-
River charters part of wider movement establishing ‘moral’ framework to protect nature and hold institutions to account
One Monday morning in spring last year, 12 people gathered in the morning drizzle at Joyce’s Pool, one of the sources of the Bristol River Avon, and took the first steps of the inaugural Avon pilgrimage.
Over the course of eight days, a revolving cast of pilgrims walked about 100 miles from the source of the river to the point at which it reaches the sea, in some cases bivvying on the riverside at night. Along the way they planted trees, sowed seeds, restored footpaths and presented councillors and decision-makers with a fledgling Avon charter, developed by the Bristol campaign group Conham Bathing.
Continue reading...
-
People living next to a chemicals plant near Blackpool were tested for ‘forever chemicals’; last week they received the alarming results
Last February, I got a call from a woman called Sam Hammond. We had been speaking on and off for a while over her growing concern that her garden could be affected by pollution from a nearby chemical plant.
That morning, Sam had been hand-delivered a letter from her council informing her that her pet ducks’ eggs, reared in her garden, were contaminated with Pfas chemicals.
Continue reading...
-
EU to push members to cut tax rate below duty on gas, with 10%+ surge in sales also put down to fallout from Iran war
Sales of residential heat pumps jumped across Europe in the first six months of the year as the Iran war sent oil and gas prices rocketing and some countries lowered electricity taxes.
Homeowners bought 1.16m heat pumps across 12 European countries, up from 1.05m in the first half of 2025, according to the European Heat Pump Association (EHPA).
Continue reading...
-
Tom Calver has sacrificed milk yields to give his cows a more varied diet of plants and believes the result is better cheese and richer farmland
In the rolling hills of Somerset, hundreds of thousands of cows placidly munch lush green grass to produce milk for cheddar.
But six fields stand out. Rather than uniform grass, they have technicolour wildflowers sprouting across the meadows. Farmer Tom Calver said that to allow the flowers to grow he has to keep fewer cows and leave some fields ungrazed as they mature.
Continue reading...
-
Bedmond, Hertfordshire:Serge Hill Project is a haven for humans and wildlife, and there’s much to find in its collection of drought-tolerant plants
Looking across a swathe of golden oat grass to the Apple House, it seems almost inconceivable that the M25 and M1 motorways are just beyond the treeline. I’m exploring the Serge Hill Project for Gardening, Creativity and Health: a therapeutic resource for local schools, community groups and charities, founded three years ago by Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith.
All around me, a diverse collection of drought-tolerant plants is thriving in a six-inch layer of sharp sand in the uppermost section of the Plant Library, despite not having been watered once during our sweltering summer.
Continue reading...
-
Keys crops such as cereals, potatoes, sugar and oils grown in areas with moderate to very high risk
The vast majority of the UK’s essential foods, including cereals, potatoes, sugar and oil, are grown in areas of England rated as having a moderate to very high risk of drought.
A very high proportion – 81% – of England’s fresh produce is concentrated in parts of the country that are already experiencing water stress, according to the analysis by the nature-focused investment fund Rebalance Earth.
Continue reading...
-
Plans for one of Europe’s largest AI campuses in a Unesco-designated reserve have sparked a fierce local backlash
The datacentre revolt spreading across the US has reached the rolling hills of north Devon in an uprising against a planned hyperscale AI data campus in the middle of a globally protected landscape.
Perched on an inland cliff, the town of Great Torrington has views that stretch for miles over the landscape of the Unesco biosphere reserve in which it sits, taking in the winding River Torridge and rolling acres of wooded valley and wildflower meadows. Pastoral and peaceful, its history was notably punctured by violence in 1646 when the royalists’ resistance in the first English civil war was brought to an end by the parliamentarian New Model Army in a battle fought out in the narrow streets in heavy rain and darkness.
Continue reading...
-
Traditional woods have had a good innings but rising temperatures mean the need to find alternatives is pressing
What happens if you run out of trees? It is a situation cricket must face in the perfect storm of an expanding game and more precarious growing conditions due to accelerated climate change.
Cricket and willow are the sun and moon of sport. The handcrafted bat, the beautiful, insect-rich tree. But there are now 200 million regular cricketers worldwide. The UK produces half a million willow clefts a year, Kashmir between 1.5 to 3m. With one cleft equalling one bat, the numbers no longer add up.
Continue reading...
-
Fewer than 400 Eriskay ponies remain. One of the rarest native breeds in the world, their plight is unique because the community living on their tiny Hebridean island are fighting for them. The ponies wander the village and townsfolk care for them together
On the slopes of Beinn Sciathan, a rocky outcrop in the Outer Hebrides, white and grey ponies roam freely. Eriskay ponies, one of the rarest native breeds in the world, are critically endangered.
They have often been mixed with the Highland pony and other breeds, giving the false impression of higher population numbers. Only about 300 to 400 Eriskay ponies are thought to remain.
Continue reading...
-
Scientists are racing to understand how fires behave to predict and prevent them as hotter summers create tinderboxes
From the scorched heathlands of the New Forest to the smouldering valleys of south Wales and burned-out homes in Stourbridge, an extraordinary summer of wildfires has left its mark across Britain.
To most of us, these charred landscapes may look like pure devastation, but to a trained wildfire investigator they are full of clues. Heat-scorched leaves can become frozen in position, preserving evidence of the wind direction as the fire passed through. Soot or staining on rocks, the pattern of fallen grass and bracken, and even how those stems have burned, provide further information about how the fire itself moved.
Continue reading...
