Cypress of Abarkuh in Iran The Zoroastrian Sarv also known as Sarv-e Abarqu or Cypress of Abarkuh, is a cypress tree in Central Iran, Yazd Province at Iranian National Movement. It is said to have lived for 4000 years, earning its title as the oldest living thing in the whole of Asia. JŌMON SUGI Jōmon Sugi is a large Cryptomeria tree of about 83-foot height and 53-foot girth, located on Yakushima, in Japan. It dates to the Jomon Period from which it gets its name. Calculated using tree’s growth ring, it is about 2000 years old, though some argue that the tree is over 7000 years old. LLANGERNYW YEW IN WALES Llangernyw yew is the oldest tree in Wales, as it is over 4,000-year-old.

Africa elephants 'face survival threat' from poaching. Elephant conservationists say demand for ivory remains high. The survival of Africa's elephants is under threat, with estimates suggesting more than 20,000 were killed in 2013, a report says. The office of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) said poaching levels were far above the elephant birth rate. However, the report said poaching numbers had dropped slightly compared to the previous two years. Transnational organised crime appeared to be involved in the trade, it added. Cites, which is based in Geneva, is responsible for regulating the international trade in more than 35,000 species of plants and animals. Ivory tusks and products are displayed after the official start of the destruction of confiscated ivory in Hong Kong 15 May 2014 China has started to destroy seized ivory in public There are a number of interesting signals in these latest figures, perhaps indicating that the tougher line being taken by Cites is bearing fruit. For the first time, more large-scale consignments of ivory have been seized in Africa rather than in Asia. This is down to better policing in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and perhaps a slight downturn in demand from the key markets such as China, which carried out the first public destruction of ivory earlier this year. There is also the rise in demand in China for legal mammoth ivory that is mainly exported from Russia, which may also indicate a growing awareness of the connection to elephants and a willingness to look at alternatives.

Changing the way farmers plough their lands could have a big impact on global emissions of greenhouse gases. Changing farming practices could play an important role in averting dangerous climate change says the UN. In their annual emissions report, they measure the difference between the pledges that countries have made to cut warming gases and the targets required to keep temperatures below 2C. On present trends there is likely to be an annual excess of 8 to 12 gigatonnes of these gases by 2020. Agriculture, they say, could make a significant difference to the gap. This is the fourth such report, compiled by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) in conjunction with 44 scientific groups in 17 countries. It says the world needs to reduce total emissions to 44 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020 to keep the planet from going above the 2C target, agreed at a UN meeting in Cancun in 2010. But when all the pledges and plans made by countries are added together, they show an excess of between 8 and 12 gigatonnes per annum in seven years time, very similar to last year's report. To put it in context, 12 gigatonnes is about 80% of all the emissions coming from all the power plants in the world right now. The authors highlight a number of ways in which this gap can be closed, including tightening the rules for counting emissions and expanding the scope of pledges already made. They believe around half the gap could be closed in this way.