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Full of clovers and dandelions, with a hard-wearing rye grass, the approach is environmentally friendly and usable
Is there a perfect formula for a hard-wearing flower lawn that is good for pollinators, dogs and people?
The immaculately mown green has fallen out of favour in recent years owing to its lack of support for biodiversity. But there have also been complaints about the tall wildflower meadows that grow during “no mow May” and are less usable for humans and pets.
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Hundreds of projects supported by USAID have been thrown into doubt, as fears grow of an increase in crimes such as poaching and trafficking
When the guns finally fell silent in 1992, little was left alive in Gorongosa national park. During the 15 years of Mozambique’s civil war – in which more than a million people died – the country’s wildlife also paid a terrible price. Poaching for meat and ivory was so intense that the small surviving elephant population rapidly evolved to lose their tusks. Leopards, wild dogs and spotted hyenas had all disappeared. Populations of zebra, buffalo and other herbivores had collapsed.
In the following years, a huge effort to restore the park took shape. Led by the philanthropist Gregory Carr and Mozambique’s government, it was the start of the park’s journey to becoming one of Africa’s most celebrated wildlife conservation success stories. Today, elephants, lions, hippos, antelope, painted wolves, hyenas and leopards all thrive in the park once again – thanks to work that for the past 20 years has been supported by a long-term partnership with USAID.
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Experts say previous economic models underestimated impact of global heating – as well as likely ‘cascading supply chain disruptions’
Economic models have systematically underestimated how global heating will affect people’s wealth, according to a new study that finds 4C warming will make the average person 40% poorer – an almost four-fold increase on some estimates.
The study by Australian scientists suggests average per person GDP across the globe will be reduced by 16% even if warming is kept to 2C above pre-industrial levels. This is a much greater reduction than previous estimates, which found the reduction would be 1.4%.
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Perhaps the most awe-inspiring of over 2,000 species is the amber comet, thought to only remain in Texas and Mexico
If invertebrates are mostly unheralded workers that keep life on Earth ticking over, then fireflies are the rare flamboyant stars that help make that life worth living. They are Elton John in platform shoes and outlandish glasses at his piano, they are Sabrina Carpenter in a glamorous dress as she drops her towel on stage.
Much like a Hollywood starlet who lounges around all day in a dressing gown eating crisps only to emerge later in stunning fashion on the red carpet, fireflies are creatures of the night, where their spectacular light shows both enchant and confound us.
Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.
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Exclusive: Moetai Brotherson fears environmental risks of controversial practice and says independence from France must not be ‘rushed’
French Polynesia’s president has issued a stark warning over the risks of deep-sea mining, saying it will be allowed in his territory “over my dead body” as he argues the potential for environmental damage outweighs any benefits.
Moetai Brotherson’s comments to the Guardian come as countries in the Pacific and elsewhere grapple with whether to extract minerals from the sea floor. Deep-sea mining has not yet begun, but some companies and countries are exploring the practice, which could start in the coming years.
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Wincle, Cheshire: These UK winter visitors herald their departure by tuning their voices to the flock’s exuberant tuneless wanderings
On the path to Wincle Minn, I heard redwings singing from the treetops. It was notable because, while 700,000 of them winter in these islands, barely 50 stay to breed. Yet the birds migrating back to Iceland or Scandinavia, lulled by increases in day length and temperature, start to tune up until the whole flock catches this pre-song habit. The collective voices mark a very specific moment in the year and, as much as the sight of a swallow, tuneless late March redwing rehearsals speak only of spring.
It wasn’t so much a sound as a soundscape or sonic atmosphere: a seamless layer of twittering mixed with awkward rubbery squalling, yet also scraps of sweetness. A recurrent element was a five-six note running of scales, up or down, with a hint of song thrush but of song thrush song stuttering, or as if the phrases had spilled out inadvertently.
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Locals are feeling the impact of the more than 17,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in the city’s streets
“I’m afraid to open my front door, they’re everywhere,” said Mary Dore, eyeing the ground outside her house in Balsall Heath suspiciously. “They run out from under the cars when you get in, they’re going in the engines. They chewed through the cables in my son’s car, costing him god knows how much.
“There’s one street I can’t walk my dog because they come running out of the grass and the piles of rubbish. One time I screamed.”
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New Zealand’s docile, solitary and elusive ‘god of ugly things’ does wonders for the forest-floor ecosystem
Are you sick of throwing yourself on the altar of unrealistic beauty standards? Do you long to celebrate the delightfully monstrous, to give the spiny stuff of shadows their day in the sun? Then consider the mighty wētāpunga – an endemic New Zealand insect so revered for its unconventional beauty its name means “god of ugly things”.
This forest behemoth is thought to be the heaviest adult insect in the world, with a female weighing as much as a mouse or a sparrow. Its body can grow up to 10cm long (nearly 4in) and its leg span can be as wide as 20cm. Once found across parts of the North Island, the vulnerable wētāpunga – the largest of 70 wētā species – now resides entirely on a smattering of predator-free islands near Auckland.
Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.
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Northern Ontario is seeing a ‘shorter window’ for ice roads that deliver vital supplies to remote First Nations
At first there was no answer on the satellite phone. But on the third call, Donald Meeseetawageesic heard his sister’s voice. “We need somebody to come and tow us out,” he told her.
It was a warmer-than-normal night in early March and Meeseetawageesic, the elected band councillor for Eabametoong First Nation, was stranded in a 4x4 truck on the dark winter road leading to his community. The tyres were stuck in the deep snow and the temperature outside was below freezing. Help was about 60km (37 miles) away.
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These creatures evolved over millenia to create nature’s finest circular economy, but are now struggling to survive
There’s no preparing for a first encounter with a thriving coral reef: your attention ricochets between dramas of colour, form and movement. A blaze of fire coral, darting clown fish, crimson sponge, electric blue ray … a turtle! Your heart soars, your head spins. Nowhere else will you encounter such density and diversity of life.
Corals are the architects of all this splendour. Their immobile forms suggest plants, but they’re animals – solar-powered ones. Each is a colony of thousands, sometimes millions, of tiny coral polyps, each resembling a slimmed-down sea anemone, just millimetres tall.
Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.
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