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Volunteer workers say increasing case numbers and dozens of dead birds raise fears spread is wider than recorded
Members of the public and charity volunteers are working to contain a suspected outbreak of bird flu among swans in the Thames Valley, amid signs that confirmed cases are continuing to rise.
Since October, 324 cases of bird flu in swans have been recorded by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha), which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Of these, 39 were recorded in the first four weeks of 2026 alone.
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With some of Ukraine’s most valuable biodiversity sites and science facilities under occupation, experts at Sofiyivka Park in Uman are struggling to preserve the country’s natural history
In the basement laboratory of the National Dendrological Park Sofiyivka, Larisa Kolder tends to dozens of specimens of Moehringia hypanicabetween power outages. Just months earlier, she and her team at this microclonal plant propagation laboratory in Uman, Ukraine, received 23 seeds of the rare flower.
Listed as threatened in Ukraine’s Red Book of endangered species, Moehringiagrows nowhere else in the wild but the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine. Of those 23 seeds, only two grew into plants that Kolder and her colleagues could clone in their laboratory, but now her lab is home to a small grove of Moehringiaseedlings, including 80 that have put down roots in a small but vital win for biodiversity conservation amid Russia’s war with Ukraine.
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A US judge will decide if, as research suggests, a chemical tyre additive is harming endangered fish species
Last week, a district judge in San Francisco, California, presided over a three-day trial brought by west coast fishers and conservationists against US tyre companies. The fishers allege that a chemical additive used in tyres is polluting rivers and waterways, killing coho salmon and other fish. If successful, the case could have implications far beyond the United States.
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The US president tried to kill offshore wind projects – now four are back under construction
Construction has resumed on four offshore wind mega-projects after they survived a near-fatal attack by Donald Trump’s administration thanks to rulings by federal judges. These are being seen as victories for clean energy amid a wider war being waged on it by the Trump administration.
The windfarms are considered critical by grid planners as America faces an energy affordability crisis. Together, the four projects will contribute nearly five gigawatts of energy to the east coast, enough to power 3.5m homes.
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Island’s first tropical storm of season may bring 150mm of rain – meanwhile, eastern Europe freezes with possible night-time lows of -30C
At least three people have died and nearly 30,000 people have been affected by flooding after Madagascar’s first tropical storm of the season hit over the weekend.
Tropical Cyclone Fytia formed to the north-west of Madagascar over the northern Mozambique Channel on Thursday.
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After stories revealed high levels of contamination in neighborhood around factory processing US toxic waste, government announces sweeping array of tactics
The Mexican government has announced it will pursue a sweeping array of tactics to combat industrial pollution, from $4.8m in fines against a plant processing US hazardous waste to the rollout of a new industrial air-monitoring system, following investigations by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, a Mexican investigative unit.
Those stories revealed high levels of heavy-metal contamination in the neighborhood around the factory, Zinc Nacional, in the Monterrey metropolitan area, and showed the broader extent of industrial pollution in the region, linked to Monterrey’s role in manufacturing and recycling goods for the US market.
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Bridport, Dorset: Paths became streams and new islands appeared as the River Brit burst its banks
We were warned that rain was coming – and so it did, barrelling down all night, falling through the darkness on to ground that was already saturated. By the time it was light, the rivers through Bridport had risen and spread across the floodplain, splicing into a broad, brown rope of water twisting to the harbour at West Bay.
Contemptuous of its banks, the River Brit was running noisily across meadows, forming new lakes where herring gulls sat floating on its muddy surge. Water went straight through the allotments, sending plastic pots bobbing like buoys against the boundary fence.
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Events such as Storm Chandra take a terrible toll on ecosystems, but nature can be part of the solution for mitigating flood waters
“The flood waters are only good for scavenger species,” says Steve Hussey, searching hard for a silver lining to last week’s deluges brought by Storm Chandra. When the waters recede, crows and ravens will feast on the carrion of hedgehogs, dormice and other small animals unable to escape the rising water, he says.
“It sounds very apocalyptic, doesn’t it?” says Hussey, a communications officer with the Devon Wildlife Trust.
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Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists – and the release of Juan Orlando Hernández has reinforced its ‘crisis of impunity’, say critics
When Donald Trump announced that he would pardon the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, only the second world leader to be convicted of drug trafficking, Anna*, an environmental defender, was shocked.
In 2022, Hernández, also known as JOH, was extradited to the US and later convicted, along with his brother, on drug trafficking and weapons charges. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle more than 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US, becoming the first Honduran head of state to be tried and sentenced abroad for running a narco state. He was also accused of grave human rights violations.
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Inspired by YouTube creators, some people are limiting beef to a handful of ‘feast days’ a year to cut their climate impact
“I love beef,” says Vlad Luca, 25. But unlike most other self-proclaimed steak lovers, Vlad eats it only four times a year, on designated “beef days”.
The “beef days” phenomenon has been popularised by the brothers John and Hank Green, known collectively as vlogbrothers on YouTube. John, 48, is better known for his YA fiction, including The Fault in Our Stars, while Hank, 45, is a self-described science communicator and entrepreneur.
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