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Shaun Hancox has created scores of ponds for rewilding projects across Britain – and he says there’s a lot more to it than digging a hole
He is known as “the Picasso of ponds” but the tableaux being created by Shaun Hancox in a boggy field in Somerset currently looks more like a building site. An orange and black excavator is rhythmically removing lumpy clay soil and sculpting it into brown banks.
The result looks like a scar of bare earth on what was once green pasture – but the magic happens as soon as rain fills the newly created depressions. Plants seed swiftly, invertebrates and amphibians rapidly find the water, and life explodes.
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Hungerford, Berkshire: In a nearby farm, ever-resourceful birds and bees are getting creative with where they build their nests
There are some unusual nesting spots being utilised in the farm and stableyard, revealed by pauses between chores.
My wheelbarrow trips to the muck heap are attended by pied and grey wagtail pairs that make small aerial assaults on insects, though I’ve yet to locate their nests. Swallows too are well-served here by midges and flies swarming around warm-blooded animals, and there is always mud for nest repairs, with the regular slosh of water buckets and hosing down of sweaty horses.
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UN report says global meat supply has risen fourfold in last 60 years and is expected to keep rising
The average person eats about six times as much chicken and twice as much pork as their grandparents’ generation did, data from a UN report suggests, with global meat supply having risen fourfold in the last 60 years and expected to keep rising.
The supply of poultry rose from below 3kg a person in 1961 to 17kg in 2022, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Pork supply doubled to 15kg a person over the same period, while beef, the most polluting food, stayed steady at 9kg.
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Weather models project a potentially strong El Niño this year, which could spell disaster for heatwave-hit India, drench China and hurt agriculture across south-east Asia
The UN has warned that the world must prepare for the imminent return of El Niño and the raised global temperatures and weather extremes it brings.
The powerful natural weather pattern has an 80% chance of forming before September and a 90% chance before November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.
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Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will ‘severely degrade’ the accuracy of weather predictions
The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather predictions and El Niño forecasts, with economic consequences for the US, European and American scientists have warned.
Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month.
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Experts say increased use of crops for fuel is ‘dangerous game’ that could send food price inflation soaring
Demand for biofuels is likely to leap by nearly a third this year, which could send food price inflation soaring further and push the world closer to a global food crisis.
More countries are opting to increase biofuel use as the price of oil has jumped to nearly $100 a barrel after the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and the closure of the strait of Hormuz.
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Migrant insects have been seen in large numbers along east coast thanks to heatwave and benign southerly winds
If you’ve spotted a pale orange butterfly dashing at frenetic pace through streets, fields or gardens, you’ve noticed the new migrants that will add colour to the summer in record-breaking numbers.
What is expected to be the largest arrival of painted lady butterflies in Britain for 17 years is under way after heatwaves and favourable winds ushered thousands if not millions of the insects northwards.
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The UK’s biggest bird of prey has been compared to a flying barn door. So how can one fitted with a satellite tracker disappear in prime grouse-shooting country?
The six police officers arrived at the Snilesworth estate in two pickup trucks last week, according to one account. They asked to go up on the moors, a source said, and “so off they went”.
A vast expanse of spectacularly undulating lands on the western edge of the North York Moors, Snilesworth is globally renowned for its grouse, partridge and pheasant shooting. It is known locally for attracting “rich people from London in helicopters and blacked-out SUVs”.
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Mette Frederiksen’s new government promises overhaul for people – and animals – in home of ultra-intensive farming
Like all new prime ministers, when Mette Frederiksen secured a third consecutive term as Denmark’s head of government this week, she promised her administration would take steps to “improve the everyday lives” of the country’s inhabitants.
Unlike most new prime ministers, however, she specified that her left-leaning coalition’s policy programme would be not just for “the people who are in Denmark and the generations to come” but also “for the animals”.
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As demand for cobalt, gold and other minerals grows, mining is accelerating deforestation in the Congo basin – and increasing the risk of deadly Ebola outbreaks
For decades after the discovery of Ebolavirus in 1976, outbreaks of the disease were relatively small and contained, affecting a few hundred people at most.
Not any more. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola have been much larger, affecting thousands and even tens of thousands of people across multiple countries. The 2014 outbreak of Ebola in west Africa infected more than 28,000 people in 10 countries on three continents. The current eruption, which began in early May and shows no signs of abating, has caused 363 confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has crossed into Uganda.
Sonia Shah is the author of five books including Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, and writes the newsletter Cross Pollinations on Substack
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