Green energy and protecting nature get the thumbs up in climate change study in 68 countries: Africa has begun experiencing frequent extreme weather events. Extreme weather is defined as the kind of heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods that have historically been rare occurrences for the place and time, and which pose a danger to large …
Wildlife, climate and plastic: how three summits aim to repair a growing rift with nature: By the end of 2024, nearly 200 nations will have met at three conferences to address three problems: biodiversity loss, climate change and plastic pollution. Colombia will host talks next week to assess global progress in protecting 30% of all …
Businesses that try to come clean about their impact on nature can end up concealing more than they reveal: Fahroni/Shutterstock Humans have overfished the ocean, cleared forests, polluted water and created a climate crisis by burning fossil fuels. These actions are affecting biodiversity around the world, from remote islands to our own backyards. Biodiversity can …
You Are Here by David Nicholls – a touching tale of finding love and connection in nature: Forgem/Shutterstock Coming soon after the release of the Netflix version of One Day, David Nicholls’ latest novel is another bitter-sweet homage to skewed romance. While the lovers in One Day are divided by class and aspiration, in You …
Nature conservation works, and we’re getting better at it – new study: To work in nature conservation is to battle a headwind of bad news. When the overwhelming picture indicates the natural world is in decline, is there any room for optimism? Well, our new global study has some good news: we provide the strongest …
Spycatcher scandal: newly released documents from the Thatcher era reveal the changing nature of government secrecy: I grew up in Tasmania in the 1980s. The capital city, Hobart, had a bit of a “living at the edge of the world” feeling in those days. It seemed about as far away from anywhere as you could …
Planet Earth III: how cookie cutter nature programming could fail to educate and inform audiences: Perhaps nothing embodies the BBC’s values of inform, educate and entertain more than its nature documentaries. Planet Earth III is the latest in a proud tradition going back to the founding of the BBC Natural History Unit in 1957 and …
Wild animals that survive limb loss are astonishing – and a sign of the havoc humans are wreaking on nature: Estharix/Shutterstock It might seem astounding that a wild animal could survive a limb amputation and still thrive in the wild but videos from social media and research show this may be more common than people …
UN invasive species report reveals scale of threat to nature and people – and how to manage it: Lionfish are an invasive species in the Caribbean. Drew McArthur/Shutterstock More than 3,500 invasive alien species are seriously compromising human wellbeing and causing irreversible damage to ecosystems, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem …
The Summer Book, Tove Jansson’s novel about love, family and nature, will make you nostalgic for your own childhood: A short novel of rare beauty, Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book (1972) tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl spending the summer with her grandmother on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland. Jansson is …
Three ways to get your nature fix without a garden: There are plenty of ways to benefit from nature in and around your home. fizkes/Shutterstock Spending time in a garden is good for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re watering plants or simply chilling on a deck chair – there’s a whole range of benefits …
How classic psychology warped our view of human nature as cruel and selfish – but new research is more hopeful: DorSteffen/Shutterstock There are a number of classic experiments and theories that every psychology student learns about, but more recent research has questioned their findings so that psychologists today are reevaluating human nature. One example is …
How a surfing sea otter revealed the dark side of human nature: We like to think of sea otters as cute but they can be aggressive. rbrown10/Shutterstock Surfers often talk about how the sport helps them reconnect with nature, but a recent episode involving an otter with a love for surfboards shows just how brittle …
Protection de la nature au Sénégal : les goulots qui entravent la gestion du Parc des oiseaux de Djoudj: Parc des oiseaux de Djoudji. Avec l'autorisation de Aby Sène-Harper. Au Sénégal, la gestion efficace du Parc national des oiseaux de Djoudj, un des sites ornithologiques les plus importants d’Afrique, est entravée par des pratiques autoritaires …
How a 400 million year old fossil changes our understanding of mathematical patterns in nature: The spiky branches of a monkey puzzle tree. Joshua Bruce Allen/Shutterstock If your eyes have ever been drawn to the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem, the texture of a pineapple or the scales of a pinecone, then you …
How getting out into nature can help people with drug and alcohol problems: Jacob Lund/Shutterstock Health professionals may suggest people spend more time out in nature to help with their physical fitness by doing activities in woods, parks or gardens, but research has shown nature-based programmes are also particularly effective for improving poor mental health. …
Let’s protect nature, but not merely for the sake of humans: kasakphoto / shutterstock Environmentalists rightly urge us to consider the long-term effects of our actions. Plastic bags, they point out, can take hundreds of years to decompose, while radioactive waste can remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. It could take the Earth’s …
2030 nature targets agreed in December may already be slipping out of reach: A plate-billed toucan, native to the humid mountain forests of the Andes in South America. Dagmara Ksandrova/Shutterstock As recently as December 2022, 196 countries signed an agreement promising to “live in harmony with nature” by 2050 and to “halt and reverse biodiversity …