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Exclusive: Ancient oaks ‘as precious as stately homes’ could receive stronger legal safeguards under new proposals
Ancient and culturally important trees in England could be given legal protections under plans set out in a UK government-commissioned report.
Sentencing guidelines would be changed so those who destroy important trees would face tougher criminal penalties. Additionally, a database of such trees would be drawn up and they could be given automatic protections, with the current system of tree preservation orders strengthened to accommodate this.
In 2020, the 300-year-old Hunningham Oak near Leamington was felled to make way for infrastructure projects.
In 2021, the Happy Man tree in Hackney, which the previous year had won the Woodland Trust’s tree of the year contest, was felled to make way for housing development.
In 2022, a 600-year-old oak was felled in Bretton, Peterborough, which reportedly caused structural damage to nearby property.
In 2023, 16 ancient lime trees on The Walks in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, were felled to make way for a dual carriageway.
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Japanese-led team grow 11g chunk of chicken – and say product could be on market in five- to 10 years
Researchers are claiming a breakthrough in lab-grown meat after producing nugget-sized chunks of chicken in a device that mimics the blood vessels that make up the circulatory system.
The approach uses fine hollow fibres to deliver oxygen and nutrients to chicken muscle cells suspended in a gel, an advance that allowed scientists to grow lumps of meat up to 2cm long and 1cm thick.
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Enfield council disputes restaurant chain’s claim 500-year-old tree in Whitewebbs Park was ‘mostly dead’
Toby Carvery has been threatened with legal action by a council over the felling of an ancient oak in a park in north London.
The restaurant chain is facing national outrage after its decision to fell the up to 500-year-old treewithout warning on 3 April.
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Researchers say urgent action needed to inform people about risks of heatwave temperatures and adapt homes
The number of UK homes overheating in summer quadrupled to 80% over the past decade, according to a study, with experts calling the situation a crisis.
Heat already kills thousands of people each year in the UK and the toll will rise as the climate crisis intensifies. Urgent action is needed both to inform people on how to cope with high temperatures and to adapt homes, which are largely designed to keep heat in during the winter, the researchers said.
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The sector, which had been set a target to reduce spillages by 40%, needs ‘radical reform’, campaigners say
Water companies have missed their targets to reduce pollution with 2,487 incidents recorded in 2024 – twice the limit set by the Environment Agency.
Data revealed under freedom of information law shows the companies were collectively set an Environment Agency target of a 40% reduction in pollution incidents, but instead recorded a 30% increase.
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In one Nepali village, the resident rhinos are a conservation success story and attract thousands of visitors, but attacks on humans are on the rise
“I can’t talk now, I’m in hospital,” Ram Kumar Aryal says when he picks up the phone. “Someone has been attacked by one of the rhinos.” Every few months, Aryal – who is one of the architects of Nepal’s celebrated rhino conservation programme – ends up in one of the hospitals around Chitwan national park to respond to a rhino attack. This time, three women had been injured earlier that afternoon by a female rhino outside Laukhani village in the park’s buffer zone.
The hospital had bandaged up their fractured legs and ribs and treated the bites on their hips and knees. “Normally rhinos are vegetarian, but they use their incisors for attacks,” says Aryal. Those incisors can grow to three inches long.
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I have around 20 houseplants – some obviously near death. I called in an expert to teach me how to keep them not just alive, but thriving
I’ve always owned houseplants – but not, it must be said, always the same houseplants.
Of the handful of plants I tend to acquire every year, only one or two survive to see in the next. It’s not that I knowingly neglect them: I try to be attentive to their needs, water them regularly, assess their lighting. Every now and again I’ll even chuck them some plant food. But sadly it seems my enthusiasm for green matter is not matched by a green thumb.
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Parts of the state record their lowest rainfall on record, with devastating impacts on freshwater fish, butterflies, bees and even some hardy trees
Usually hardy trees and shrubs are dying, waterways have turned to dust and ecologists fear local freshwater fish extinctions could be coming as historic dry conditions grip parts of South Australia.
Large swathes of the state – including the Adelaide Plains, the Fleurieu, Yorke and Eyre peninsulas and upper south-east – have seen the lowest rainfall on record in the 14 months since February 2024, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
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With extreme weather and Trump’s looming trade war, US farmers are reeling and resigned to needing more cash help
Farmers across the United States say they could face financial ruin – unless there is a huge taxpayer-funded bailout to compensate for losses generated by Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts and chaotic tariffs.
Small- and medium-sized farms were already struggling amid worsening climate shocks and volatile commodities markets, on top of being squeezed by large corporations that dominate the supply chain.
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Britain’s traditional retailers were in decline for years. Then the pandemic changed how we buy food and boosted the fishing industry
The seafood chef and restaurateur Mitch Tonks recalls the moment things for him changed dramatically. It was March 2020, the start of Covid, when a local fishing boat skipper called him in a panic. “Nick was having a tough time; nobody was buying his catch, so I emailed our customer network,” he says.
Tonks asked people to bring cash and containers. The next morning, Nick landed his boat at Brixham, the south Devon port that is England’s largest fish market by value of catch sold. “About 150 people turned up to buy his fish. Many asked ‘why can’t we just buy fish straight off boats like this normally?’”
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