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After the available money ran out after just six hours, some fear they will have to reverse efforts to boost nature
On Tuesday morning, farmer Peter Hatley logged on to his computer at 10am. England’s 2026 sustainable farming incentive (SFI) was opening for applicants and, after three bad harvests, the money would be a lifeline.
But Hatley, who runs a 240-hectare family farm in Cambridgeshire, was faced with repeated error messages. He called the government’s helpline, which he says acknowledged there were problems with the scheme, but says by the time the problem was fixed, the money had gone.
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Award-winning novelist celebrates late partner’s love of birds with gift to establish the Graeme Gibson chair in avian biology
If she could be any bird, Margaret Atwood would transform into a raven. “They’re very smart. They’re social, playful and just a very successful bird,” she says while seated in a corner of a bird observatory in the Lake Erie Islands archipelago. “They’re quite an intelligent problem solver.”
The observatory, which she set up with her late partner, Graeme Gibson, is located on the west shore of Pelee Island – the southernmost community in Canada – and is so new that there are no lightbulbs in a handful of lamps.
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After years of illegal mass flytipping in Gospić, fed-up residents decided to take matters into their own hands
“Gospić is our home,” Željka Šikić shouted to a crowd of 40,000 people outside the Croatian parliament earlier this month. The slogan is the name of a campaign she helped to set up to protest against the illegal dumping of waste in Gospić, a town in the mountainous Lika region of central Croatia.
Between 2022 and 2024, waste was illegally abandoned at several sites in the town. At one of the biggest, just 50 metres from Šikić’s home, an estimated 35,000 tonnes of waste, some of it hazardous, was dumped and buried.
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National Trust has transformed Sandilands in Lincolnshire into a nature reserve with wetlands and wading pools
There is no chance of a birdie or an eagle any more. But there are skylarks, short-eared owls, avocets and curlew.
Sandilands, a former golf course on the Lincolnshire coast, has been transformed by the National Trust into a 2km-long nature reserve with wetlands, wading pools, rough grassland and coastal scrub.
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Low Catton, East Yorkshire: It was King Harold’s last taste of victory. How chilling it is to visit this unassuming spot and imagine the bloody scene back in 1066
The field with freshly sprouted winter wheat sloping down to the River Derwent looks ordinary; however, today feels anything but. Just standing here, strange chills are swarming through my body and converging in my chest.
It happened here.
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Warnings about the catastrophic effects of vital ecosystems collapsing were not published under previous PM
UK spy chiefs warned government ministers of the catastrophic impacts on national security from the collapse of vital ecosystems around the world, driven by the climate crisis and the overexploitation of nature. But their report, which was supposed to be published almost a year ago, was suppressed under Keir Starmer. Now the government is briefing foreign ministers from other countries on the findings, with a view to gathering global support for more concerted action on the risks.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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Many people despise these birds for violently defending their babies in nests they create in ridiculously vulnerable areas. My community, however, became devoted to them
It was early September when the two spur-winged plover chicks hatched.
They hit the ground running, literally. Shortly after emerging from the speckled brown eggs their mother had laid in a shallow divot, they were scurrying around on their disproportionately long, stilt-like legs. They looked like fluffy brown and white cotton balls that could blow away in the wind.
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Syngenta denies keeping relevant data from the EPA as paraquat stays in the US market despite global bans
Sweden started ringing the alarm bell more than 20 years ago, calling for a ban on the weedkilling chemical paraquat in 2004. One by one, dozens of other countries did the same as evidence of paraquat risks to human health mounted. Even the Chinese government, which owns the longtime paraquat maker Syngenta, halted domestic use of the pesticide a decade ago after conducting its own studies on paraquat safety and finding troubling results.
In the US, two states – Vermont and California – have recently also banned paraquat, citing risks that include an association between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease shown in years of scientific research. And California regulators announced in August that paraquat makers voluntarily agreed to stop selling the chemical after the state identified health concerns in connection with its use in new research. Several federal lawmakers have pushed for a nationwide ban.
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Trump officials and Republicans are rolling back protections against heat-related illnesses and deaths
When it’s 90F on a hot summer day, Esther Minton wears a long-sleeved shirt to work.
“Working outside, you don’t have cover. There’s nowhere for you to really go if you’re on a roof or if you’re on the side of a building,” said Minton, a member of the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 28 in New York City. “Having the sun beaming on your skin all day long, you’ll never make it through, so what you wear makes a difference.”
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