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Report from group of MPs calls for broader access to rivers, woodlands and fields to improve connection with nature
Swimming and wild camping should be a right for all people to enjoy in the English countryside, Labour MPs have said.
They are calling for access to nature to be increased and legal rights to enjoy the countryside in a report from the all-party parliamentary group for outdoor recreation and access to nature.
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Viral videos have shifted public opinion about water monitors, long held in contempt in Thai culture, even as rising numbers of the reptiles pose problems for residents
Shortly after dawn, Lumphini Park comes alive. Bangkok residents descend on the sprawling green oasis in the middle of the city, eager to squeeze in a workout before the heat of the day takes hold. Joggers trot along curving paths. Old men struggle under barbells at the outdoor gym. Spandex-clad women stretch into yoga poses on the grass.
Just metres away, one of the park’s more infamous occupants strikes its own lizard pose. About 400 Asian water monitor lizards call Lumphini Park home, and this morning they are out in full force – scrambling up palm trees, swimming through the waterways and wrestling on the road.
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Agreements include plan to build 12 reactors in Hartlepool with Centrica, creating 2,500 jobs, and fast-tracking UK and US safety checks
Labour’s plans for a massive expansion of nuclear power have been given a boost with a string of transatlantic deals for new modular reactors announced before Donald Trump’s visit.
The UK and US governments have promised to fast track safety checks, and announced several new private sector investment deals, with Labour emphasising the potential benefits for jobs and growth.
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Owenkillew River, County Tyrone: Vital populations of freshwater pearl mussels survive here, cleaning the water, encouraging the return of their ‘host’
I am holding the empty bivalve shell of a freshwater pearl mussel. A mussel of this size – almost the length of my hand – lived for about 100 years before its flesh dissolved, most likely in the stomach of an otter or mink. The shell was abandoned on the riverbank.
I turn it over. In contrast to the black-as-bogwater exterior, the interior is a shimmering nacreous-white. Formerly common enough to be harvested by local pearl hunters, this species is now globally endangered. Nevertheless, among the rolling hills of the Sperrins mountain range, vital populations survive in the Owenkillew and Owenreagh rivers. Mussels feed by filtering particles out of the current, cleaning the water, thereby providing an important service to the river’s ecosystem.
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Greatest damage from heat, drought and flooding done in Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Bulgaria
The violent weather that battered Europe this summer caused short-term economic losses of at least €43bn, according to an EU-wide estimate, with costs expected to rise to €126bn by 2029.
The immediate hit to the economy from a single brutal summer of heat, drought and flooding amounted to 0.26% of the EU’s economic output in 2024, according to the rapid analysis, which has not been submitted for peer review but is based on relationships between weather and economic data that were published in an academic study this month.
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Signs tout a natural paradise, but pollution from over-farming has left Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh choked by toxic algae
The bright, cheery signs dot the shoreline like epistles from another era, a time before the calamity.
“Ballyronan marina is a picturesque boating and tourist facility on the shores of Lough Neagh,” says one. “Contours of its historical past embrace the virginal shoreline.”
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As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost
• Photographs by Nicholas JR White
From the slopes behind the village of Ernen, it is possible to see the gouge where the Fiesch glacier once tumbled towards the valley in the Bernese Alps. The curved finger of ice, rumpled like tissue, cuts between high buttresses of granite and gneiss. Now it has melted out of sight.
People here once feared the monstrous ice streams, describing them as devils, but now they dread their disappearance. Like other glaciers in the Alps and globally, the Fiesch is melting at ever-increasing rates. More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers.
The Aletsch glacier viewed from Moosfluh, looking towards the Olmenhorn and Eggishorn peaks
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In the remote state of Meghalaya, foraged foods are helping to diversify state-provided menus – and tackle chronic malnutrition
Excited chatter and the clattering of steel plates drown out the din of the monsoon rains: it is lunchtime in Laitsohpliah government school in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya. The food has been cooked on-site and is free for everyone, part of India’s ambitious “midday meal” – PM Poshan – programme to incentivise school enrolment.
The scheme covers more than 1m state-run schools across the country, but the menu at Laitsohpliah is hyperlocal, thanks to a recent charity initiative in the state.
A lunch of rice, dal, potatoes with east Himalayan chives, cured dry fish and sohryngkham, a wild berry pickle
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Heroic firefighting and a lucky turn in weather helped avert disaster once, but ‘a perfect storm of conditions’ remains
During a 2024 wildfire season described as “unprecedented”, the tiny central Idaho town of Stanley and nearby Redfish Lake Lodge narrowly missed incineration by two fires: the Bench Lake and then the Wapiti blazes.
It took heroic firefighting efforts and favorable turns in weather conditions for the town – a mountain mecca for tourists from around the world – to survive without the loss of a single life or home.
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We want to hear which Australian birds you think should be shortlisted for the Guardian/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll next month
Which of the 830 bird species that call Australia home (or at least one of their homes) should make it into the 2025 Australian bird of the year poll?
Australia has the greatest diversity of avian life in the world, home to nearly one in 10 of the world’s 10,000 living bird species. And we love to celebrate it. Australians are renowned for admiring our beautiful, bountiful and boisterous birds. And nothing highlights that more than the Guardian/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll, held every two years, when birdlovers around the country battle it out to see their favourite feathered friend take the crown as best bird.
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