While paying for tree-planting or buying renewable energy credits has become a popular way for people and organisations to offset carbon emissions, not all carbon offset options are the same.

In this second instalment, Michael Smith and Karlson Hargroves look at two key planks to Australia becoming an 'energy superpower' through a sustainable energy approach – energy demand management and the viability of renewables in delivering base-power loads.

After the 2004 Boxing Day tidal wave brought a halt to traditional life, villages in south-western Thailand are being led by an innovative student-driven learning program to recover their livelihoods and develop solution-finding skills to better manage local natural resources.

A long-fought campaign to preserve a pristine and remote stretch of the South Australian coastline – home to the endangered osprey and white-bellied sea eagle – is highlighting the critical national issue of coastal development impacts. Local groups are rallying the state government over the need for a development management plan covering four largely undisturbed bays.

As Australia's biodiversity faces the double pressures of a changing climate and higher levels of human encroachment, disjoint national parks and reserves simply won't provide enough refuge. James Woodford reports on the vital role that private landholders are playing in national conservation plans, and how their efforts might be rewarded.

In this final instalment of his three-part series illuminating energy savings around the home, Peter Seligman provides more insights into heating, carbon offsets and alternative energy sources.

For the first time, Australian scientists will use aircraft to count minke whales in the pack ice around Antarctica.

Robotic aircraft or 'Unmanned Aerial Vehicles' (UAVs) could soon take to the skies in the name of marine mammal research, if a pilot project to test the technology succeeds.