Environment news

• New lab-bred super corals could help avert global reef wipeout

  23-12-2017 09:00
  Pioneering research on cross-species coral hybrids, inoculations with protective bacteria and even genetic engineering could provide a lifeline for the ‘rainforests of the oceans’New super corals bred by scientists to resist global warming could be tested on the Great Barrier Reef within a year as part of a global research effort to accelerate evolution and save the “rainforests of the seas” from extinction.
  Researchers are getting promising early results from cross-breed
  
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• A bonanza for fans of the natural world: the digital library sharing 64m pages of scientific knowledge with everyone

  18-06-2026 09:00
  The Biodiversity Heritage Library is an invaluable online archive of historic texts on species living and lost supplied by the world’s leading museums and universities. Now its future is in doubtSome go there to read about the wood that Victorian manufacturers used to make walking sticks. Others want to see an illustration of a Tasmanian tiger or marvel at the field diary of one of the first known botanists to explore the Antarctic.Over the past 20 years, more than 64m pages have been made
  
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• Real-time monitoring to protect chalk stream

  18-06-2026 07:09 via bbc.com
  
  Real-time pollution levels tracked along length of Hampshire's rare chalk stream.
  
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• Escape hatches on lobster pots protect marine life

  18-06-2026 07:06 via bbc.com
  
  Fishing equipment is being redesigned to prevent "bycatch" affecting thousands of marine creatures.
  
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• Weatherwatch: UK’s migrant waders feel the effects of a changing Arctic

  18-06-2026 07:00
  Warmer winters and springs are drying out wetlands and the birds are missing out on an abundance of insects to eatWhen we think of spring migrant birds, it is easy to focus on songbirds such as warblers, flycatchers and swallows. Yet during late spring, many are waders – passing through Britain on their way north to breed in the high Arctic from their winter quarters in sub-Saharan Africa.According to the British Trust for Ornithology’s regular migration blog, it has been a good year
  
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• Watch: Seven cheetah cubs born at Whipsnade Zoo

  18-06-2026 06:41 via bbc.com
  
  The cubs are the first to be born at the conservation zoo for 15 years.
  
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• Country diary: Watching the ruffs strut like ludicrous Walter Raleighs | Michael J Warren

  18-06-2026 06:30
  Blackwater Estuary, Essex: Near a vast sweep of flats and creeks, one small pool has become a destination for both me and a parade of shore birdsI saw in this summer with the brief stays of Arctic-bound birds. Waders from the south came in such number and variety to my local patch near Tollesbury that for one week in May I went down to the marsh every dawn and dusk. I went to watch and feel the motion of it all at the turn of tide and time. Everything was change.They kept coming, new species eve
  
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• Can ecosystems ‘malfunction’?

  18-06-2026 06:00
  We are told the natural world is ‘breaking down’. But forests don’t work like aeroplanes or human heartsA version of this piece was originally published on Aeon as Why we need to think again about ecosystem failureThe Amazon rainforest, according to a 2021 study, is losing its capacity as a carbon sink and now emits more than it absorbs. In the tropics, marine scientists are reporting that coral reefs are in decline, threatening fish stocks. Equally concerning is research into
  
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• Simpler, older version of Stonehenge found three miles from famous site

  18-06-2026 01:11 via bbc.com
  
  The structure consisted of two posts that lined up with the solstices 5,000 years ago.
  
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• ‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies

  18-06-2026 01:01
  
  Nottinghamshire tree, one of Europe’s oldest and largest, fails to produce leaves after being stressed by series of hot, dry summersThe Major oak, one of Europe’s oldest, largest and most celebrated ancient trees, has died.The huge tree, which has grown in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England, for at least 1,000 years, failed to produce any leaves this year, after becoming stressed by a series of hot, dry summers. Continue reading...
  
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• Space industry giants visit fabrics factory

  17-06-2026 17:49 via bbc.com
  
  Delegates from Nasa and Space X were among those visiting the firm that makes specialist fabrics.
  
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• Rising temperatures may increase flood risk through river ‘whiplash’, study finds

  17-06-2026 15:24
  Sudden shifts from wet to dry weather, or vice versa, may foil typical drought- and flood-prevention measuresRising temperatures may trigger a dangerous increase in “hydroclimatic whiplash” in rivers that would make traditional approaches to flood and drought planning insufficient, a study has found.As temperatures rise owing to the worsening climate crisis, rivers will experience increasingly rapid transitions between heavy downpours and long dry spells – called hydroclimatic
  
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• US public still favours action on climate change despite Trump’s fossil fuel drive

  17-06-2026 14:00
  
  Two-thirds of Americans say they are worried about climate but level of media coverage does not reflect thisUS political and media discourse has drifted away from the climate crisis amid a frontal assault by Donald Trump upon policies to limit global heating and the president’s pugnacious demands to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas.Yet while elite attention on climate has waned, even among some previously vocal Democrats who have wound back on criticism of the fossil f
  
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• Why farmers see Colombia’s knife-edge election as a battle for the Amazon’s future

  17-06-2026 13:00
  Many small-scale landowners now include conservation measures alongside everyday farming. But progress is precarious, and the threat of guerrilla violence and poverty remain whichever candidate winsLike most people settling in the area, Pablo Peña was seeking to escape violence and make a living from a patch of land when he moved to Guaviare in central Colombia. More than 30 years on, he says his life is now about conflict and deforestation.Peña first visited Guaviare during his ma
  
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• The ocean has shielded us from the worst of climate change. Now it is running a fever | Karina Von Schuckmann

  17-06-2026 12:00
  Nearly every indicator of climate change is flashing red. But we still hold the tools available to bring the planet back into balanceThe ocean is running a fever. In 2025, the number of days of marine heatwaves – prolonged spells when the sea turns abnormally, dangerously warm – was more than triple what it was in the early 1990s.These are not abstract statistics. A severe and persistent marine heatwave bleaches coral reefs, strips away the kelp forests that shelter young fish, empti
  
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• Campaigner threatened with prosecution by Environment Agency after waterway cleanup

  17-06-2026 10:00
  Paul Powlesland told he acted illegally after organising volunteers to remove litter, weed and silt from River RodingA river campaigner who organised a cleanup of his local waterway is being threatened with prosecution by the Environment Agency for acting illegally.Paul Powlesland, a lawyer and environmental campaigner, organised a team of volunteers to tackle the removal of litter, weed and silt from a section of the River Roding, after repeatedly asking the agency to act. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I don’t like being stuck in an office’: the young people helping plant a ring of trees around London

  17-06-2026 08:00
  London Tree Ring project aims to create corridors of plant and animal life around the city to strengthen its biodiversityHarry Ewing is heaping branches and foliage from the forest floor on to a dead hedge, reinforcing the protective circle around his newly planted trees in Hadley Wood, north London. He is in a glade created by a fallen oak that was previously overrun with thick bramble.“I feel very happy – the trees are growing already. It’s really nice seeing it when it start
  
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• Plantwatch: Russian dandelion offers solution to global rubber shortage

  17-06-2026 07:00
  Scientists are returning to a wartime solution that may be more sustainable than the traditional rubber treeThere is a global shortage of natural rubber and dandelions may be coming to the rescue. In the second world war there was such a severe shortage of rubber that the Allies used the Russian dandelion, Taraxacum koksaghyz, from Kazakhstan. Soviet scientists found the dandelion roots produced enough white milky latex to make natural rubber, but when the war ended producers returned to the tra
  
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• Country diary: Everybody loves to hate the stinging nettle – don’t they? | Derek Niemann

  17-06-2026 06:30
  Frome, Somerset: This much-maligned midsummer menace has few friends among humans, but look closely and you might find an orgy of eating and matingEyes smarting, throat tickling, nostrils dog-wet, I pick my way along a thready footpath up the combe, only half-prepared for the next irritation. Nettles, I am watching you. But not well enough it seems, for a sneaky one hidden under the skirts of encroaching grasses and umbellifers grazes the back of my bare calf. It induces that tingling somewhere
  
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• As an ocean swimmer, I try not to think of sharks, but we all know that this is their territory | Eleanor Limprecht

  17-06-2026 05:31
  It used to be easier to say that the chances of a shark attack were slim. Now I feel as though that pretence of safety has been shattered After nearly a year’s break, I started ocean swimming again this May, delighting in the clarity of the water and the quieter beaches of Sydney’s winter. I’d stopped because of an injury but then found that the longer I was out of the water the harder it was to get back in.It only took that first return swim, however, to remember the absolute
  
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• The tide is turning on Thames Water: special administration looks best | Nils Pratley

  16-06-2026 20:00
  It is still not totally clear what the government wants but the political mood seems to be shifting towards a decisionThames Water nationalisation moves closer as government objects to rescue dealAt last, Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, has opined on the future of Thames Water. So what’s it to be? A takeover by the company’s creditors? Special administration, which would allow anyone to pitch up with an offer while the state temporarily funds the company? Or even a quick fl
  
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• ‘At first, the idea does sound crazy’: meet the scientists trying to refreeze the Arctic

  16-06-2026 16:00
  
  Sea ice is melting fast, worsening the climate crisis, but a bold attempt to rethicken it is showing early signs of success ‘This would have been a wild dream a year ago,” says Andrea Ceccolini, standing on Arctic sea ice just a 4-mile snowmobile ride from the Inuit town of Cambridge Bay, northern Canada. To his left are sky blue ponds of meltwater created in the last few days by a sun that no longer sets in the high north summer. To his right, the sea ice is still a brilliant white,
  
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• Spanish households save €10 a month thanks to renewables expansion, report finds

  16-06-2026 09:00
  
  Thinktank says decoupling electricity from gas prices has also helped shield Spain from hikes caused by Iran warSpanish households save €10 a month on electricity bills because of wind turbines and solar panels installed in the last five years, a report has found.Typical energy bills would be 19% more expensive if electricity costs were still as tightly coupled to gas prices as in 2021, according to Ember, a climate thinktank. It found Spain’s “strategic” expansion of rene
  
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• The bat that weighs the same as a teaspoon of salt – and the biologist who rediscovered it

  16-06-2026 08:00
  The short-tailed roundleaf bat was feared extinct until scientist Iroro Tanshi found one in Afi sanctuary in Nigeria, and set out to protect the only confirmed roosting colonyJust after sunrise, a cacophony of whoops and chatter can be heard over the verdant forests of the Afi mountain wildlife sanctuary. Nestled within the Cross River rainforest in south-east Nigeria, and spanning an area about the size of central Paris, the steep sanctuary is a haven for endangered gorillas, drill monkeys, the
  
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• AI could help win ‘race against extinction’ of vital plants, say botanists

  16-06-2026 08:00
  Tech is helping to identify and save new specimens and could open ‘genomic goldmine’ of fungi dataThe rise of AI and digitisation could be a turning point in the “race against extinction” faced by botanists trying to identify and save vital plants before they vanish, according to a major report from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.New technology is enabling scientists to track how flowering times have shifted by weeks around the world, rapidly identify new specimens and even g
  
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• Half of world’s children exposed to at least three climate hazards, Unicef says

  16-06-2026 07:00
  Almost every child, including those from high-income countries, is now exposed to at least one hazardHalf of the world’s children are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards threatening their health, education and survival, according to a Unicef report.Globally, children face increasing threats from heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts as the climate crisis worsens, with more than one billion facing at least three of these at once. Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: A revelation among the ‘clints and grikes’ of my limestone seat | Mark Cocker

  16-06-2026 06:30
  Wharfedale, Yorkshire: On the trail of a wood warbler, I find a suite of woodland plants rising up from a fascinating land formation – limestone pavementGrass Wood is a magnificent fragment of ancient woodland owned and exceptionally well managed by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. It is home to some lovely plants, including lily of the valley and herb paris. What became my defining revelation about the place and, in truth, about this whole area was down to a wood warbler.It is among my favou
  
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• Trump wants to put a $75m coal terminal in this liberal California city. Residents aren’t having it

  15-06-2026 17:01
  Residents of West Oakland, which suffers from toxic waste and high pollution rates, rally against a coal export facilityWest Oakland, a California neighborhood known for its rich history of Black activism from the Pullman Porters’ union to the Black Panthers, might not seem like the site of the country’s next great coal project.But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is pushing for – with the injection of $75m to build a sprawling coal export terminal in the near
  
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• ‘Like a horror movie’: Coogee’s regulars think twice about swimming after shock shark attack

  15-06-2026 17:00
  ‘Saddened, stunned, surprised and haunted’ is how one surfer describes the mood at the popular Sydney beach two days after Leah Stewart was bitten by a great whiteGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastUnder a clear blue sky on a Monday morning, Coogee beach in Sydney’s east is quiet.A few swimmers have ventured into the ocean pools at the northern and southern ends of the beach. Most others sit on the sand, looking towards the water. Continue reading...
  
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• Backlash against ‘short-termist’ UK plans to weaken EV sales targets

  15-06-2026 14:40
  Charging industry and electric vehicle manufacturers say measure could cost jobs and harm UK automotive sectorThe UK government’s plans to further weaken electric car targets have provoked a furious backlash from the charging industry and the electric car brand Polestar, which would lose out from the changes.The Labour government is expected to dilute rules known as the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. Government sources have said it will reduce a target for pure electric cars from 80%
  
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