Environment
Latest environment news and analysis from around the world.
Latest Stories
EnvironmentCapybara pups at Manx zoo draw record crowds
Curraghs Wildlife Park has its busiest October weekend ever after the birth of eight capybara pups.
EnvironmentVolunteers help save one of London's rarest plants
Tower mustard has suffered steep decline in London but has been successfully grown and replanted.
EnvironmentStop ‘cash to trash’ housebuilding in Norfolk Broads, says Labour MP
Exclusive: Chris Hinchliff urges environment watchdog to block rules that will allow almost 16,000 new homes in one of UK’s most protected areasThe environment watchdog is being urged to intervene in “cash to trash” planning rules that will allow almost 16,000 new homes in the Norfolk Broads despite the damage to one of the UK’s most environmentally protected areas.Labour’s flagship planning reforms allow damage to protected habitats and species to be overlooked if developers pay into a central nature restoration fund, which is used for conservation actions at a later date. These environmental delivery plans (EDPs) have been called “cash to trash” by critics, who say they roll back decades of environmental law and are a “licence to kill nature”. Continue reading...
EnvironmentFour years ago countries made a historic deal to save nature. Is it dead in the water?
So far not a single target of the plan has been met. As negotiators convene for Cop17, the pressure is on to find a way to honour the commitments made at previous summitsCop17 at a glance: everything you need to know about the UN’s nature summitPassersby could smell the dead fish before they saw them. In August, more than 3,000 pike, roach, carp and rudd were found lifeless along the River Wensum in Norwich. Some gasped for air in their final moments, desperate for the oxygen that heatwave conditions had depleted in the water. Investigators believe that the die-off was triggered by heavy rainfall that flushed through high concentrations of pollution at a time when wildlife were already struggling.The 45-mile (70km) chalk river is one of about 250 in the country. They are a geological accident almost unique to Britain – and one of Earth’s rarest habitats. They emerge from chalk aquifers and are home to species such as freshwater shrimp, otters and stoneflies, also providing drinking water for millions of people. But just 11 have formal protection, with many ravaged by sewage pollution and overextraction. The Norfolk river is one of the few that does have legal protection, but it is in poor ecological health. Continue reading...
EnvironmentUS disaster survivors still await at least $10bn in federal aid: ‘It’s devastating’
The last long-term federal recovery funds allocated for a major disaster were for Hurricane Milton, which hit in late 2024Survivors of extreme weather disasters across the US are facing long waits for government assistance funds to rebuild their lives, with the last long-term recovery funds allocated for Hurricane Milton that hit Florida two years ago. Government officials estimate more than $10bn is needed in long-term disaster recovery funding to rebuild affected communities in Los Angeles county and St Louis, Missouri, alone.Demetrice Davis’s home in north St Louis still has damage from the EF3 tornado that tore through the area in May 2025. “The insurance didn’t cover much of anything. And the Fema just kind of backed you up for a little while, but didn’t get you back on track,” he said. “The government agencies are not really doing what they’re supposed to do.” Continue reading...
EnvironmentMusk and Anthropic pledge public share giveaways
Musk's announcement comes after Anthropic pledged to create a public benefit fund ahead of its blockbuster stock market listing.
EnvironmentMission set to blast off for Mars to grab a piece of its moon
A spacecraft is set to launch on an ambitious mission to bring 10g of Martian moon dust back to Earth.
EnvironmentSeabird numbers bounce back in Solent region after 2022 avian flu wipeout
Conservation work by RSPB has led to recovery of terns, gulls, plovers and oystercatchers on England’s south coast The colony of sandwich terns nesting at Pagham harbour, West Sussex, was completely wiped out by bird flu in 2022. But numbers have bounced back from zero to 756 breeding pairs in just three years after conservation work in the Solent. Continue reading...
EnvironmentVolunteers plant 109,000 trees in new woodlands
In the last two seasons, almost 500,000 trees and 27,233 metres of new hedges, have been planted.
EnvironmentTap water no longer drinkable in Norwegian town as climate-related thawing releases heavy metals
Warning for other Arctic communities as residents told not to use water in Longyearbyen in Svalbard, one of the fastest-warming places in the worldResidents of a remote town in Norway that is in one of the fastest-warming places in the world have been told they must no longer drink tap water due to heavy metal contamination that scientists have linked to the thawing permafrost.Longyearbyen, in the archipelago of Svalbard, gets its main drinking water supply from a 1.5 mile-long (2.5km) dammed lake called Isdammen, or “ice pond”. Higher temperatures as a result of the climate crisis have thawed permafrost, leading to newly exposed bedrock leaching metals into the pond. Continue reading...