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Sarah Finch is among six recipients of the Goldman Environmental prize, awarded to honour grassroots activists around the world
The woman whose campaigning set a legal precedent in the UK that stopped thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions has been awarded one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes alongside five other women from around the globe.
A supreme court ruling in a case brought by Sarah Finch has been cited in decisions against new oil concessions in the North Sea, the UK’s first new deep coalmine for 30 years and even plans for new large-scale factory farms.
Iroro Tanshi, a Nigerian conservation ecologist who launched a successful, community-led campaign to protect endangered bats from human induced wildfires;
Borin Kim, a South Korean activist who won the continent’s first successful youth-led climate litigation, finding her government’s climate policy to be in violation of the rights of future generations;
Alannah Acaq Hurley, a leader of the Yup’ik Indigenous people led a campaign that stopped what would have been the continent’s largest open-pit mine, in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region;
Yuvelis Morales Blanco, a youth activist who mobilised others in her Afro-descendant community in Puerto Wilches against two drilling projects, preventing the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia;
Theonila Roka Matbob, of Papua New Guinea, whose campaign forced Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, to sign an agreement to address devastation caused by its Panguna mine.
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As the rising number of vessels in the icy waters increases the risk of environmental disaster, scientists are scrambling to find potential solutions
Last winter, inside the subarctic Churchill Marine Observatory in Canada, scientists embarked on an experiment they hoped would result in a gamechanging remedy for polluted Arctic waters. They released130 litres of diesel into an ice-covered pool filled with raw seawater pumped in from Hudson Bayand added oil-eating microbes. The technique had been used successfully during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the scientists wanted to see if they could break down oil in colder waters.
The microbes were sluggish in response and the population showed little change after the first three weeks, says Eric Collins, a microbiologist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, who led the project. But that did not last. “When we went back eight weeks later, we saw that there was a big change,” Collins says. “One particular bacterium grew to a very high abundance in the tanks and it was clear that it was feeding on the oil.” But two months is too long to wait should an oil spill occur. Time is of the essence.
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Zoological Society of London commissions poet laureate for animation to mark its 200th anniversary
Over its two centuries, acclaimed writers and artists have found inspiration at London zoo, from Edwin Landseer’s Trafalgar Square lions, to AA Milne’s naming “Winnie” after resident bear Winnipeg, and Sylvia Plath’s poem Zoo Keeper’s Wife.
Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, who would become poet laureate, worked at the zoo briefly as a dish washer, an experience said to have helped fuel his inspiration for The Thought-Fox.
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Authors set out to correct under-representation of female sounds – and found some surprising revelations
When we hear the beautiful call of a bird from a high bough, we’re told it’s likely to be a male – singing for territory, or belting out tunes to woo a female. But as the annual dawn chorus reaches a crescendo this spring, a new guidebook is urging us to think again – and turn our ears to the hidden world of female birdsong.
The songs, sounds and sights of female birds have historically been overlooked in field guides and sound archives. In 2016, just 0.01% of the bird sounds in the global Xeno-Canto sound library were labelled female. Another sound archive was just 0.03% female, according to a 2018 study.
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Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: A large mare is being aggressive not just to the dying deer in its paddock, but also me for trying to save it
It’s been a strange few weeks, not least because Dad is in hospital. On the farm, we’re all trying to carry on as normal.
Outside, too, has seemed peculiar: three oystercatchers on the cut grass of the Norfolk Showground event venue, their orange beaks flashing neon as they probed for earthworms. Unlike many waders, oystercatchers can nest in peculiar places such as rooftops or roundabouts, as extra protection for their young. Still, to find them here, hemmed in by a dual carriageway, is a surprise. Dad reminds me, from his hospital bed, that the River Yare is close.
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Rising sea levels and ecological damage caused by heavy use of flood defence system force city authorities to consider next move
The Arsenale, the colossal shipyard that was the engine of the Venetian Republic’s domination for seven centuries, remains the nucleus of the city’s control over the water. Its northern section is made up of cavernous brick warehouses called capannoni, which in the 16th century could produce a warship a day through a rigorously ordered assembly line.
Now, one of them houses the operations centre of the Mose, the sprawling flood defence system that protects the city.
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A former horticultural nursery in Regent’s Park has been transformed into a diverse mix of habitats, with a wide range of species already spotted ahead of its opening to the public on April 27
When the Queen Elizabeth II garden opens in Regent’s Park this month, the first people to visit the Royal Parks’ £5m biodiversity project will quickly discover they are not, in fact, the first visitors.
That honour belongs to a hairy-footed flower bee, a breeding pair of geese, some dragonfly nymphs, a flock of grey wagtails, a prickle of hedgehogs, an armada of newts, a flutter of spring butterflies and a “very cheeky” fox.
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In Poland, 80,000 people still work in coalmines – the last in the European Union that is fully committed to the energy transition. Once active mines are being converted to other uses, and yet coal is being extracted at record rates worldwide, and with the Iran war pushing up oil and gas prices, some in Poland are asking whether it is worth completely phasing out this fossil fuel
Coal dust is fine; it seeps into the pores of the skin. That is why a thin black line permanently traces the outline of Rafal Dzuman’s eyes, as if he were wearing makeup. Team leader of the G-2 mining crew, 49-year-old Rafal Dzuman has been descending every day to 700 metres below ground for at least 20 years, at the Murcki-Staszic coalmine in southern Poland. Opened in the mid-17th century and today owned by the Polish giant PGG, the mine sits on the southern outskirts of Katowice, and still extracts about 23,000 tonnes of coal a day.
Katowice, Poland: Miners exit the lift after working in the coal-mining tunnels at the Murcki-Staszic Mine (PGG Group), located on the southern outskirts of the city. Coal mining began here in 1657; today, the mine’s daily production stands at about 23,000 tonnes
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The planning minister will shortly decide whether to approve a Sydney aged care development on a site at risk of serious flooding
An aged care development in Sydney’s inner west is looming as a key test of the New South Wales government’s plans to rapidly boost the housing supply.
The proposal for seniors housing at Junction Street in Forest Lodge, including a 12-bed aged care facility and 71 independent living units, is being assessed under the state significant development pathway after closing to public submissions in October last year.
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After deadly 2023 fires, recent storms and ICE raids, Lahaina residents are determined to rebuild the town for their community
In March, Hawaii was hit with two back-to-back storms, bringing the worst flooding it’s seen in 20 years. In Lahaina, Maui, muddy flood waters turned streets into rivers and carved new paths through the barren landscape, breaking open roads and flooding houses. In their wake, sinkholes appeared, engulfing cars.
This is nearly three years after the deadliest wildfires in US history ravaged Lahaina, destroying more than 2,000 structures and killing more than 100 people. Hundreds of affected households are still in temporary housing. Poverty, unemployment and housing instability, rife before the fires, have only worsened.
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