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Charity crowdfunding initial sum to build £750,000 facility on Bodmin Moor to study overlooked but biodiverse natural habitat
Europe’s first research station for the study of Atlantic temperate rainforest is set to be built beside an ancient wood in Cornwall.
The Thousand Year Trust charity is crowdfunding an initial amount to build the £750,000 facility, which will enable students and academics to study this historically overlooked but biodiverse natural habitat.
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By learning to live with its ursine neighbours, mountainous Pettorano sul Gizio has drawn tourists and new residents, bucking a trend of rural decline
Pettorano sul Gizio is a medieval mountain town full of alleys, watchful cats and wooden doors locked sometime in the last century. In the lower parts of town, rustic charm turns into abandonment – branches grow out of walls and roofs have fallen in. The only bar closed at Christmas, after the owner died. Some “For Sale” signs have been up so long the phone number is illegible.
The town, with its faded ochre and orange hues, is listed as one of Italy’s I Borghi più belli (an association of historic towns). In 1920, about 5,000 people lived here, now the population is 390. It resembles many others in Italy’s south-central Abruzzo region, home to a shrinking, ageing population. One nearby town has been almost completely abandoned, and is home to just 12 people.
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‘Everybody in the ecosystem benefits from gopher tortoises being there,’ says ranger at park where the animals settled
Dozens of gopher tortoises survived a perilous sea crossing after being swept from their homes during Hurricane Helene last summer, and are enjoying a new lease of life on a remote stretch of Florida coastline.
Rangers at Fort de Soto county park near St Petersburg say that before the September storm only eight of the vulnerable species were known to be living there.
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UK’s £800m research body backs project that could unlock radical therapies to extend human lifespans
The curious case of the queen bee has long had scientists pondering whether the head of the hive harbours the secret to a long and healthy life.
While queen bees and workers have nearly identical DNA, the queens enjoy what might be regarded as royal privileges. They are larger, fertile throughout life and survive for years compared with workers, who last a few months at best.
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Victoria Rance says the ‘1970s technology’ will cause pollution that will damage health for decades, but London mayor and TfL claim it will reduce congestion
A multibillion-pound road tunnel under the River Thames will be out of date the moment it opens, according to campaigners.
The first cars and lorries are due through the Silvertown tunnel in east London on Monday, passing between Greenwich on the south side of the river and Newham in the north.
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Abbeydale, Sheffield: With the bees returning, spring has truly arrived, and they’re attracted particularly to our neighbour’s cherry plum
Through the winter I went out every day to get my fix of nature. Now, though, it’s practically breaking into the house. I need only open the bedroom curtains. Beneath me, as happens every spring, the neighbour’s cherry plum is having its moment in the spotlight. Some years, in fact most, this is a fleeting glimpse of pink that disappears in heavy rain, or even hail, but this year it has been a glorious and protracted performance. Blossom extended across its canopy and has stayed there, much to the excitement of the birds and insects. My job is simply to hang out of the window and watch.
Spring is quite the production. The theatre has been vacated for months, but now the actors are returning, taking up their old marks and delivering their familiar lines. The dunnock is front of stage, hopping around under the cherry plum; the wren is in its familiar spot centre-third, firing off its automatic rattle. Upstage is the chorus: coal tits, nuthatches, wood pigeons gathering in the dead alder, and the blackbird outsinging them all with his slow, round melody. Waiting in the wings, I pray, is the song thrush, in recent years an intermittent presence. And it’s the cherry plum that raises the curtain.
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Nearly five months ago, the Indigenous land rights defender went out to herd animals in the forest and vanished. Her family say she had been threatened – and no trace of her has been found
Julia Chuñil Catricura’s home is a wooden cabin nestled within the dense foliage of the hilly Valdivian rainforest. It has no running water, electricity or mobile phone coverage. It is a modest setup – for Chuñil, living here was an act of resistance, a vindication of her rights.
Chuñil, 72, is Mapuche, Chile’s largest Indigenous group. A land defender who fought for Mapuche land rights and practised ancestral farming methods and medicinal techniques, she moved to this spot in 2015.
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Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems
Less than a lifetime ago, great flocks of Carnaby’s cockatoos cast large shadows over Perth. Now, the long-term clearing of eucalypt forests and banksia woodlands, combined with southern Western Australia’s driest and hottest period on record, is pushing the species towards extinction. Scientists say little is being done to reverse the decline.
Peter Mawson, a research associate at Western Australia’s biodiversity department, is old enough to remember a time when the birds were a common sight. “Sometimes, I see people make comments on social media that they’ve seen a flock of 100 Carnaby’s cockatoos and they’re really chuffed at that, because normally you see them in 10s or 20s,” he said. “But when I was a small boy collecting firewood with my father not far from where I grew up it was not uncommon to see flocks of 3,000 to 5,000 birds fly overhead.
Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
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Some of the country’s most loved native species, including the koala and the hairy-nosed wombat, are on the brink. Is this their last chance at survival?
Most parliamentarians might be surprised to learn it, but Australians care about nature. Late last year the not-for-profit Biodiversity Council commissioned a survey of 3,500 Australians – three times the size of the oft-cited Newspoll and representative of the entire population – to gauge what they thought about the environment. The results tell a striking story at odds with the prevailing political and media debate.
A vast majority of people – 96% – said more action was needed to look after Australia’s natural environment. Nearly two-thirds were between moderately and extremely concerned about the loss of plants and animals around where they live.
Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
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A wildlife crossing across the 101 freeway will connect two parts of the Santa Monica mountains for animals
Above the whirring of 300,000 cars each day on Los Angeles’s 101 freeway, an ambitious project is taking shape. The Wallis Annenberg wildlife crossing is the largest wildlife bridge in the world at 210ft long and 174ft wide, and this week it’s had help taking shape: soil.
“This is the soul of the project,” says Beth Pratt, the regional executive director, California, at the National Wildlife Federation, who has worked on making the crossing become a reality over the last 13 years. She says she’s seen many milestones, like the 26m pounds of concrete poured to create the structure, but this one is special.
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