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Exclusive: Minister says proposals show government’s ambition, as it faces unprecedented pressure from Greens
Tree nurseries could be built at prisons, and military ranges could be turned into heathland or peat bogs as part of an ambitious plan to make government land more nature-friendly, the environment secretary has said.
Speaking before elections this week in which Labour is under pressure from the Green party, Emma Reynolds said such projects showed the government’s intent in restoring natural habitats.
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Lobbyist Tara Singh says stripping projects of subsidy contracts would undermine investor confidence in UK
Britain could be beset by levels of economic chaos last seen under Liz Truss if a Reform UK government were to fulfil its promise to strip renewable energy projects of subsidy contracts, according to the industry’s chief lobbyist.
The anti-renewables policy put forward by Nigel Farage’s populist party would severely undermine investor confidence in the energy industry and across the wider UK economy, the new chief executive of RenewableUK said.
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International Energy Agency analysis shows methane leaks remained at near-record highs in 2025
Methane emissions from the energy sector remained at near record levels in 2025, the International Energy Agency has concluded.
Tackling the emissions could make billions of cubic metres of gas available to international markets, a top priority as the war in the Middle East squeezes energy supplies, the IEA said in a report.
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Australia’s biobanks store everything from seeds of native plants to the cells and tissue of threatened animal species
In the mudflats of Swan Bay, Victoria, royal spoonbills sweep their paddle-shaped bills through shallow water. Nearby, under the grass-covered roof of the Queenscliff marine research centre, a team of scientists from Deakin University are trying to bring the ecosystems those birds and many others rely on back from the brink.
Some of that involves associate professor Prue Francis’s beakers – filled with bubbling brown gunk – that are bathed in red light inside a fridge equipped with sensors, alarms and a backup generator.
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Councillors in Leicestershire support move in efforts to reduce flooding as Reform faces divisions on nature policy
A Reform UK council has backed the release of wild beavers into the countryside, despite the party’s opposition to rewilding.
The Reform-led Leicestershire county council has backed the release of the rodents as part of efforts to reduce flooding.
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9 May 1951: Walking among fine oaks and beeches it is difficult to realise that one is so near to the sprawling mass of Greater London
LONDON: Early this morning a cuckoo was calling from the outskirts of a wood in south London a bare five miles from the Festival of Britain Exhibition on the South Bank. Yesterday evening a swift flew by; and the day before a late swallow hurried over in the wake of a storm. It is difficult to realise as one enters the wood and walks among its fine oaks and beeches, that one is so near, in fact hemmed in by, the sprawling mass of Greater London.
From the top of a sycamore newly in leaf a chiffchaff is singing and next to it, halfway up a mountain ash, a willow-wren is pouring forth its sad little song. Within a week a wood-wren will be singing from a grove of beeches growing on a slope the song that sounds like a spun sixpence running down on a table. Hawfinches nest in the wood, but they are secretive birds and seldom seen, especially at nesting time. So are the sparrow-hawks, for all their conspicuousness when they emerge to soar on the up-currents created by the north wind beating against a neighbouring hill. More obvious are the jays and the carrion crows, which seem to be increasing here as elsewhere. One would like to see fewer of them and more of the blackcaps and whitethroats that are fighting a losing battle against the rising tide of bricks and mortar.
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As Covid-era funding dries up and bus services are cut, a food insecurity crisis is brewing from Tennessee to Rhode Island
Zen’Yari Winters’ job, at a pet shop in East Memphis, Tennessee, should be a 20-minute trip from her house. She leaves herself three hours to get there. “The bus is always, always late,” she said – if it shows up at all.
It’s not just her work commute that’s affected by the time-consuming guessing game that is riding with the Memphis Area Transit Authority (Mata). The only full-service grocer in the Chelsea-Hollywood area where she lives closed in 2025.To shop for food in person, she could take two buses for a 13-mile (20km) trip to Walmart. But she risks waiting at bus stops for hours with perishables – or shelling out about $24 for an Uber back.
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In December 1982, South African Rodney Wilkinson walked four bombs into Koeberg power station – the crown jewel of the apartheid state – pulled the pins and then left on his bicycle. How did he do it?
At 21, Rodney Wilkinson was the best fencer in South Africa: national champion in foil and sabre, second in epee. He had toured Europe and Argentina. He had not stood on the Olympic podium, because South Africa was banned. The apartheid state had taken that from him, along with everything else it took from everyone.
One evening in August 1971, Wilkinson stood in the gym at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, foil in hand. He was facing his coach Vincent Bonfil, a 25-year-old Englishman who had represented Britain as a reserve at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, and who was now in Johannesburg finishing a master’s thesis in metallurgy. They were working on a technique in which both fencers lunge simultaneously, and the one who reads the other’s move a split second earlier wins the point. They came at each other. Wilkinson’s foil caught the edge of Bonfil’s sleeve. There was a pop.
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Melbourne zoo’s new breeding centre hopes to safeguard the future of the critically endangered Victorian grassland earless dragon
The dragons’ lair looks deceptively ordinary: a pair of pale green portables, tucked behind the reptile enclosure at Melbourne zoo.
But the plain exterior belies its hidden treasures. Inside, dozens of Victorian grassland earless dragons, blissfully unaware of their status as Australia’s most imperilled reptile, are basking on rocks, gobbling up crickets or lapping up “dew”, expertly misted by their keeper Zac Harkin.
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The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
This week’s question: The inside of my cardigans never become bobbled. Can’t the pieces be sewn together inside out?
I must admit to cracking a smile when I read the story about the revolting result of a tofu spill last month in Missouri. About 18,000kg (40,000lb) of extra-firm tofu was left to rot for three weeks after a road accident – no one was hurt – turned into an insurance dispute. Local officials described the smell as “unforgettable” and “like a dead animal, but worse”. So, what are history’s greatest bad smells? Liz Prior, Southampton
Send new questions tonq@theguardian.com.
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pub. W.W.Norton & Co. Inc., New York, London, 1999 (paperback edition)
