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Highest temperatures of 2026 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as Kew Gardens in London reaches 32.3C
England, Wales and Northern Ireland recorded their highest temperatures of 2026 on Sunday, which was also the UK’s hottest May day for at least 79 years.
Kew Gardens in west London recorded 32.3C (90.1F), Cardiff 27.4C and Armagh 23.4C.
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Most people have joyful memories of playing outside as children – and now wildlife charities are urging people to ‘rewild their inner child’
Climbing trees, squelching in mud, paddling in ponds or making dens in the woods – people’s memories of playing outside as children are often vivid and, a new poll has found, overwhelmingly positive, even those who remember falling in cowpats.
Almost 90% of UK adults had rosy memories of the excitement and the feeling of freedom that outdoor play had brought them, the survey found. However, almost half of adults now spend less than three hours a week in natural settings such as gardens, parks, fields or woods, according to the survey. For one in 10 it is less than one hour.
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Charter to be adopted along river’s entire catchment from Cambrian mountains to Chepstow and Bristol Channel
The entire catchment of the River Wye has been formally recognised as a living ecosystem with intrinsic rights in a charter, a UK first that campaigners hope will help save the highly polluted river.
The charter was celebrated at a community event at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival on Sunday. It includes the right to flow, to biodiversity, to be free from pollution, to be supported by a healthy catchment, to regenerate, and the right to be represented, described as a “significant step” towards protecting and restoring one of the UK’s most beloved rivers.
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Definition of green facilities made in 2022, before release of ChatGPT, says Action to Protect Rural Scotland
A Scottish government policy designed to encourage datacentres to build in Scotland could lead to a massive volume of carbon emissions being ignored, according to an analysis by a Scottish charity.
“Green datacentres” are at the heart of Scotland’s ambitions to develop economically. Enshrined in national policy, they are part of a larger, UK-wide effort to attract big AI investment to Scotland.
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Talybont, Ceredigion: On a crisp, post-rain morning, I take a walk among bright hawthorn blossom and the glittering pools of Cors Fochno
On the edge of Talybont, the small cemetery, kempt and cared for, overlooks the coast and the wild brown swathe of Cors Fochno (Borth Bog). A burial ground is perhaps an odd place to begin a walk, but, as a friend remarked, it’s infinitely better than ending one there.
The early rain has cleared so the air is crisp and the colours deep. In the foreground, grassland fields slope away towards the wild expanse of the bog, bounded by wooded hedgerows bright with hawthorn blossom. The first cut of silage has been secured, baled and removed, and a few cattle are grazing the aftermath with interest while red kites traverse overhead. The surface of the bog, marked here and there by glittering open pools, shimmers slightly in the heat of the day. Across the Afon Dyfi, the steep-faced sand dunes of Aberdyfi are visible before the eye is drawn further off to the line of hills that defines the Llŷn peninsula.
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Temperature reaches 30.5C in Kent as amber health alerts issued before bank holiday temperatures rise
The UK has recorded its hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures reaching 30.5C in Kent as forecasters warned more extreme heat could follow over the bank holiday weekend.
The temperature in Frittenden also marked the first time since 2012 the UK has reached 30C in May, according to the Met Office.
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Technological interventions face huge financial or practical challenges, but there is another way
In 2019, my scientific research was nearly brought to an early end when my team and I published the bombastic statement that natural forest restoration was the “best climate change solution” available in a paper for the peer-reviewed journal Science.
I remember a colleague from the World Wildlife Fund advising me that this message represented career suicide. He argued that people would be furious because reducing greenhouse gas emissions was the most urgent priority. The revival of nature might help with 30% of our carbon drawdown needs, but you cannot stop rising temperatures without cutting emissions.
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Staff at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy are overseeing the repatriation of ‘the shiest antelope’ from western zoos to their native east African country
“We are bringing the boys home,” says Ngenoh Erick Kibet, a wildlife officer at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy, as a cargo plane carrying four mountain bongo touches down on a wet runway at Jomo Kenyatta international airport.
The operation is the culmination of two weeks spent in Czechia, a first flight for Kibet, and a decades-long collective effort to rescue a species on the edge of extinction.
The 100th bongo calf was recently born at the conservancy
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The Martuwarra Fitzroy catchment is home to four of the world’s five sawfish species, which rely on large groundwater-fed pools to survive the dry season
Conservationists fear a government plan to double groundwater extraction from the Martuwarra Fitzroy River catchment in Western Australia could jeopardise threatened sawfish populations.
The untamed river, which flows 700km through the Kimberley to King Sound, is considered the last stronghold for sawfish globally and is home to four of the world’s five species.
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Firefighters are racing to douse flames on California’s Santa Rosa Island as experts express concern for unique habitat
On the south-eastern corner of Santa Rosa Island lies a grove of a few thousand Torrey pine trees, some of them more than 250 years old. The only other place on earth where these gnarled pines exist is in San Diego county, but biologists classify the two groves as different subspecies. So when a rare wildfire broke out on Santa Rosa Island late last week, firefighters raced to keep it from spreading into the grove, where it threatened to consign the island’s Torrey pines to extinction.
So far, they appear to be succeeding – even as the 18,000-acre fire has torched nearly one-third of the island’s surface. But biologists who have studied Santa Rosa Island’s unique ecology are watching anxiously as the fire continues to burn a part of the island that is home to six plants found nowhere else on the planet.
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