Environment news

• ‘Cocaine, gold and meat’: how Colombia’s Amazon became big business for crime networks

  26-12-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  Armed groups have moved in to the space left by the Farc after the civil war, cutting down rainforest to control land and build thousands of kilometres of smuggling routesHigh above the Colombian Amazon, Rodrigo Botero peers out of a small aircraft as the rainforest canopy unfolds below – an endless sea of green interrupted by stark, widening patches of brown. As director of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), he has spent years mapping the transformation of
  
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• Living on the edge: what young people in England told us about life on the coast

  26-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  As part of the Guardian’s Against the tide series, readers aged 18 to 30 share what they love about living in their coastal town, the challenges and why they often choose to leaveMegan, a 24-year-old from the Isle of Wight, is very familiar with saying goodbye. She decided university wasn’t for her and remembers how, one by one, she waved off her friends who left the island to study. Many never came back. Continue reading...
  
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• Year in wildlife – in pictures

  26-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  We look back over the year’s wildlife photographs, and hand out some much-deserved gongs to brilliant and beautiful creatures around the world Continue reading...
  
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• First of nine new river walks in England announced for north-west

  26-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Mersey Valley Way takes in Manchester and Stockport on its 13-mile route with other walks to be identified in 2026A new river walk has been announced by the government as ministers try to improve access to nature in England.The 13-mile (21km) walk will go through Greater Manchester and the north-west of England. There will be a river walk in each region of the country by the end of parliament, the government has pledged. Continue reading...
  
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• Sustainable aviation fuel take-up in UK unlikely to hit 2025 target, data suggests

  26-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Provisional figures in government mandate’s first year show 20% shortfall in levels of SAF supplied for UK flightsThe take-up of sustainable aviation fuels is on course to fall short of the UK government’s first annual mandate, official figures suggest.Production data published by the Department for Transport (DfT) covering most of 2025 shows that sustainable fuels (SAF) only accounted for 1.6% of fuel supplied for UK flights – 20% less fuel in volume than the 2% needed to fulf
  
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• Staying at home could leave you exposed to indoor air pollution, study reveals

  26-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Secondhand tobacco smoke and routine tasks such as operating the stove shown to be biggest emitters of indoor pollution in UK homesChristmas and New Year is a time when many people will be at home. Being indoors can give us a degree of protection from outdoor air pollution, but it can also trap pollution we produce inside our homes.Risks from secondhand tobacco smoke are well known and the effect is perhaps best seen by comparison of health data before and after indoor smoking bans. A study of 4
  
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• Country diary: Little rituals to help sparrows and wrens | Paul Evans

  26-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  The Marches, Shropshire: Boxing Day has its own more violent customs between humans and animals. That’s not the world I choose to live inThe sparrows are a shuffling, chirruping shadow in the bushes, a static of anticipation. They are waiting for food, calling for it. They have not forgotten what the poet Emily Dickinson describes, in her poem Victory Comes Late, as “God keeps his oath to sparrows, / Who of little love / Know how to starve!” However, sparrows do seem to live in
  
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• Feeling burnt out? A bush blessing for the end of the year | Jess Harwood

  26-12-2025 02:00 via theguardian.com
  Now is the time to think of new beginnings Continue reading...
  
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• There’s an itsy-bitsy fear I want to overcome. I will never be a fan, but can I at least be Normal about spiders? | Rebecca Shaw

  25-12-2025 22:41 via theguardian.com
  In order to be less scared, I imagine the huge Australian huntsman as a girlie, just chilling and listening to us yap. It sounds dumb, but it worked (a little bit)Read more summer essentialsI am someone who believes it is never too late to change. I think you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the old dog is open-minded and willing to learn. As long as the old dog is willing to admit when it was wrong, and work to become a better dog.OK yes, I am the old dog. And the trick I am
  
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• ‘They’re scared of us now’: how co-investment in a tropical forest saw off loggers

  25-12-2025 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Low-cost tech and joined-up funding have reduced illegal logging, mining and poaching in the Darién Gap – it’s a success story that could stop deforestation worldwideThere are no roads through the Darién Gap. This vast impenetrable forest spans the width of the land bridge between South and Central America, but there is almost no way through it: hundreds have lost their lives trying to cross it on foot.Its size and hostility have shielded it from development for millenn
  
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• Wild animals are great gift givers – and there’s one present in particular I’d love to receive for Christmas | Helen Pilcher

  25-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Penguins hand over pebbles; scorpionflies give spitballs. But I’m hankering after a sea sponge presented by a dolphinThis Christmas morning, are you worried you didn’t choose quite the right gift for that someone special? I always try my hardest, but everywhere I turn I’m bombarded with unhelpful suggestions. No, I don’t want a candle that smells like turkey, because, well, we’ll be cooking turkey. Nor do I want a sunrise alarm clock that mimics natural light, becau
  
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• ‘Freedom is a city where you can breathe’: four experts on Europe’s most liveable major cities

  24-12-2025 16:23 via theguardian.com
  From Copenhagen’s cycle lanes and Vienna’s shared parks to Barcelona and London’s unfulfilled potential, better living is close at handThe angry rumble of a speeding SUV. The metallic smog of backlogged traffic. The aching heat of sun-dried neighbourhoods baking in an oven of concrete and asphalt.For most people, the mundane threats that plague our environments are likely to annoy more than they spark dread. But for scientists who know just how dangerous our surroundings can be
  
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• ‘Freedom is a city where you can breathe’: four experts on Europe’s most liveable capitals

  24-12-2025 16:23 via theguardian.com
  From Copenhagen’s cycle lanes and Vienna’s shared parks to Barcelona and London’s unfulfilled potential, better living is close at handThe angry rumble of a speeding SUV. The metallic smog of backlogged traffic. The aching heat of sun-dried neighbourhoods baking in an oven of concrete and asphalt.For most people, the mundane threats that plague our environments are likely to annoy more than they spark dread. But for scientists who know just how dangerous our surroundings can be
  
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• White Christmas ‘unlikely’ but health alert issued amid falling UK temperatures

  24-12-2025 15:05 via theguardian.com
  Christmas Day expected to be dry and bright, with low temperature warnings posing greater risk to vulnerable peopleChristmas Day will bring bright weather in much of the UK, but a cold health alert has been issued warning of a “greater risk to life of vulnerable people”.While the prospect of a white Christmas is “highly unlikely”, according to forecasters, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued a yellow cold health alert from 6pm on Christmas Day to noon on 27 D
  
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• Country diary: A winter walk means only one thing – mud | Man in the Woods

  24-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Dursley, Gloucestershire: We have to embrace these darker months and get outside, but there’s also only so much wind and sludge I can takeWinter is tiring. The footpath is a gully of slop, and each step forwards is a little slip backwards. The north-facing slope was OK – the frost hadn’t been thawed by the sun, and crunchy ground is better than slippy ground. But the rest of Gloucestershire has turned into slurry.It’s just as well that I enjoy it; I do
  
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• Crayfish, weevils and fungi released in UK to tackle invasive species such as Japanese knotweed

  24-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Scientists working for government breed biological control agents in lab to take on species choking native wildlifeCrayfish, weevils and fungi are being released into the environment in order to tackle invasive species across Britain.Scientists working for the government have been breeding species in labs to set them loose into the wild to take on Japanese knotweed, signal crayfish and Himalayan balsam, and other species that choke out native plants and wildlife. Continue reading...
  
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• Barracuda, grouper, tuna – and seaweed: Madagascar’s fishers forced to find new ways to survive

  24-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Seaweed has become a key cash crop as climate change and industrial trawling test the resilient culture of the semi-nomadic Vezo peopleAlong Madagascar’s south-west coast, the Vezo people, who have fished the Mozambique Channel for countless generations, are defined by a way of life sustained by the sea. Yet climate change and industrial exploitation are pushing this ocean-based culture to its limits.Coastal villages around Toliara, a city in southern Madagascar, host tens of thousands of
  
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• The Guardian view on animal welfare: a timely reminder that cruelty is wrong | Editorial

  23-12-2025 19:25 via theguardian.com
  New protections for hares, and more humane conditions on farms, should be welcomed by allLooking after wildlife and improving the lives of farm animals and pets are the related but distinct aims of the government’s new animal welfare strategy for England. Its launch is timely: more than 1 billion chickens and around 8 million turkeys are reared each year – with many of the latter slaughtered in the run-up to Christmas. Winter is also peak season for pet abandonments, with animal char
  
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• Government waters down inheritance tax plan for farms

  23-12-2025 18:29 via bbc.com
  The government has now said it will lift the intended threshold from £1m to £2.5m.
  
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• Ministers raise inheritance tax threshold for farms after backlash

  23-12-2025 13:53 via theguardian.com
  U-turn lifts limit from £1m to £2.5m after protests and warnings that family farms were at riskMinisters will increase the threshold for taxing inherited farmland from £1m to £2.5m after months of pressure from campaigners and MPs representing rural areas.In a statement slipped out just before Christmas, the environment department announced the U-turn which will apply from April when the tax is due to kick in. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘We finally have a tool to at least shave some tenths of a degree off’: author Bill McKibben on the promise of renewable energy

  23-12-2025 13:51 via theguardian.com
  The activist and author of Here Comes the Sun discusses rapid advances in solar and wind power and how the US ceded leadership in the sector to its main rivalBill McKibben’s book The End of Nature, published in 1989, warned early of the dangers of climate changes and he has been campaigning and writing ever since. His most recent book, Here Comes the Sun, takes a look at the soaring potential of renewable energyIs your latest book a more optimistic take on this world? Continue reading...
  
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• ‘This is the Costco of energy, man!’: author Bill McKibben on the promise of renewables

  23-12-2025 13:51 via theguardian.com
  The activist and author of Here Comes the Sun discusses rapid advances in solar and wind power and how the US ceded leadership in the sector to its main rivalBill McKibben’s book The End of Nature, published in 1989, warned early of the dangers of climate changes and he has been campaigning and writing ever since. His most recent book, Here Comes the Sun, takes a look at the soaring potential of renewable energyIs your latest book a more optimistic take on this world? Continue reading...
  
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• 'This is our future,' climate adviser warns as 2025 to break heat records

  23-12-2025 12:44 via bbc.com
  The Met Office says that 2025 is likely to be the UK's hottest year since records began.
  
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• Something gnawed your oak tree? Sink hole in your road? How Zurich’s beaver hotline is reassuring residents

  23-12-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  As the number of the semi-aquatic creatures soars so can tensions. But the Swiss have a tried and tested system to calm the neighbours and restore harmony“I hate beavers,” a woman tells the beaver hotline. Forty years ago she planted an oak tree in a small town in southern Zurich – now at the frontier of beaver expansion – and it has just been felled: gnawed by the large, semi-aquatic rodents as they enter their seasonal home-improvement mode.The caller is one of 10 new p
  
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• Forecasters say 2025 ‘more likely than not’ to be UK’s hottest year on record

  23-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Met Office says temperatures are tracking ahead of 2022 after year of heatwaves and drought, though late cold spell could yet interveneForecasters say 2025 is “more likely than not” to break the record for the hottest year in the UK since records began, after a summer of heatwaves and drought followed by a mild autumn.According to the Met Office, the official forecaster, the mean temperature for 2025 is tracking well ahead of the previous highest year, set in 2022. However, a colder
  
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• Country diary: Welcome to the woods where bomber aircraft once hid | Jennifer Jones

  23-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Speke, Merseyside: Walking through Stockton’s Wood today, you’d never know it played such a vital role in the second world war For most visitors, the Tudor house of Speke Hall, with all its rich history and magnificence, is the star of the show here. But right next door, Stockton’s Wood has a history all of its own.Today, on a chilly winter day, there’s no escaping that right now this ancient woodland is an important “deadwood” site. It’s rich
  
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• Country diary: These woods have a secret – the bomber aircraft that once hid here | Jennifer Jones

  23-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Speke, Merseyside: Walking through Stockton’s Wood today, you’d never know it played such a vital role in the second world warFor most visitors, the Tudor house of Speke Hall, with all its rich history and magnificence, is the star of the show here. But right next door, Stockton’s Wood has a history all of its own.Today, on a chilly winter day, there’s no escaping that right now this ancient woodland is an important “deadwood” site. It’s rich i
  
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• The best of the long read in 2025

  23-12-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  Our 20 favourite pieces of in-depth reporting, essays and profiles from the yearVictor Pelevin made his name in 90s Russia with scathing satires of authoritarianism. But while his literary peers have faced censorship and fled the country, he still sells millions. Has he become a Kremlin apologist? Continue reading...
  
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• Muddy eruption at Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone national park – video

  22-12-2025 16:45 via theguardian.com
  Video shared by the US Geological Survey on social media shows mud spraying up and out from the Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone national park. Other recent eruptions have mostly been audible but not visible because they happened either at night or when the camera was obscured by ice. The agency said the Black Diamond Pool was previously the site of a hydrothermal explosion, in July 2024, that sent rocks and mud flying hundreds of feet into the air and damaged a boardwalk. It prompted the closu
  
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• Fatberg weighing 100 tonnes discovered in east London sewer

  22-12-2025 16:33 via theguardian.com
  Mass of congealed fat, oil and grease 100 metres in length found blocking sewers in Whitechapel area of capitalA “fatberg” weighing an estimated 100 tonnes has been discovered blocking sewers in east London, officials have said.The mass of congealed fats, oils and grease measures about 100 metres long (328ft) and weighs about a third more than the heaviest of the British army’s battle tanks. It has been called the grandchild of the 2017 Whitechapel fatberg, which weighed 130 to
  
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• Hen cages and pig farrowing crates face ban

  22-12-2025 14:06 via bbc.com
  The government says its animal welfare strategy will bring "the biggest reforms in a generation".
  
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• 'Year of octopus' declared after warmer seas lead to record UK numbers

  22-12-2025 13:49 via bbc.com
  The Wildlife Trusts say its is 'flabbergasted' by the sighting of the highest number of octopuses since 1950
  
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• Organ-tuning books in English churches provide notes on a warming climate

  22-12-2025 13:05 via theguardian.com
  Researchers have realised the records are a ‘goldmine’ to study changes in environmental conditionsYangang Xing had never heard of organ-tuning books, but his colleague Andrew Knight often played the pipe organ at churches as a teenager.When the pair, who are researchers at Nottingham Trent University, set out to study how environmental conditions in churches had changed over time, Knight explained that all over the country many organs had notebooks full of data tucked away in their
  
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• ‘Unashamedly capitalist’ rewilders claim ‘Moneyball’ approach could make millions – but experts sceptical

  22-12-2025 12:26 via theguardian.com
  Rich Stockdale says model of ‘regenerative capitalism’ would maximise profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, and installing windfarms across its estatesThe founder of an investment firm buying large estates across Britain to restore woods and peatland has said it is “unashamedly and proudly” capitalist, and plans to make tens of millions of pounds in profit.Rich Stockdale, the chief executive of Oxygen Conservation, said his model of “regenerative capitalis
  
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• US farmers say Trump’s $12bn package not enough to undo damage from tariffs

  22-12-2025 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Thousands of farms set to go bankrupt as grain farmers in particular hit by trade disruptions caused by price hikesDonald Trump, having promised to “NEVER LET OUR FARMERS DOWN”, appeared to come through for them this month when he unveiled a $12bn aid package. Industry leaders say thousands of farms will still go bust this year.While the US president has vowed to increase domestic farm production, and even claimed this formed a “big part” of his plan to lower grocery pric
  
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• Trump’s shuttering of the National Center for Atmospheric Research is Stalinist | Michael Mann and Bob Ward

  22-12-2025 12:00 via theguardian.com
  This is the latest in the relentless purge of climate researchers who refuse to be co-opted by the fossil fuel industryThe Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin would no doubt have understood and even appreciated the latest attack by the Trump administration on climate researchers and their work.The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is to be dismantled after more than 50 years at the forefront of global research on climate science and monitoring.Professor Michael Mann is the
  
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• 2025 is ‘year of the octopus’ as record numbers spotted off England’s south coast

  22-12-2025 07:01 via theguardian.com
  Milder weather led to a bloom in the invertebrates in south Cornwall and Devon, wildlife charity saysRecord numbers of sightings of one of the world’s most intelligent invertebrates over the summer have led the Wildlife Trusts to declare 2025 “the year of the octopus” in its annual review of Britain’s seas.A mild winter followed by an exceptionally warm spring prompted unprecedented numbers of Mediterranean octopuses to take up residence along England’s south coast,
  
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• Country diary: A seal so close I can see its nostrils flaring | Tom Allan

  22-12-2025 06:30 via theguardian.com
  River Dart, Devon: It probably came here for the shoals of grey mullet, but just for a second, it’s more interested in me and my paddleboardThere’s a lull between the storms, and for the first time in days it’s calm enough to take out my stand-up paddleboard. It’s 7.30am, and on this sheltered tidal creek on the River Dart, the water is barely moving: a gentle pulse in the scum line along the beach is the last gasp of the tide’s energy.When I join the main course of
  
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• 'New reservoirs will help address water shortage'

  22-12-2025 06:28 via bbc.com
  Water company says it needs two new reservoirs and a recycling plant to cope with demand in Suffolk.
  
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• Forget elf on the shelf – these Aussie birds are perfect for the festive season | Jess Harwood

  22-12-2025 04:13 via theguardian.com
  Magpie on a mince pie anyone? Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Miracle’ of Zealandia: chick is born to rare takahē pair thought to be infertile

  21-12-2025 19:00 via theguardian.com
  Unexpected arrival is a boon for birdlife in New Zealand, where there are only 500 takahē leftA pair of rare native New Zealand takahē birds who were believed infertile have stunned staff at the world’s largest urban eco-sanctuary, after hatching a “miracle” chick.The roughly seven-week old chick was discovered inside Zealandia, a fully fenced eco-sanctuary 10 minutes from Wellington’s city centre, in November, but its arrival has been a closely guarded secret t
  
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• Do prawns feel pain? Why scientists are urging a rethink of Australia’s favoured festive food

  21-12-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Studies show crustaceans can learn, remember, solve problems and form relationshipsMore summer essentialsSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereCrustaceans are a festive season staple for many families, particularly in Australia where an estimated 18.5m kilograms of prawns and more than 150,000 lobsters are eaten over Christmas and New Year.Globally, trillions are caught and consumed each year. Australia is a major producer, with prawn, lobst
  
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• Sea change: the drive to restore millions of oysters on the Norfolk coast

  21-12-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  The first ever mass deployment of mother reef bricks aims to rebuild habitats – and could reshape the North SeaAllie Wharf’s career unfolded amid conflict. As a senior foreign producer for Newsnight, she reported on Iraq and Afghanistan. Just two years ago, she was filming mass graves in Ukraine.But burnt out by wars, and after a detour farming ducks in Tanzania, Wharf has now settled on the quiet north Norfolk coast. Here, alongside her life and business partner, Willie Athill, she
  
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• The plants that thrive in salt: could halophytes help save coastal farming?

  21-12-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  As rising seas salinise the soils of the Venice lagoon, scientists and chefs are turning to long-forgotten wild herbsOn the scrubby banks of the rural swathes of the Venice lagoon, an evening chorus of cicadas underscores the distant whine of farmers’ three-wheeled minivans. Dotted along the brackish fringes of the cultivated plots are scatterings of silvery-green bushes – sea fennel.This plant is a member of a group of remarkable organisms known as halophytes – plant species t
  
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• Winners of the RSPCA Young Photographer Awards 2025 – in pictures

  21-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  The winners and runners-up of this year’s RSPCA Young Photographer Awards have been announced with an image of a stag lit up in the darkness by Thomas Durrant, 17, from London, named the overall winner Continue reading...
  
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• ‘The anxiety never disappears’: Monmouth businesses recover from severe flooding

  21-12-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Restaurants, bars and shops are happy to be back after Storm Claudia – but there are fears for the future“It was heart-wrenching,” says Andrea Sholl, recalling the Friday night last month when flood waters started rising inside Bar 125, the restaurant she and her husband, Martin, own in the Welsh border town of Monmouth.The Sholls and a couple of colleagues were still clearing up after a busy evening serving diners when the building started to fill with water at about 1am. Cont
  
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• Snails on a plane: Australia flies rescue mission to Norfolk Island for a tiny, critically endangered species

  20-12-2025 20:00 via theguardian.com
  The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail is officially extinct, but researchers have‘high hopes’ that translocation will allow the population to thrive Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereOn a grey day in early June, a commercial plane landed at Norfolk Island Airport in the South Pacific. Onboard was precious cargo ferried some 1,700km from Sydney: four blue plastic crates with “LIVE ANIMALS” signs affixed to the ou
  
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• ‘The biggest transformation in a century’: how California remade itself as a clean energy powerhouse

  20-12-2025 16:00 via theguardian.com
  The Golden State’s clean energy use hit new highs in 2025. As the Trump administration abandons US climate initiatives, can California fill the void?As officials from around the world met in Brazil for the Cop30 climate summit last month, the US president was nowhere to be found, nor were any members of his cabinet. Instead, the most prominent American voice in Belém was that of the California governor, Gavin Newsom.During the five days he spent in Brazil, Newsom described Donald Tr
  
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• This year’s Christmas could be Britain’s greenest yet, energy operator says

  20-12-2025 09:00 via theguardian.com
  System operator Neso predicts lowest carbon intensity ever on Christmas Day after new wind and solar power come onlineBritain’s energy system operator has predicted that this year’s Christmas Day could be the greenest yet.If the weather remains mild and windy for the rest of December, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) has said it could record the lowest carbon intensity – the measure of how much carbon dioxide is released to produce electricity – recorded on the
  
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• When is a sausage not really a sausage? Ask the meat lobby | George Monbiot

  20-12-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  European legislators may ban plant-based products from using the name to prevent ‘confusion’. Just don’t mention beef tomatoes or buffalo wingsMost of what you eat is sausages. I mean, if we’re going to get literal about it. Sausage derives from the Latin salsicus, which means “seasoned with salt”. You might think of a sausage as a simple thing, but on this reading it is everything and nothing, a Borgesian meta-concept that retreats as you approach it.From ano
  
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