Environment news

• We will make the net-zero transition work for Britain – approving the Jackdaw gasfield is part of the plan | Andy Burnham

  22-10-2026 19:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Protecting jobs and strengthening energy security in the short term does not mean wavering on Labour’s deep commitment to a cleaner, greener futureOn Wednesday, the energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, gave the go-ahead for gas production to begin at the Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea. This has been the subject of fierce debate for many years, with strong views on both sides. I want to explain what the decision means and how it fits with Britain’s climate commitments.At a time of acute gl
  
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• Marine life in Gulf of Mexico has still not fully recovered from 2010 BP oil spill

  22-10-2026 14:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  New study reveals dramatic population drops in fish, cephalopods and more after the Deepwater Horizon spillMarine life in the Gulf of Mexico plummeted by about 60% after BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and has still not fully recovered, according to a new study.The April 2010 explosion of an offshore drilling unit 50 miles off the Louisiana coast triggered the largest marine oil spill in history, releasing 134m gallons of oil into the ocean. According to the study published Monday in PNA
  
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• ‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre

  22-10-2026 13:22 via Environment | The Guardian
  Company ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest pushBehind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone.After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – al
  
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• Blockades, checkpoints and court action: fending off Brazil’s biofuel giants in the Amazon

  22-10-2026 13:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  After decades of violent displacement and land theft, the country’s quilombola communities are fighting backFor most of his 39 years, Josias Dias dos Santos, known as Jota, has endured degrading cycles of displacement as a quilombola, a descendant of Black people once enslaved on Brazil’s sugar cane and coffee plantations. He says his and other quilombola families subsisting in the rainforests in Pará, northern Brazil, were first forced out of their settlements by violent loggers, then by r
  
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• Big pharma accused of ‘free-riding on nature’ as global fund attracts just $7,000

  22-10-2026 11:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near emptyBig pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than
  
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• Whale carcass closes Maroubra and Coogee beaches in Sydney – video

  22-10-2026 07:38 via Environment | The Guardian
  Video released by Randwick city council shows a whale carcass floating in the water in a Sydney bay, causing the closure of two busy beaches. The whale's decomposed body was found on Thursday morning at Lurline Bay, a rocky cove surrounded by cliffs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. It’s believed to be a juvenile humpback‘Almost looks fake’: two Sydney beaches closed after whale carcass washes up Continue reading...
  
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• ‘This isn’t greenwashing’: thousands of butterflies surprise experts on restored West Sussex farmland

  22-10-2026 07:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Rare small blues and dingy skippers among species found on former wheatfields two years after start of transformation under commercial nature projectAn “amazing” abundance of 5,290 butterflies, including rare small blues and dingy skippers, has appeared on land that was barren wheatfields just two years ago.The speed with which nature has bounced back at Halnaker Hill farm in West Sussex has surprised experts after 133 hectares (330 acres) of intensively farmed land were turned into a commer
  
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• Strongmen like Trump would destroy the planet out of pure spite – and Brazil shows we’re all in peril | George Monbiot

  22-10-2026 07:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  If Flávio Bolsonaro is elected, Brazil’s ecosystems will face collapse. The ruling class would rather burn the world than share it with the poor
  However grim the trajectory might seem, I’ve always believed that sense will ultimately prevail. As the great perils of dismantling the living world become increasingly obvious, even the most rapacious exploiters must come round. Nobody wants to live on a dead planet, do they?There are – or were – signs that this wasn’t just wishful thinking.
  
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• How autumnal high pressure brings on the dark doldrums

  22-10-2026 07:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  With no wind to disperse the low cloud, mist and fog and less sunlight to burn it off, anticyclonic gloom can set in In summer, a high-pressure system over the UK usually means fine weather. But in the colder months it can result in anticyclonic gloom, characterised by grey skies, mist, fog and drizzle.A settled high-pressure system brings stable conditions and impedes the usual vertical movement of air. This is a recipe for sunshine when humidity is low, but can act like a lid, trapping atmosph
  
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• New lab to become centre for investigating uplands

  21-10-2026 22:36 via BBC News
  
  The research facility in Penrith will also help train the next generation of environmental scientists.
  
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• Pupils who designed a badge sent to space meet NASA astronaut

  21-10-2026 21:39 via BBC News
  
  Frank Rubio is set to be in the crew for the Artemis III mission and previously spent a year in space.
  
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• How bad is Jackdaw gasfield approval for the climate? – The Latest

  21-10-2026 20:51 via Environment | The Guardian
  Climate campaigners have condemned the UK government’s decision to allow the drilling of the Jackdaw gasfield. Critics argue the move will put climate targets at risk, while failing to reduce energy bills and the cost of living crisis. But there could be a significant victory for green activists when it comes to the much larger Rosebank oilfield, with the energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, leaning towards rejecting approval. Michael Safi speaks to environment correspondent Matthew Taylor
  
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• How bad is Jackdaw gasfield approval for the climate? - The Latest

  21-10-2026 20:51 via Environment | The Guardian
  Climate campaigners have condemned the UK government’s decision to allow the drilling of the Jackdaw gasfield. Critics argue the move will put climate targets at risk, while failing to reduce energy bills and the cost of living crisis. But there could be a significant victory for green activists when it comes to the much larger Rosebank oilfield, with the energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, leaning towards rejecting approval. Michael Safi speaks to environment correspondent Matthew Taylor
  
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• Fuel leak which killed fish in River Taff stopped

  21-10-2026 20:28 via BBC News
  
  GE Aerospace previously confirmed fuel got into the river while repair work took place nearby.
  
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• Burnham approves Jackdaw – and Labour’s unity on climate action is imperilled with the stroke of a pen | Zoe Williams

  21-10-2026 19:14 via Environment | The Guardian
  This foolish decision undermines hopes that this government will take the necessary steps the climate crisis demandsWhen the news broke that the UK government had approved the Jackdaw gasfield, I was at a Guardian climate event at the Royal Geographical Society. Appropriately, the theme suggested by readers was what can the public actually do in the face of what feels like paralysing climate doom?There is so much going on that is hopeful: biodiversity tracking, river protection, rewilding. Shrut
  
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• Ben Jennings on Andy Burnham’s decision to approve the Jackdaw North Sea gasfield – cartoon

  21-10-2026 18:50 via Environment | The Guardian
  Continue reading...
  
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• Can a giant tunnel save Windermere?

  21-10-2026 18:30 via BBC News
  
  A £3.6bn proposal to stop sewage being discharged into Windermere, England's largest lake, has been unveiled.
  
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• Will Jackdaw cut your energy bills?

  21-10-2026 18:17 via BBC News
  
  BBC Verify's Ben Chu explains why energy prices are so high, and what Jackdaw could mean for your bills.
  
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• Orionid meteor shower to peak in UK skies into Thursday

  21-10-2026 17:44 via BBC News
  
  Clear skies permitting, skygazers could be able to spot as many as 10-20 meteors per hour as the shower peaks this week.
  
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• Burnham defends Jackdaw decision as Badenoch urges PM to overturn ban on new oil and gas licences

  21-10-2026 17:36 via BBC News
  
  The UK government says the field, which is opposed by environmental campaigners, could be producing gas by the end of this month.
  
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• A grieving female elephant carrying a stillborn baby: Federico Veronesi’s best photograph

  21-10-2026 16:08 via Environment | The Guardian
  ‘She carried the dead calf for hours even though it wasn’t hers. She had had a miscarriage two years before – and now picked up the stillborn babies of other mothers’My love of African animals, in particular elephants, dates back to when I was three or four years old, growing up in Milan in a house full of old nature books. When I was six, my parents took me on my first safari in Kenya – I cried on the plane home, feeling I was being torn away from the savanna I&rsq
  
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• How Jackdaw ignites row over climate and costs

  21-10-2026 15:46 via BBC News
  
  How Jackdaw ignites arguments over climate and costs
  
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• Andy Burnham says decision on Jackdaw is something the Tories 'messed up' - video

  21-10-2026 15:27 via Environment | The Guardian
  The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, thanked the prime minister for backing Jackdaw after the Tories approved it in 2022. But Burnham said he made a decision on something the Tories messed up, and the government had made a bridge to the future and the transition to clean energyUK politics live – latest updatesUK approves Jackdaw gasfield in North SeaClimate campaigners condemn ‘maddening’ decision to approve Jackdaw gasfield Continue reading...
  
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• Energy secretary leaning towards rejecting Rosebank oilfield

  21-10-2026 14:31 via Environment | The Guardian
  Exclusive: Officials say Miatta Fahnbulleh minded not to give approval in victory for climate campaignersUK politics live – latest updatesMiatta Fahnbulleh is leaning towards rejecting the giant Rosebank oilfield, the Guardian understands, in what would be a blow for the North Sea energy industry and a major victory for climate campaigners.Officials say the energy secretary is minded to refuse approval for the field, which would be one of the biggest in the North Sea. Fahnbulleh approved t
  
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• How much gas could Jackdaw provide? And will it cut your energy bills?

  21-10-2026 13:57 via BBC News
  
  BBC Verify looks at what the Jackdaw decision means for bills, energy security and the environment.
  
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• Astronaut surprise video leaves pupils starstruck

  21-10-2026 13:55 via BBC News
  
  The surprise came after a teacher's father met Peake while working on a cruise ship.
  
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• Giant tunnel proposed to tackle Windermere sewage discharges

  21-10-2026 12:32 via Environment | The Guardian
  United Utilities, Environment Agency and local campaigners say 12-mile tunnel could take sewage away from England’s largest lakePlans are under way for a new giant tunnel to transport sewage away from Windermere, England’s largest lake.Windermere, in the Lake District, has suffered from widespread raw sewage and bacterial pollution driven by discharges from United Utilities. Campaigners say this pollution has caused more frequent toxic blue-green algal blooms, with the public advised
  
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• US extreme weather survivors are a growing group – now they want to be a political force

  21-10-2026 12:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  At a gathering in Texas, near where floods killed 136 people last year, survivors are united on the need for urgent actionIt may be a club none of its members actually want to be in, but the growing number of people in the US affected by extreme weather disasters are starting to organize into a political force.Severe wildfires, floods storms and other calamities now touch the lives of huge numbers of Americans – about half of all people in the US by one estimate – as the climate cris
  
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• Jackdaw approval is a step towards a grownup North Sea policy

  21-10-2026 11:59 via Environment | The Guardian
  Government decision is about how much oil and gas is sensible for UK to produce on the way to net zeroBusiness live – latest updatesAndy Burnham hit the nail on the (well)head in his first fortnight as prime minister when he said: “The question isn’t whether Britain will still be using oil and gas, the question is, where does it come from?”It was a nod towards several awkward energy facts. First, oil and gas provided 75% of the UK’s energy in 2025, government data s
  
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• Farmer lost out by minutes in race for wildlife funding

  21-10-2026 11:49 via BBC News
  
  Richard Peace is among thousands of farmers who missed out as funding was snapped up in hours.
  
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• What an eyesore! My day at Norfolk’s frightful fridge mountain

  21-10-2026 11:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  This summer alone, 26 local authorities in the UK had to stop accepting fridges and freezers for recycling. Now the appliances are piling up around the country – with no proper disposal date in sightNot much is happening in the tiny Norfolk hamlet of Little Hautbois on the day I visit. The pub, once popular with airmen from RAF Coltishall, stopped being a pub a long time ago, even before RAF Coltishall stopped being RAF Coltishall. It’s not Saturday, so there are no weddings at Hautb
  
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• Elon Musk confirms he is considering merging Tesla and SpaceX

  21-10-2026 10:42 via BBC News
  
  Musk says special committees within both companies have been formed to look at a possible mega-merger.
  
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• Why is Elon Musk plotting a mega-merger of SpaceX and Tesla?

  21-10-2026 08:36 via BBC News
  
  Musk says there's "a lot to be gained" by combining the firms in what would be the biggest merger in history.
  
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• UK approves Jackdaw gasfield in North Sea

  21-10-2026 08:15 via Environment | The Guardian
  Decision was widely expected after lobbying by Shell but will dismay environmental campaigners What does the UK’s approval of the Jackdaw gasfield mean?The UK government has approved the controversial Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea, a widely expected move that will nonetheless dismay environmental campaigners and a number of Labour MPs.While Labour’s 2024 election manifesto committed to a ban on new drilling licences in the North Sea, the companies behind Jackdaw and the Rosebank
  
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• This Norwegian village is one of the fastest-warming places on Earth. How can its people save it?

  21-10-2026 08:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  As glaciers melt and permafrost thaws, Longyearbyen, on the remote Arctic islands of Svalbard, faces climate-induced problems from tap water to housebuilding to landslides• Heavy metals make Norwegian village’s tap water toxicOn a rugged mountain plateau of snow-dusted rocks, in the remote archipelago of Svalbard, a glaciologist, Andy Hodson, points out the “ears” of ice, white against the rock, that gave Foxfonna glacier its name, after the arctic fox.The small glacier, o
  
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• World must cut emissions by 18% in four years ‘to find our way back’, UN says

  21-10-2026 07:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Action needed to avoid disastrous overshoot of climate targets, according to organisation’s environment bodyThe world needs to cut carbon emissions by nearly a fifth in the next four years, and by close to half within a decade, to avoid overshooting climate targets by a disastrous margin.Although the “window has closed” on holding temperature rises to 1.5C, in line with scientific advice, limiting the “overshoot” of that target is still possible, according to the UN
  
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• Giant tunnel proposed to clean up Windermere's sewage problem

  21-10-2026 06:44 via BBC News
  
  The plan would eliminate sewage spills into Windermere, blamed for turning the water green.
  
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• Country diary: What a privilege it is to witness bird migration on such a scale | Country diary

  21-10-2026 06:30 via Environment | The Guardian
  
  Poole, Dorset: At this time of year, migrants are constantly on the move here, whether leaving, arriving or just stopping to refuelWith the sadness of our summer migrants departing the UK for another year comes the joy of our wintering birds returning. Working in conservation at Poole harbour, I’m out most days, connected to the ebb and flow of this change.As it is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, and located on the East Atlantic Flyway, birds are constantly on the move he
  
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• Whale in Wales: amateur photographer captures stunning footage - video

  20-10-2026 15:51 via Environment | The Guardian
  Amateur wildlife photographer Rhys Morgan has caught extraordinary footage of one of the largest whale species on Earth. While sailing off the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales, Morgan and his friends spotted the blowholes of a fin whale in the distance, recognisable by the hooked fin near its tail, a dark grey upper body, white belly, and an asymmetrical jaw that is dark on the left and white on the right.People who have enjoyed the video online are trying to raise awareness of fin whales being hunt
  
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• Moment giant fin whale's huge mouth engulfs thousands of gallons of water

  20-10-2026 14:03 via BBC News
  
  Videographer Rhys Morgan captured footage of the worlds second largest whalelunge feeding on his drone.
  
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• Giving £2 a day to people in the Amazon helps protect rainforest, pilot project finds

  20-10-2026 14:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Researchers say almost 90% of participants in unconditional basic income scheme in Peru adopted environmentally beneficial practicesA pioneering project to provide Indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon with an unconditional basic income has contributed to the protection of the rainforest, according to a study.The analysis from the University of Bath is expected to contribute to a growing debate about the role of direct payments to communities that maintain globally important ecosystems. Conti
  
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• ‘For Panama, it is life or death’: how drought is choking the canal that feeds a nation

  20-10-2026 12:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Failed rains and a dire El Niño threaten the waterway that sustains the country, with farmers selling cattle to surviveThe cattle should be ambling, grazing contentedly, through Robert Delgado’s fields. Instead, the animals slump in the shade, tongues lolling, in futile attempts to avoid the blistering heat. Soon it will matter little whether their appetite returns, for there will be no grass left to graze.In Azuero, an agricultural region in Panama’s Arco Seco (Dry Arc), the
  
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• Storm Austen to bring severe gales to UK as weather warning issued

  20-10-2026 11:42 via BBC News
  
  The first named storm of the season - Austen - will bring damaging winds and heavy rain to parts of the UK on Friday.
  
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• Excessive wealth, extreme emissions – and ecocide: what I learned at Europe’s big superyacht show

  20-10-2026 11:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  These yachts are highly popular with the ‘super-bourgeoisie’ – and getting bigger. Can anything be done to stop them destroying our seas?Who knew? Apparently everyone did, apart from me: you don’t wear shoes on a superyacht. Now, about to step on to my first teak deck at the Monaco Yacht Show, I’ve got to take my trainers off, and I’m having a sock panic. Have they got holes? Do they even match? Do they smell?To be honest, I’ve come dressed all wrong for
  
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• The CO2-absorbing building made of old sinks, windscreens and toilets: Ghent’s £17m design museum is a green marvel

  20-10-2026 09:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  
  Inspired by a gothic cathedral partly built using human bones, this gleaming monument to recycling boasts 62,000 bricks derived from construction waste – each made by the public during a two-day brick-making festivalMuseums often try to reflect the world around them, but rarely are they made so literally of their surroundings as the new design museum in Ghent. Rising above the Belgian city’s medieval tiled rooftops like an angular white watchtower, the new building has vacuumed up th
  
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• Do not be distracted by global crises. Nature cannot wait for a better year – we must act now | Steven Guilbeault

  20-10-2026 09:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real actionWhen I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me
  
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• Why have countries been pushing for a vital global climate report to be delayed?

  20-10-2026 08:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Saudi Arabia, Russia and China among those claiming developed countries have skewed findings of IPCC reviewThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suspended an important meeting on Friday in Addis Ababa without setting out a firm timetable for its next report. The world’s governments are due to meet in less than a month for the Cop31 climate summit, and this leaves the future of scientific advice to governments on the climate in doubt. Continue reading...
  
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• Northern Ireland needs 'courage and leadership' to tackle climate change

  20-10-2026 07:27 via BBC News
  
  The new chair of the Climate Change Committee is spending two days in Northern Ireland on a fact-finding mission.
  
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• Country diary: A species brought to the edge of extinction, recovering in the fens | Mark Cocker

  20-10-2026 06:30 via Environment | The Guardian
  
  Ouse Fen, Cambridgeshire: The great egret’s story is remarkable, as is the conversion of this low-grade agricultural land into one of the richest wetlands in BritainIn keeping with this region’s summer of torrid heat and drought, the field by the path was an expanse of burnt, dead thistles. What was totally unexpected were the 13 great egrets among it. Ironically, the birds may well be here as a consequence of the climate crisis, but their appearance in a parched brown expanse felt s
  
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• Listen out for Lanny: can Max Porter’s mythic tale of a mulch-guzzler really be heard in this woodland?

  20-10-2026 06:00 via Environment | The Guardian
  Every sun-dappled object is an instrument as composer Dom Coyote and sound designers Elena Peña and Dave Price conjure trip-hop-inspired rhythms in the Mendips for a new stage adaptationThe woodland is stuck to our skin. Sound designers Elena Peña and Dave Price are hunched next to me, burying a microphone into mossy ground. Composer Dom Coyote is listening on headphones, crunching out a rhythm with his boot before shucking his shoes for a subtler sound. “It’s got to be
  
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