-
Woodland Trust also finds significant north-south divide in tree cover, leaving many people at risk of poor health
Nigel Farage’s constituency of Clacton-on-Sea is a “tree desert”, leaving people more exposed to air pollution, poorer health, lower life expectancy and the impact of rising temperatures, according to a new report.
The Essex town is rated the worst-performing for equal access to trees in England, with the highest proportion of urban residents – 98.2% – living in neighbourhoods with critically low access to trees.
Continue reading...
-
If resolution is passed governments will have legal responsibility to cut greenhouse gas emissions
The UN’s willingness to tackle the climate crisis in a fair and legal way will be tested next week during a critical vote of the UN general assembly in New York.
Every member state is being asked to back a series of landmark findings on climate justice from the international court of justice (ICJ) as part of a new political resolution. If passed, it will mean governments recognise they have a legal responsibility to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, including tackling fossil fuels.
Continue reading...
-
King Arthur is said to have transformed into a chough when he died, its red feet and beak representing his bloody end
Decades after disappearing from the jagged cliffs around Tintagel Castle on the coast of north Cornwall, a bird with legendary connections to the area has returned.
The custodian of Tintagel, English Heritage, and local ornithologists have declared that choughs – charismatic corvids with red beaks and feet – are back.
Continue reading...
-
Greenpeace finds cocktail of pesticides including seven banned in EU may have been used on seven categories of vegetables and soft fruit
It is a beautiful early summer Sunday afternoon and you have stopped for a pub lunch. A waiter sets down a roast served with carrots, peas, parsnips, potatoes and onion gravy, and then for pudding, strawberries and cream. It feels like the perfect rustic meal to accompany a day in the country.
However, a report by Greenpeace, published on Thursday, has found that the ingredients of the traditional Sunday roast have potentially been treated with a cocktail of more than 100 pesticides. Data from the Fera pesticide usage survey for 2024, showed 102 – including seven banned in the EU – were used on seven vegetable and soft fruit categories.
Continue reading...
-
Scientists are focusing on improving apples’ resilience after stressors like wild temperature swings and drought
Terence Robinson still remembers the Valentine’s Day Massacre – of 2015, not 1929.
For the Cornell University horticulture professor, the term doesn’t conjure up Tommy guns and Al Capone’s Chicago. Instead of a gangster, the culprit in Robinson’s massacre was the weather. And its victims were the apple orchards of the north-eastern United States.
Continue reading...
-
A warm spell mitigated some of the effects of the strike but colder weather would have taken their own toll
May 1926 is remembered in Britain for the general strike, when the TUC called out millions of workers in support of miners who had been locked out while fighting a pay cut.
The strike, which lasted from 3 May to 12 May, took place during a spell of relatively mild weather with little rain. Transport was disrupted but fine conditions allowed many people to walk or cycle to work. There was a shortage of coal but this was mitigated because there was less need for heating. The TUC, fearing legal action and doubting the strike could be sustained, called it off after nine days.
Continue reading...
-
Maxey Cut, Cambridgeshire: There’s so much precious wildlife around this old flood-relief channel including sea trout and eels. But I’ve come to hear the purr of the turtle dove
The morning air is moist and utterly still. Above the flood bank, dappled grey cirrocumulus parts to a clear blue. Birds sound from every side: the cuckoo’s insistent call over a chorus of warblers – the sedge warbler’s machine-gun rattle, the willow warbler’s falling cadence, and, piercing them all, the explosive eruptions of a Cetti’s warbler buried deep in cover.
But it is the turtle dove that I have come to hear: that low, tender purring, almost lost in the greater chorus. When it comes, my heart lifts. I find a lone bird on a telegraph wire, one of its favoured perches. Through the binoculars, I make out a pink-grey breast, a neat black-and-white collar, and rust‑red feathers on the back, each one finely marked with black.
Continue reading...
-
First we heard its call, then a large, plump bird materialised beneath a bush, walking purposefully towards us
Few things beat breakfast in the bush. We were in the Mallee forest near Lake Gilles, about five hours north-west of Adelaide, and more or less halfway across Australia.
But although I am famous for enjoying my food, I love birds even more. And so when my guide Steve Potter detected a repetitive whistling call in the distance, our coffee and cornflakes had to wait.
Continue reading...
-
Families turn to dirty fuels such as firewood, bringing fears over air pollution and fragility of energy transition
In the ramshackle lanes of a south Delhi slum, Afshana Khatoon crouched wearily on her haunches and began lighting a small pile of firewood.
She had only just returned from six hours spent trudging through the urban forests and dry parks of India’s capital looking for kindling to turn into a makeshift stove. As the unforgiving summer heat soared above 40C, she had walked for miles, piling the sticks and fallen branches into a bundle on her head while sweat ran down her face.
Continue reading...
-
Court cases in Kenya point to a growing market for ants as exotic pets in Asia and Europe that has implications for conservation and biosecurity
In the biblical text Book of Proverbs, King Solomon describes the harvester ant as a model of wisdom and industriousness: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!”
Almost 3,000 years later, the thriving international parallel market for a distinct species of the ant native to east Africa has been thrust into the global spotlight after a series of convictions in Kenya for ant smuggling.
Continue reading...
