Seagrass meadows play a significant role in supporting world fishery productivity.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Analysis and Comment
The world's national parks cover an area bigger than South America. But a new survey finds that one-third of this area is subject to pressure from human developments, potentially putting wildlife at risk.
Many sacred sites such as temples, and churchyards are havens for biodiversity.
The council has considered terrorism, nuclear weapons and international crime. But it has largely ignored the climate.
Meet the first team trying to understand the secrets of Mount Everest's glaciers.
But often these new 'forests' have only grown thanks to increased deforestation abroad.
Smart technology can help the environment, preserve biodiversity and protect sensitive areas, such as national parks.
A reserve near Amsterdam lost many wild cattle and deer over the tough winter, leading to public protests. Yet this was a failure of Dutch politics rather than rewilding itself.
I analysed 15 million words written by major oil companies and found their usage of 'climate change' peaked a decade ago.
How to cut down on toxic chemicals found in common household products.
The wrecks of the German WWI fleet are home to an abundance of biodiverse marine life, now under threat from climate change.
As companies and governments attempt to intensify extraction, cultural resistance offers a space for imagining alternative futures.
The oak processionary moth established itself in the UK a decade ago, ahead of the parasitoids that would normally keep its numbers in check.
We cannot spot every shark in the ocean. But we can detect their 'environmental DNA'.
Politicians and economists call for emissions cuts while also embracing free trade – they can't have it both ways.
Some scientists want to replace 'ecosystem services' with ‘Nature’s Contributions to People’.
Undrinkable drinking water is just one example of how blockades and war have permeated an entire ecosystem.
The world needs more affordable housing with a lower environmental impact. The stabilised supermud brick could be the answer.
How to move beyond the warm words about tackling urban heat islands to doing something about them.
New director-general Helen McGrady is looking to cities for a 'radical' future at the National Trust.
It's nearly impossible to kill, so we need to start working with Japanese knotweed to control it.
There's plenty of evidence that modern swill-feeding would be safe, sustainable, and popular.
We looked at ten countries in East Africa and found poverty and politics were much more important drivers of conflict and displacement than climate change.
Indigenous communities lived in the Amazon for thousands of years without chopping down their forests.
New research finds more CO₂ can actually make most plants smaller in the long-term - but the story for crops isn't so simple.
Yet plastic itself isn't inherently evil as sometimes the environmental benefits outweigh the costs. So how to tell good plastic from bad?
Ants have an incredible instinct to help their comrades.
A shipping industry summit is exploring routes to a greener future.
Tides are the largest they have been for 250m years.
How we showed the Atlantic circulation system is its weakest for 1,600 years.
It's a policy to help the environment, so where's the evidence to support it?
Honeybees are responsible for only a third of crop pollination in Britain.
Despite various exceptions, the UK's proposed ivory ban will be among the toughest in the world.
Governments and energy firms will find it hard to generate the necessary public acceptance for such a controversial technology.
A mythical Amazonia of lost tribes or lost cities is easy to challenge on a factual basis, but such objections appear rather feeble in the face of the power of cliché.
The technology underlying Bitcoin is starting to spread its wings.
Rhino resurrection is tempting, but if humans cannot save a species in nature, what future for animals that we manufacture?
Cleaning up the oceans will require much better waste management in poorer countries.
The pioneering legislation is ten years old – and the latest science means it now does not go far enough.
East Africa Rift is undergoing a process that will see the Horn of Africa split from the rest of the continent.
Daylight savings time means our most active periods are better aligned with daylight hours.
Wrecks like the recently discovered USS Juneau reveal much about combat on the oceans.
Multiple reports have convincingly demonstrated that agroecology is the most promising pathway to sustainable food systems on all continents. But governments aren't doing enough to support it.
Plastics and microplastics in the marine environment are one of the great cause célèbre of our era. Here's what we know and don't know.
To understand what happened to our love of giant radioactive kettles, take a look at cultural theory.
Greater Manchester wants to be "zero carbon". But this sort of target raises some important questions.
The tale of the snow crab bears witness to the how the complexities of climate change and fights over fishing rights play out.
Lowering your carbon footprint by living off-grid is a sustainability dream. But how possible is it using current technology?
Three researchers studied the "crop raiders" of the Brazilian rainforest in the hope of aiding both local farmers and wildlife conservation.
We must develop the capability to meet our computing needs while using much less power and producing negligible heat waste.
Politics has been disrupted by the financial crisis and the rise of new technologies. Rapid change suddenly looks a lot more possible.
A heritage landscape researcher used the work of a Victorian aerial photographer to map a century of glacial loss in the Alps – and the results are staggering.
Polar regions
The Antarctic Treaty was signed 58 years ago today, protecting the continent for peace and science.
The ice sheet is melting and permafrost is thawing. What's happening in Greenland will speed up climate change across the world.
Enormous Antarctic icebergs are a rare but natural occurrence.
Podcast: The Anthill
Research and Expert Database
Editors’ Picks
Research can be spun, within hours, into a story of past failure. In fact, it's a case of continuous improvement.
Microbeads from cosmetics are just a drop in the ocean. Other microplastics are more pervasive and just as dangerous.
Few fish can survive in these freezing waters, so invertebrates are the dominant predators.
Recent archaeological evidence shows the remote islanders didn't commit 'ecocide' after all.
Autonomous vehicles have many benefits, but they may be bad news for nature conservation.
To deliver climate justice we must focus on vulnerable people not countries.
Offshore wind is an expensive business to get into.
In defence of 'cryptozoologists': we have a lot to learn from their curiosity and sense of wonder.
More than 100 volcanoes lie beneath the continent's ice sheet.
The planet has seen five 'mass extinctions' over the past half billion years, but each was followed by an explosion in biodiversity.
Events
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ALBERT WOLTERS PUBLIC LECTURE WITH PROFESSOR ELIZABETH LOFTUS — University of Reading
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Conference: Advances in data science — University of Manchester
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"He denies the very existence of a woman mathematician” — The Open University
How we are different
10 reasons
Most Read past week
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- Why we’re drilling into the world’s highest glacier on Everest with a converted car wash
- How plastics made from plants could be the answer to the world’s waste problem
- Sacred sites have a biodiversity advantage that could help world conservation
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