Environment news

• Environment Agency faces landfill tax bill worth millions to clear illegal waste

  06-12-2025 07:00
  Exclusive: ‘extremely unhelpful’ policy seen as deterrent to clearing thousands of dump sites across EnglandMillions of pounds in landfill tax owed to the government has to be paid by the Environment Agency (EA) if it clears any of the thousands of illegal waste dumps across the country.Of the £15m that taxpayers are paying for the clearance of the only site the agency has committed to clearing up – a vast illegal dump at Hoad’s Wood in Kent – £4m is lan
  
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• Country diary: Lapwings are birds of my childhood – finally they have returned | Kate Blincoe

  06-12-2025 06:30
  Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: I have memories of seeing them at night, on our pyjama-clad safaris round the farm, but they haven’t been here for a decadeThere’s a shimmering in the sky and I can’t work it out. Driving, I can only snatch glimpses of flickering light. I pull into a lay-by near home. Now I can make out five or six broad-winged birds, flying in a loose flock. They are black and white and their motion reflects the low sun, flashing light and contrasting dark, like a&n
  
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• How many spiders and pseudoscorpions does it take to make one of the world’s greatest taxonomists?

  06-12-2025 00:00
  Former Perth curator Mark Harvey is one of the few people on Earth to have described 1,000 new species, many of them arachnids. Colleagues say his legacy is ‘unquantifiable’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFor most people around the world, 16 August 1977 was memorable because it was the day Elvis Presley died.“We turned the radio on when we got back in the car and that was the headline. Elvis was dead,” remembers Dr Mark Harvey. Continue reading.
  
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