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Spider lurks in its perfect wire entanglement: Country diary 100 years ago

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 September 1916 The autumnal touch of morning mist reveals the fact that spiders are more numerous than we imagine. Over the hedge-top, slung between the garden plants stretched across the road and pathway, and suspended beneath the bushes are innumerable lines, nets, and traps, all carefully prepared […]

Climate Change Authority's plan is 'a dog's breakfast', say dissenting members

Climate scientist and economist publish minority report calling for full emissions trading scheme and closure of brown-coal-fired power plants The Climate Change Authority’s latest report is a “recipe for further delay” on climate change, contravenes the authority’s legal obligations and recommends “a dog’s breakfast” of policies, say two key members in a dissenting minority report. […]

Eastern gorilla now critically endangered due to illegal hunting

Largest living primate joins three other great ape species on International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list, but pandas no longer endangered Humanity has moved a step closer to wiping out our closest evolutionary relatives, with four of the six great ape species now listed internationally as critically endangered. The International Union for Conservation […]

North Dakota pipeline protest turns violent after cultural sites destroyed

Tribal officials say at least 30 people were pepper-sprayed after confronting construction crews for destroying burial and cultural sites near a reservation A protest against a four-state, $3.8bn oil pipeline turned violent after tribal officials say construction crews destroyed American Indian burial and cultural sites on private land in southern North Dakota. Morton County sheriff’s […]

US beekeepers fear for livelihoods as anti-Zika toxin kills 2.5m bees

‘It kills everything’: conservationist warns over threat to other animals Regulators: ‘clear and public health crisis’ allows use of Naled chemical Huddled around their hives, beekeepers around the south-eastern US fear a new threat to their livelihood: a fine mist beaded with neurotoxin, sprayed from the sky by officials at war with mosquitos that carry […]

The National Trust, the sheep farm and the fight for a Lakes way of life

In the Lake District’s Borrowdale Valley, farmers – and Melvyn Bragg – are pitted against the country’s guardian of natural treasures Deep in the Borrowdale valley, where England is observed in its finest garments, there is ferment in the fields and on the hillsides. The gnarled farming communities who toil with their sheep on these […]

‘Human swan’ conservationist takes to skies on 4,600-mile migration

Sacha Dench will use a motorised paraglider to track the Bewick’s swan on its journey from Siberia and discover why numbers are falling In a few days, conservationist Sacha Dench will take to the air in the most unusual company. She will launch herself from the tundra of Siberia in a motorised paraglider and, when […]