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UN forecasters warn of worsening conditions in 45 countries currently experiencing severe food insecurity
About 50 million people are likely to be pushed into acute hunger before the end of next year by the rapidly developing El Niño weather system, according to forecasting.
This is in addition to the hundreds of millions of people already facing dangerous levels of hunger, owing to years of drought in parts of Africa and pressure on food prices from the war in Iran.
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Over-the-counter treatments for cats and dogs contain chemicals that are banned in pesticides and pollute waterways
Over-the-counter flea treatment for cats and dogs should be banned as millions of hazardous chemicals are unnecessarily applied to UK pets each year, a parliamentary report has concluded.
Cats and dogs are widely treated with topical, or “spot on”, treatments that include insecticides to prevent fleas. Vets often recommend regular treatments as a preventive measure, even when the animals do not have fleas.
It’s Invertebrate of the Year again! Every day from 3-12 August, we will be profiling one of the thousands of amazing invertebrates that our readers have nominated, and when you have heard about all of them, we will open the voting so you can choose your favourites. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with thoughts and ideas. Email us at [email protected] with Invertebrate in the subject line.
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Increasingly erratic weather patterns due to climate change mean people are losing homes, crops and livestock
As rain lashed the Pir Panjal mountains before dawn on 19 July, Haji Mohammad Latief stepped outside his home in Murrah, a remote mountain village in Indian-administered Kashmir. His daughter had asked him to move the family’s car to a safer place as the rain got heavier.
“I had only just parked it,” Latief recalled. “When I turned around, I saw the water coming.” Minutes later, a cloudburst sent mud, boulders and water crashing down the hillside.
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Cristian Lucañas has discovered multiple species of cockroach in the Philippines, and believes there’s far more to the much-maligned insect than meets the eye
When Cristian Lucañas tells people about his job, their response is normally a mix of shock and confusion. “The majority would actually be questioning why,” says Lucañas, 32, who is the only entomologist specialising in cockroaches in the Philippines, where he is known as the “Cockroach Lord”.
He recalls one person, apparently perplexed at the insects’ existence, asking simply: “Did God create cockroaches?” Others seek advice on how best to kill them.
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Scientists find ruminants emit more of greenhouse gas individually than cows, although total contribution tiny compared with domesticated livestock
When cows belch and fart they release methane, which is warming the planet, but how does this compare with the digestive gases emitted by wild animals? A new study shows that deer add the greatest amount of methane to the atmosphere, but compared with domesticated livestock their total contribution is minuscule.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, which has been rising rapidly in recent years, but it is hard to pin down exactly where it is coming from. Like domesticated cows, wild ruminants such as deer, moose and llamas rely on bacteria to help them break down the fibrous plants they eat, releasing methane as they go. To understand how much methane wild ruminants release, Theresia Yazbeck, from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, and colleagues used recent estimates of global wild animal populations and combined these with methane emission estimates based on body mass and diet.
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Lib Dems and many Labour MPs join farmers, landowners and firefighters in urging temporary prohibition
Farmers and landowners are calling for a temporary ban on disposable barbecues in England and Wales, as they warn of the risk of igniting wildfires.
The call, which has also been made by firefighters and is backed by the Liberal Democrats and many Labour MPs, comes as much of England faces further hot dry weather, despite rain in some areas.
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Troedyraur, Ceredigion: Let’s sing the praises of this network of volunteers who move slowly and look hard, gathering vital wildlife data – and finding fantastic species
Even before we start a Wildwatch recording morning, Carys May of the West Wales Biodiversity Information Centre has made two identifications: an intimidating dark giant horsefly (Tabanus sudeticus) with huge eyes close together and a notch-horned cleg or horsefly (Haematopota pluvialis), which bit me.
As we walk through Pencoedtop, a former conifer plantation now being restored to moorland (rhos in Welsh), Carys moves slowly and looks hard. She spots a mining bee, one that can only be identified under a microscope. This one doesn’t collect pollen neatly in its leg baskets, but exits flowers covered in powder, which the female seals into her nest with her eggs. In a bank of brambles, Carys points out several marmalade hoverflies (Episyrphus balteatus), which look like slim wasps. These pollinators migrate at great heights from the continent. She says that, if in doubt, the county hoverfly recorder, like a kind of naturalist archangel, is quick to respond to queries.
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This week, we launched our third annual vote to honour nature’s unsung heroes. The Guardian’s natural history writer – and woodlouse fanboy – Patrick Barkham will be here from 4pm BST (11am EDT) to discuss this year’s poll and why we must celebrate the spineless
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What do the tardigrade and the earthworm have in common? They are, of course, the two previous winners of the Guardian’s Invertebrate of the Year poll. An annual contest that pits some of the the natural world’s finest species against each other in celebration – and to remind ourselves why beetles, slugs, worms and moths and others play a critical role in the planet’s infrastructure.
Contenders to take the tardigrade’s crown this year include the common woodlouse and the immortal jellyfish. We’ll be revealing the rest of the shortlist over the next few days.
As the Guardian’s natural history writer, Patrick is one of the UK’s foremost nature writers and has written books about badgers, moths and his lifelong love of the outdoor world. His recent reporting has looked at rewilding projects, the homing habits of swifts and people pretending to be otters.
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Demonstrators stage ‘tree sit’ in Arizona town to stop felling of ancient cottonwood grove to make way for border wall
Protesters are staging a “tree sit” in a tiny Arizona town to prevent the destruction of a grove of ancient cottonwood trees as federal contractors race to build a row of two 30ft walls along the border with Sonora, Mexico.
The gathering ramped up last week in the town of Lochiel, in the remote San Rafael valley of south-east Arizona. On 27 July, contractors working for Fisher Sand and Gravel crushed three of the largest cottonwoods with excavators.
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Britain exported 139,000 tonnes of rubbish to Turkey last year, leaving smallholders and poor districts of Adana to cope with the debris, microplastics and toxic smoke
Plastic debris clings to the reeds in a waterway metres from where Ayhan*, a farmer in Adana, southern Turkey, is harvesting aubergines. “We get pollution from all sides here,” he says, referring to the plastic recycling zone upstream, as well as a nearby textile plant that he suspects is making the water acidic. “The plastics are all there, by the bank, and the fumes come this way.”
Between May 2021 and July 2024, 13 British companies sent 545 shipments of household and supermarket plastic waste, totalling 52,000 tonnes, to the Kemal Deniz recycling zone, under a mile from Ayhan’s aubergine fields, according to data analysed for the Guardian by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international NGO.
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