The environment ministry in Namibia says it has auctioned 57 elephants, with the majority going to buyers abroad.

The ministry says the auction is needed to reduce the number of elephants intruding on the human population, and says the $400,000 (£290,000) raised will support conservation programmes.

But critics say there are far fewer elephants in Namibia than the government estimates, and that officials have no right to sell animals that naturally migrate across the continent.

Like several other African nations, Namibia is trying to strike a balance between protecting high-value species like elephants and rhinos, while managing the danger they pose when they encroach on areas of human habitation.

Recently, Namibia said it was considering withdrawing from the rules that govern the global trade in endangered species. This was after countries voted during a CITES meeting to reject proposals to relax restrictions on hunting and exporting its white rhinos.

The country wants to allow more trophy hunting and the export of live animals, arguing that the funds it would raise would help it to protect the species.

In October 2020, it put 70 female and 30 male buffaloes from Waterberg Plateau Park in central Namibia up for sale in a bid to ease pressure on grazing land.

The arid southern African nation also auctioned 1,000 animals from national parks, including 500 buffaloes, in 2019 as it faced its worst drought in a century.

The people of Easter Island appeared to drink directly from the sea, European explorers reported in the late 1700s. And today, you can see animals — most famously horses — do the same thing. What’s going on?

While surrounded by a vast ocean, freshwater is a scarce commodity on Rapa Nui, as the island is known to its native inhabitants.

No rivers or streams cross its surface, and it sports only three small crater lakes that can dry up during periodic droughts.

The process of coastal groundwater discharge makes it possible for humans to collect drinkable freshwater directly where it emerges at the coast of the island.

Due to a quirk of geology, rainwater immediately sinks down through the porous bedrock, where it feeds an underground aquifer, explained Binghamton University’s Robert DiNapoli, a postdoctoral research associate in environmental studies and anthropology.

That freshwater emerges at spots on the coastline known as coastal seeps.

“At some of these locations on the shoreline, there is so much water coming out (from the seeps) that it’s basically fresh. It’s somewhat salty, but not unpalatably salty,” DiNapoli said. “It’s just not the best-tasting water, basically.”

Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo said the group’s next project is to try to understand how closely the availability of freshwater in certain locations is linked to the methods and means of building the large statues on the island. He is hopeful that this research will benefit both science and the modern world.

Mounting waste from computers and electronic devices is the focus of a multi-faceted attack on environmental degradation being led by Flinders University and its commercial partner as part of two major new federally funded research projects.

The almost $1.6 million collaboration with Clean Earth Technologies, backed by two major Australian Research Council Linkage Project grants awarded by the Australian Government, will help to establish a pilot printed circuit board recycling plant in Adelaide – and ramp up production of world-leading polysulfide polymers which assist environmental recovery.

The first grant (ARC LP200301660) will expand production of novel polymer technologies for oil spill remediation and slow-release fertilisers developed by the Chalker Laboratory at Flinders University in South Australia.

After small-scale trials, the polysulfide polymers invented by a research team led by organic chemist Associate Professor Justin Chalker, are set to be manufactured in tonne-scale production in Adelaide for customers in Australia and overseas.