Amidst growing concerns over damage to ecologically sensitive and heritage sites, the state government has decided to set up a body to protect such places. The proposed Tamil Nadu Authority for Preservation of Eco-sensitive and Heritage Areas will be headed by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

According to wildlife officials, some 558 rhinos have been killed in South Africa in 2014, setting the country on course for a gruesome new record number of poaching deaths. Despite stepped-up efforts to curb the scourge, the number of animals killed is around 100 higher than at the same point in 2013, a year which saw a record 1,004 deaths.

The United States designated 685 miles (1,100 km) of beaches from Mississippi to North Carolina and 300,000 square miles (777,000 sq. km) of ocean off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as critical nesting and roaming habitat for threatened Loggerhead Sea Turtles.

China's Supreme People's Court will establish a special tribunal for handling major cases related to air, water, and soil pollution, the body announced.

The amount of money needed to 'offset' the impact of a dredging project on the Great Barrier Reef could be as much as $1 bn — which is $998 m more than the project developer had suggested.

Sub-Saharan African nations will miss the deadline to achieve most of the development targets they aimed to reach by 2015, according to the United Nations.

Oil that matches the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been found in the bodies of sickened fish,  according to a team of Florida scientists who studied the oil's chemical composition.