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Greece is hoping that protected areas will help keep daytrippers away and allow vulnerable monk seals to return to their island habitats
Deep in a sea cave in Greece’s northern Sporades, a bulky shape moves in the gloom. Someone on the boat bobbing at a distance offshore passes round a pair of binoculars and yes! – there it is. It’s a huge Mediterranean monk seal, one of the world’s rarest marine mammals , which at up to 2.8 metres and over 300kg (660lbs), is also one of the world’s largest types of seal.
Piperi, where the seal has come ashore, is a strictly guarded island in the National Marine Park of Alonissos and Northern Sporades, Greece’s largest marine protected area (MPA) and a critical breeding habitat for the seals. Only researchers are allowed within three miles of its shores, with permission from the government’s Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency.
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Region known as ‘world’s refrigerator’ is heating up as much as four times as quickly as global average, Noaa experts say
The Arctic endured a year of record heat and shrunken sea ice as the world’s northern latitudes continue a rapid shift to becoming rainier and less ice-bound due to the climate crisis, scientists have reported.
From October 2024 to September 2025, temperatures across the entire Arctic region were the hottest in 125 years of modern record keeping, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said, with the last 10 years being the 10 warmest on record in the Arctic.
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Researcher in Kerala rainforest sounds alarm after being told frogs had died after being handled by humans
A group of endangered “galaxy frogs” are missing, presumed dead, after trespassing photographers reportedly destroyed their microhabitats for photos.
Melanobatrachus indicus, each the size of a fingertip, is the only species in its family, and lives under logs in the lush rainforest in Kerala, India. Their miraculous spots do not indicate poison, as people sometimes assume, but are thought to be used as a mode of communication, according to Rajkumar K P, a Zoological Society of London fellow and researcher.
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Conservationists appeal to public for help after rare birds disappear in suspicious circumstances
One of the first white-tailed eagles to fledge in England for hundreds of years has vanished in suspicious circumstances, alongside two more “devastating” disappearances of the reintroduced raptor.
Police are appealing for public help as they investigate the disappearances, which are a setback to the bird’s successful reintroduction. Their disappearance is being investigated by several police forces and the National Wildlife Crime Unit.
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Experts are calling for the integration of mental health into climate-disaster policy in the Caribbean as studies show that PTSD risks increase after hurricanes and displacement
When Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica on 28 October with 185mph winds, destroying homes, hospitals and infrastructure, killing 32 people and affecting 1.5 million, Toni-Jan Ifill immediately realised it would leave many with long-term traumatic memories.
A month and a half after the storm, which also affected eastern Cuba, the clinical psychologist says recollections of the terrifying winds also haunt some of the staff at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston. Even the sound of rain can cause trauma responses among people who lived through it.
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Social and environmental reporting to be required of fewer companies after EPP aligns with far right to achieve goals
Fewer companies operating in Europe will be made to carry out due diligence on the societal harms they cause, in what green groups have called a “betrayal” of communities affected by corporate abuse.
The gutting of the EU’s sustainability reporting and due diligence rules, which was greenlit by MEPs on Tuesday, slashes the number of companies covered by laws to protect human and ecological rights, and removes provisions to harmonise access to justice across member states.
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Unless urgent action is taken life will be fundamentally altered for the ancient communities who live on its banks
As a leader of one of the oldest gnostic religions in the world, Sheikh Nidham Kreidi al-Sabahi must use only water taken from a flowing river, even for drinking.
The 68-year-old has a long grey beard hanging over his simple tan robe and a white cap covering his equally long hair, which sheikhs are forbidden from cutting. He says he has never got ill from drinking water from the Tigris River and believes that as long as the water is flowing, it is clean. But the truth is that soon it may not be flowing at all.
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Residents of Gloster, Mississippi, are suing plant that exports wood pellets to UK and Europe. Company says it is reducing emissions
When Helen Reed first learned about the bioenergy mill opening in her hometown of Gloster, Mississippi, the word was it would bring jobs and economic opportunities. It was only later that she learned that activity came with a cost: the Amite Bioenergy mill, opened in 2014 by British energy giant Drax, emits large – and sometimes illegal – quantities of air pollutants, including methanol, acrolein and formaldehyde, which are linked to cancers and other serious illnesses.
“When I go out, I can’t hardly catch my breath,” Reed said. “Everything is worse since Drax came here.”
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I had no idea what to do with the injured bird I named Belinda. But suddenly 3,000 Mancunians were happy to help, giving me a whole new appreciation of my home town
The plane pushed through wall after wall of sleet on its descent into Manchester. I’d had a sinking feeling during the flight that only deepened as I shuffled through the terminal. I resented having to be back in the city where I had grown up, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.
After a few days, I headed out to get a haircut. My mind was miles away, back across an ocean, when I heard something hit the pavement. I looked down to see a pigeon on its back, spatchcocked, and twitching.
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Nepenthes khasiana oozes an enticing liquid on the rim of its pitchers that tempts its prey into a deadly trap
A carnivorous pitcher plant has recently been found to use a chemical nerve agent to drug its prey and lead them to a deadly end, being consumed in digestive juices at the bottom of the pitcher traps.
The pitcher plant Nepenthes khasiana oozes an enticing sweet nectar on the rim of its pitchers for visiting insects, particularly ants, to feed on to lure them into the trap. But the nectar is laced with a toxic nerve agent called isoshinanolone, which strikes at the ant’s nervous system, leaving it with sluggish movements, weakened muscles, and causing it to groom itself excessively. Eventually the prey falls upside down in spasms, with the nerve agent sometimes killing it outright. But apart from isoshinanolone, the nectar also contains three types of sugars that can all absorb water and make the rim of the pitcher especially slippery, so the prey is more likely to slide down into the pitchers.
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