Phoebe Weston    More than of the planet’s species live in the soil, but only a fraction have been identified so farRead more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silentThe sound of an earthworm is a distinctive rasping and scrunching. Ants sound like the soothing...

Severin Carrell Scotland editor    Climate campaigners complain of short termism as country abandons target to cut carbon emissions by by Climate campaigners have accused Scottish ministers of being inept and short termist after they scrapped Scotland’s target to cut carbon emissions by by .Mà iri McAllan, the...

Gary Fuller    Researchers say early deaths may have been avoided over year period if technology installedResearch has estimated the health impacts from the coal fired power plants that operate across India.Six hundred coal power plants generate more than of India’s electricity. Despite regulations passed...

Patrick Barkham    Analysis of o gardens shows wilder lawns feed caterpillars and create breeding habitatGood news for lazy gardeners: one labour saving tweak could almost double the number of butterflies in your garden, according to a new scientific study let the grass grow long.In recent years nature lovers...

Reuters    Scientists estimate Vasuki indicus was up to m long, weighed a tonne and would have constricted its preyFossil vertebrae unearthed in a mine in western India are the remains of one of the largest snakes that ever lived, a monster estimated at up to metres in length longer than a T rex...

Phil Gates    Wolsingham, Weardale: Pause for a moment on these colourful stamens and the method of wind pollination seems incredible. Somehow, it worksFrom a distance, the pavement seemed to be crawling with enormous caterpillars, but these are unripe male catkins at my feet, torn down by stormy weather from a...

Beatriz Miranda    In , high explosives were laid in oil wells across sq km of forest. The firm has gone but the pentolite remains, despite a court ruling, putting lives and the ecosystem at riskLiving on the banks of the Bobonaza River, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Indigenous communities in Sarayaku have...

Catherine Roberts of Consumer Reports, with graphics by Aliya Uteuova    Consumer Reports recently conducted its most comprehensive review of pesticides in US fruits and vegetables. Here the organization shares what it foundWhat’s safe to eat Here is the pesticide risk level for each fruit and vegetableWhen it comes to healthy eating, fruits and vegetables reign...

Eva Corlett in Wellington, New Zealand    As nature falls silent in most cities around the world, New Zealand’s capital has been transformed by the sound of native birds returning to the dawn chorusRead more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silentSome time in the pre dawn darkness, the...

Emma Bryce    In the first of a new series, we look at why people reject so much of the bountiful catches from our seas in favour of the same few species, mostly imported and how to change thatPerched on a quay in the Cornish port of Falmouth is Pysk fishmongers, where Giles and Sarah Gilbert started out with...

Flavia Lopes in Pavagada and Bengalaru    As vast solar plants multiply, so does the scrap, set to reach m tonnes by . But disposing of the waste often falls to informal traders who risk injury when dismantling broken panelsUnder the scorching sun, a sea of solar panels gleams in the semi arid landscape. Pavagada, miles north of...

George Monbiot    Marcus Decker dared to protest on climate and was punished. Now he could be deported. Is that a humane democracy When the traditional ruling class was obliged to concede to demands for democracy, it gave away as little as possible. We could vote, but it ensured that crucial elements of the old...

Greg Jericho    Government support for green manufacturing is actually the easy part. To truly reduce emissions, we must stop digging up and burning fossil fuelsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastLast week Anthony Albanese...

First Dog on the Moon    Tell all the maugean skates to hang on until after the next electionSign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are publishedGet all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...

Adam Morton    The challenge for a resource rich, medium sized economy such as Australia is to identify the right green industries to focus on, while minimising the risks to taxpayersGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastIt’s taken a while to get here but Anthony Albanese is on...

Patrick Greenfield    Westerners see elephants as pets, said Mokgweetsi Masisi, whose government threatened to send , elephants to Germany and the UK to demonstrate their dangersMany Europeans value the lives of elephants more than those of the people who live around them, the president of Botswana has said, amid...

Phoebe Weston    As the soundscape of the natural world began to disappear over years, one man was listening and recording it allRead more: World faces deathly silence’ of nature as wildlife disappears, warn expertsThe tale starts years ago, when Bernie Krause made his first audio clip in Sugarloaf Ridge...

Phoebe Weston    Loss of intensity and diversity of noises in ecosystems reflects an alarming decline in healthy biodiversity, say sound ecologistsRead more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silentSounds of the natural world are rapidly falling silent and will become...

Leyland Cecco in Toronto    Notorious for drawing large crowds, Emerson was removed by officials who were surprised to find him back in Victoria in a weekLast week, gun wielding conservation officers stuffed a lb elephant seal in the back of a van, drove him along a winding highway in western Canada and left him on a...

Karen McVeigh and Helena Smith in Athens    The law will come into force in national parks within two years and in all of the country’s marine protected areas by Greece has become the first country in Europe to announce a ban on bottom trawling in all of its national marine parks and protected areas.The country said will spend m ...

Karen McVeigh    Paris claims ban breaches UK EU trade deal but environmentalists say dispute is hypocrisy’, given Macron’s rhetoric on saving oceansFrance has been accused of hypocrisy by conservationists over a fresh post Brexit dispute with the UK over fishing rights.France launched an official protest after...

Mark Hillsdon in Ushuaia, Argentina    While the ecosystem is thriving off the coast of Argentina, the proliferation of salmon farms in Chile’s waters is threatening marine life, say criticsA rocky path, strewn with thick tree roots, leads from a dirt road down to a small green hut overlooking the choppy waters of the Beagle Channel, a...

Leyland Cecco in Toronto    The fate of the calf trapped in a British Columbia lagoon has gripped the public. Can Brave Little Hunter be reunited with her pod In the early s, Canada’s fisheries ministry installed a . calibre machine gun on an island in British Columbia. The weapon, typically used against armoured...

Arthur Neslen    Exclusive: ex officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization say its leadership censored and undermined them when they highlighted how livestock methane is a major greenhouse gasEx officials at UN farming body say work on methane emissions was censoredAnalysis: Impact of farming on climate...

Arthur Neslen    Exclusive: Pressure from agriculture lobbies led to role of cattle in rising global temperatures being underplayed by FAO, claim sources The anti livestock people are a pest’: how UN food body played down role of farming in climate changeAnalysis: Impact of farming on climate crisis will be a key...

Sophie Kevany    Cargill and ADM led push to weaken new protections for threatened ecosystems in South America, report saysCargill and ADM, two of the world’s leading livestock feed companies, helped to scupper an attempt to end the trade in soya beans grown on deforested and threatened ecosystem lands in South...

Sophie Kevany    Outbreaks in the Lombardy pork belt’ were extinguished, say experts, but wild boar could act as a reservoirHuge pig culls took place last week in Italy in an attempt to contain the country’s largest outbreak of African swine fever ASF virus since the s, which threatened the entire pig...

Joanna Ruck    The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Matt Fidler    Scientists have recorded widespread bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef as global heating creates a fourth planet wide bleaching event. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, of ocean waters containing coral reefs have been experiencing heat stress...

Guardian Staff    A new collection of wildlife photography aims to help understand why people have photographed animals at different points in history and what it means in the present. Huw Lewis Jones explores the animal in photography through the work of more than photographers in Why We Photograph Animals,...

Joanna Ruck    Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled.In a landmark decision on one of three major climate cases, the first such ruling by an international court, the ECHR raised judicial pressure on governments to stop filling the...

All photographs courtesy of Vital Impacts    Footage captures flooding near the rural township of Charleville following a weekend of heavy rain in parts of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. Communities across the region have been impacted by flooding, with some isolated by road closures.According to the Bureau of Meteorology,...

   The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

   Ninety wildlife and landscape photographers from around the world are marking the primatologist Jane Goodall turning with a print sale of environmental pictures. The Jane Goodall Institute and the nonprofit Vital Impacts have collaborated on The Nature of Hope: Years of Jane Goodall’s Impact,...