The decline of honey bees in the UK has been well documented. Is it a demonstration of climate change and, if so, what can be done? QUENTIN SCOTT, director at renewable energy investment company Low Carbon, discusses how it has partnered with Plan Bee to educate communities and support biodiversity
The Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy is empowering a new generation of Kenyans to reclaim the conservationist narrative. HUMPRHEY KARIUKI, a patron of the society, explores how wildlife conservation in Africa is harmed by a Western dominated approach.
Britain is known as a nation of animal lovers. It is the birthplace of Watership Down, Peter Rabbit - and Animal Farm. But the meat, cosmetics and other animal dependent industries are also a large part of the British economy. Until now, EU regulations have improved animal welfare. As the country prepares for Brexit, HELEN BROWNING asks whether animal sentience will remain recognised by UK law.
New research suggests that we are heading for an "ecological Armageddon" that will affect all life on the planet, including humans. COLIN TODHUNTER investigates.
President Santos of Colombia has won awards for championing peace and biodiversity. He was in London recently to receive the Kew International Medal, the first head of state to be awarded the honour by the Royal Botanical Gardens (RGB) Kew. But not everyone is impressed, reports CATHERINE EARLY.
“Make people smile, and then ask for help”, was a philosophy embraced by the late adventurer Mark Shand. A convoy racing 500km across India in a collection of eclectic vehicles is aiming to do just that. CATHERINE EARLY reports.
The Hope Farm Bird Index has more than trebled between 2000 and 2017. Butterfly numbers on the farm have also increased by 213 percent. But during the same period the Farmland Bird Index nationally has decreased. JACK ALEXANDER reports
Human beings are now waging war against life itself as we continue to destroy not just individual lives, local populations and entire species in vast numbers but also the ecological systems that make life on Earth possible. By doing this we are now accelerating the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history and virtually eliminating any prospect of human survival, writes ROBERT J BURROWES
Biodiversity refers to the variety of all living things on Earth, but people often have very specific ideas of what it means. If you run an online search for images of biodiversity, you are likely to find lots of photos of tropical rainforests and coral reefs. Those ecosystems are invaluable, but biodiversity also exists in many other places writes ecologist, CHRISTOPHER SWAN
Ecologist reporter, LAURA BRIGGS, joins the animal charities and volunteers gathered earlier this week on a secret mission - the release of 18 pairs of endangered dormice into the wild
If you live or spend time in the UK countryside it may have been some time since you spotted the native brown hare - if you've ever seen one at all. That's because the hare relies on an increasingly disappearing biodiverse landscape for its food. LAURA BRIGGS talks to the scientists behind a new study investigating what type of planting - including bioenergy crops - will help stop hare populations from continuing to decline
It's barely mentioned in the election campaign or reported in the media. But a powerful faction of Tory ministers, ex-ministers and backbench MPs are bent on using Brexit to ignite a massive bonfire of 'spirit-crushing' laws on wildlife protection, air and water pollution, pesticides, renewable energy and public health, writes Brendan Montague. At risk are not just EU directives and regulations but even the UK's own Climate Change Act. May's Brexit may not just be hard, but very, very dirty.
As China pursues a startling array of energy, mining, logging, agricultural, transport and other infrastructure projects on virtually every continent, it is having an unprecedented impact on the planet, writes William Laurance. It's not that China is any worse than historic colonial powers - the difference is in the sheer scale and pace of environmental destruction, and the total lack of oversight under which Chinese mega-corporations operate.
Rio Tinto's QMM mine in Madagascar was meant to be an exemplar of 'corporate social responsibility' and environmental best practice. But the reality experienced by local communities is different, writes Yvonne Orengo, with uncompensated land seizures, food insecurity, deforestation and social deprivation. New concerns are emerging about the infringement of legal buffer zones and radiation exposure. Rio Tinto must be held responsible for its actions!
We may know that palm oil is wiping out rainforests worldwide, writes Philip Lymbery. But few realise that our factory farmed meat and dairy are contributing to the problem. As revealed in Philip's new book, 'Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were', palm kernels, left after pressing the fruit for oil, is a protein-rich livestock feed of growing importance. And nowhere is the impact greater than Sumatra, home (for now) to its own unique species of elephant.
