Environment news

• ‘It’s massive destruction’: outcry in Texas over waivers to allow border wall in Big Bend national park

  12-06-2026 16:00
  Despite plunging border crossings, the Trump administration is circumventing laws to expedite building in a vast, pristine wilderness The Trump administration has waived a slew of environmental and historical preservation laws that would allow it to build a towering border wall that cuts through Big Bend national park, a vast protected wilderness in south Texas.Congress poured a whopping $46.5bn for border wall construction into the “Big, Beautiful” bill last year, supercharging Dona
  
  Read more

• ‘This is what I was born for’: the drought-ridden Colombian town that took on Coca-Cola Femsa – and won

  12-06-2026 13:30
  While La Calera faced severe water rationing, local springs were being drained by the drinks giant’s franchise. So the residents fought backWhen a severe drought struck La Calera near Bogotá, many of its residents lost their water for drinking, cooking and farming and faced up to 15 days of strict water rationing each month. Yet the area is home to Chingaza reservoir, which supplies about 70% of the drinking water for Colombia’s capital.As the drought stretched from April 2024
  
  Read more

• Week in wildlife: a squirrel with a splint, hungry hyenas and a great white shark

  12-06-2026 09:00
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The underwater wonders I saw on my once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Galápagos

  12-06-2026 08:00
  In this week’s newsletter: Joining a research team on the Darwin and Wolf Islands off the Ecuadorian coast revealed how critically endangered species are reacting to their rapidly changing ocean environment• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereDarwin and Wolf Islands in the Galápagos archipelago are the kinds of places scuba divers and marine biologists dream of visiting, myself included. I even wrote a children’s book imagining a team of sc
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Emergency hospital admissions fell after introduction of London’s T-charge and Ulez, study suggests

  12-06-2026 07:00
  Imperial College scientists analysed health records before and after introduction of air pollution reduction zonesLow emission and clean air zones attract controversy whenever they are proposed, but there is growing evidence that they work in improving air quality. The Bradford zone was followed by a reduction of about 25% in GP visits for heart and breathing problems and survey data shows that the central London zone was followed by a reduction in the likelihood of a person taking sick leave.No
  
  Read more

• Country diary: The grisly beauty of an otter postmortem | Gwyneth Lewis

  12-06-2026 06:30
  Cardiff: I still remember my first otter sighting, on a bog in the mid-90s. This, in a lab on a stainless steel table, is something elseOtter No 4,888 was found at the side of the road near the River Cefni on Anglesey in November 2024. The collector froze her body and sent it, as every dead otter in the UK should be, to Cardiff University’s Otter Project for a postmortem. The vast majority of the 200 or so animals dissected here annually are roadkill.On one of the hottest days of the
  
  Read more

• Britain’s favourite butterfly revealed – and it’s a familiar backyard beauty

  12-06-2026 06:00
  More than 20,000 votes cast in Butterfly Conservation’s poll of 60 native species to find nation’s favourite for first timeThe votes are in on Britain’s favourite butterfly, and it is one of the most ubiquitous yet spectacular backyard beauties that has flown to victory.With its lavender, yellow and maroon eye spots and luscious rusty red and black colouration, the peacock butterfly is both beautiful and commonplace, flying throughout spring, summer and autumn in all corners of
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Environment on Twitter!