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Exclusive: documents chronicle years-long campaign to make it easier to build intensive livestock units
Ministers are rewriting planning rules to make it easier to build intensive livestock farms despite concerns about water pollution, air quality and local opposition.
Documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act show that proposed changes to the national planning policy framework (NPPF) were discussed by ministers and officials in response to concerns of the country’s leading chicken producers, who have been lobbying on the issue for at least two years.
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Waste of 700 Boomtown festival attendees used to produce 540 litres of fertiliser for native tree project
Scientists are aiming to grow 4,500 trees at a national park with the help of fertiliser made from festivalgoers’ urine.
The fertiliser was created by the Bristol-based startup NPK Recovery, which connected its unit to a block of toilets used by 700 revellers at Boomtown festival in Hampshire in July last year.
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Oil crisis triggered by blockade of strait of Hormuz prompts emergency measures to protect supply and halt rising prices
Shrinking fuel stocks and soaring prices are leading countries around the world to burn coal, ration fuel, shorten work weeks and tell citizens to stay at home.
Fossil fuel supplies have reduced since the war against Iran led to the closure of the strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for oil and seaborne gas. The shortfall has prompted emergency measures as government’s attempt to halt rising costs that have thrown economies into chaos.
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Britain’s swift population fell by two-thirds between 1995 and 2023. Make their lives a little easier with a bit more food and more places to nest
Swifts are wheeling, screaming endurance athletes. They don’t touch the earth for nine months of the year and fly about 14,000 miles annually – travelling from sub-Saharan Africa to nest in the UK, then back again. In Britain, they’re the sign that summer is coming or taking its leave. In between, they provide a heart-soaring display of beauty. No wonder they’re beloved.
“Swifts spark joy,” says Hannah Bourne-Taylor, a passionate swift advocate and author of Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts.
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From balloon arches at parties to mass balloon releases at funerals, these bits of floating rubber and plastic can have disastrous effects on wildlife. As some retailers are refusing to sell them, here are some alternatives
I remember, as a child, hanging on to one specific party balloon for what seemed like years. I don’t remember how or where I acquired it, but it had initially floated high, bobbing against the ceiling, and, over time, lost its buoyancy, coming to rest on the carpet. Yet, when a family friend asked if they should pop the now sad-looking balloon, I assumed they were joking – like when an adult asks, teasingly, if they should eat your last slice of birthday cake – and was distraught when they followed through. I didn’t care that it had become grubby and partly deflated – I’d had that balloon for what felt like for ever.
This, it turns out, is the problem with many balloons. Not that clingy young children might become over-attached to them, but that they are often a single-use plastic – and even biodegradable alternatives such as latex balloons do not decompose quickly, meaning they can pose a significant risk to wildlife and the environment. In 2019, scientists found that balloons eaten by seabirds are more likely to kill them than other kinds of plastic – yet they do not seem to have been earmarked in the same way as, for example, plastic straws. If anything, balloon-based decor has become more popular in recent years, with balloon arches or tunnels deployed not just at birthdays but at events ranging from baby showers to shop openings. Balloon drops are used at New Year’s Eve celebrations and graduation parties, and balloon releases have also endured – particularly at funerals, where the unleashing of helium-filled balloons signifies the letting-go of a loved one.
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Nettlecombe, Dorset: Logging is typically a job for a machine, but French Comtois are highly manoeuvrable and have just the right amount of horsepower
A heave and a grunt and a sudden rush as the felled tree trunk starts to move, dragged on a chain behind Etty’s stocky chestnut hindquarters.
Etty is a 12-year-old mare who works with Toby Hoad of Dorset Horse Logging. Their partnership requires mutual understanding and constant communication, as he explains: “You’ve really got to build up a relationship; you’ve got to build up trust. I can drop the reins, and she will pull out the log out for me if it’s in a tight spot.”
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After being pushed to ‘distress’ by people trying to film and take selfies with the cattle in Kent, the fold has had to be taken away from public view
Name: Highland cows.
Age: More than 1,000 years old.
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The more than 100 bat species living in the Mozambican reserve’s labyrinth of caves play a key role in maintaining a fragile ecosysytem that benefits wildlife and people
• Words and photographs by Kang-Chun Cheng
After wriggling gingerly into a damp, cool cave, Raúl da Silva Armando Chomela waits for his eyes to adjust. Donning latex gloves, a helmet fitted with a headlamp, and a mask to protect his lungs from fine particles and bacteria, the molecular biologist from the Mozambican port city of Beira gazes into the shadowy recesses for signs of bats.
He has spent two years in these claustrophobic spaces studying the winged mammals and their excrement. “Guano is far more than just bat droppings,” he says. “If I had to describe it in one word, I’d say ‘ecosystem’.”
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Exclusive: Guardian investigation into reliability of methane certification issued by MiQ reveals weakness of voluntary model
A rapidly expanding certification scheme run by a UK nonprofit and used by major gas companies may be understating the actual methane emissions it purports to certify, a Guardian investigation has found.
BP, ExxonMobil and EQT are among the producers that have turned to London-based MiQ to demonstrate that their US-produced natural gas complies with the European Union Methane Regulation, or EUMR, which aims to curb energy-related emissions.
Jess Staufenberg contributed additional reporting to this piece. The investigation was supported by Journalismfund Europe and Gas Outlook.
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Research from the University of Exeter find that the method could help reduce thefts by as much as 50%
Gulls thrive on snatching chips from unwary beachgoers, but now research shows that painting a pair of eyes on takeaway boxes could put gulls off, reducing thefts by as much as 50%.
Laura Kelley, from the University of Exeter, and colleagues presented herring gulls with tempting takeaways at a number of seaside towns in Devon and Cornwall. When faced with a choice between a box with eyes painted on it and a plain box, the gulls were slower to approach the box with eyes and less likely to peck at it. And the findings, which are published in Ecology and Evolution, show that the effect is sustained, with gulls remaining wary of the boxes with eyes on them, even after repeated exposure.
Continue reading...Summer 2025 was the warmest UK summer on record, with four heatwaves, a top temperature of nearly 38C and a mean temperature of 16.1C
The offer of 1,000 more training posts has been withdrawn after the union refused to scrap the planned six-day strike.
More than a million people in England will start being offered the anti-obesity jab for better heart health and to avoid strokes.
Review finds care for some patients was "below the level that would have been expected".
Diagnosed just before her fourth birthday, Sophia, now 15, can no longer speak and cannot walk unaided.
The Welsh Ambulance Service said newly qualified paramedics would not be offered roles this year due to "financial and operational issues".
Can Universal Credit and the work and benefits system more generally reshape itself to meet a new reality?
Families of seven children believe the wrong sperm or egg donors were used in their IVF treatment.
People sharing pictures and accounts on socials of red, inflamed skin have triggered the first UK research into TSW.
Human composting is when a body placed in a sealed vessel containing organic matter turns into soil.
Deep in the mountains of Palawan, Conservation International scientists are capturing what few people ever see: the secret lives of the Philippines’ rarest species.
At Maido — the Lima restaurant recently crowned the best in the world — one of the star dishes is paiche, a giant prehistoric river fish.Its journey to the table begins on a small family farm deep in Peru’s Amazon.
“Jane Goodall forever changed how people think about, interact with and care for the natural world,” said Daniela Raik, interim CEO of Conservation International.
Conservation International’s Neil Vora was selected for TIME’s Next 100 list — alongside other rising leaders reshaping culture, science and society.
Climate change is happening. And it’s placing the world’s reefs in peril. What can be done?
After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality. The historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters which face numerous threats.
The Amazon rainforest, known for lush green canopies and an abundance of freshwater, is drying out — and deforestation is largely to blame.
The ocean is engine of all life on Earth, but human-driven climate change is pushing it past its limits. Here are five ways the ocean keeps our climate in check — and what can be done to help.
In a grueling and delicate dance, a team led by Conservation International removes a massive undersea killer.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures might be worth even more. An initiative featuring the work of some of the world’s best nature photographers raises money for environmental conservation.
