink colour. The mottled mixture of browns on the rest of its body enables this species to blend in perfectly with its surroundings in its native Australian habitat. During the heat of the day, the Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink shelters in holes that, rather than being excavated by the skink itself, are quarried by wolf spiders and trapdoor spiders. From here, the skink can hide from predators as well as ambush passing prey. The diet of this skink consists mainly of a wide range of invertebrates, such as spiders, grasshoppers, cockroaches and ants, but it will also feed on plants. The female Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink does not lay eggs, but gives birth to live young.

The Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink is one of the rarest of Australia’s reptiles, and was presumed to be extinct for 33 years. Extensive habitat destruction is thought to be to blame for its decline, and a recovery plan has been introduced with the overall objective of achieveing down-listing of the species from Endangered to Vulnerable within 10 years.

Learn more about the conservation of the Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink from the Australian Government.

View images of the Adelaide pygmy bluetongue skink on ARKive.

Becky Moran, ARKive Species Text Author

photo by Flip Nomad (Flickr CC)

We’ve got two bits of eco-news from Asia this weekend.

First we’re off to Vietnam to see how megacity Hanoi is coping with a growing waste problem with the help from scientists in Germany.

Enormous amounts of waste, a rising population, over-crowding, and an aging infrastructure: Vietnam’s capital Hanoi is a perfect example of a fast-growing megacity. Scientists at Darmstadt University have developed a pilot project that combines wastewater treatment, waste disposal and energy production in one. Their goal is to design a biogas plant for Hanoi that digests waste to generate electricity and heat.

–Deutsche Welle

Next we jet over to Shandong Province in China, where a cute pair of baby white Bengal tigers strut their stuff in custom made clothing at a local zoo. The tiger species is endangered, with only 210 white Bengals remaining in the wild.

Check out the video from ITN.

photo from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)

The UK is now home to a host of non-native plant and animal species. So-called ‘invasive species’ were invariably imported to the UK as pets, introduced for farming and aquaculture or taken here for some other reason – by humans, of course. Now that their impact has (sometimes) proven negative or inconvenient, many people don’t want them around anymore.

The Independent features an article on some of the more exotic and rare animals to establish themselves in the UK, including rumors of lions, pumas, panthers and cougars prowling the English countryside, but also wild boars, which used to be native to Britain, but now that a few have come back, are considered pests. Typical.

Coypus (mistaken for giant rats), scorpions and vicious Siberian chipmunks (I’m not kidding) round out the list for the UK’s weird non-native species.

Read more in the Independent.

On the slightly more familiar side are flocks of ring-necked parakeets (by now an established feature in some London parks) muntjac deer, ‘pesky’ North American grey squirrels and rhododendrons, which are apparently not as nice as they look.

From the Guardian:

Victorian plant explorers were constantly hunting for new species of rhododendron in the foothills of the Himalayas. The pink-flowered species (Rhododendron ponticum) has since invaded many woods, shading out native plants and hosting a fungus (Phytophthora) that kills some forestry and native trees.

Many of the effects of invasive species in the UK are not known, but the Observer/Guardian article encourages readers to report sightings of these plant and animal interlopers to various groups, supplying links by which to contact them.