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Red Shoot wood, New Forest A pony will strain every muscle in its neck to reach the most tender branch-end leaves

As we press on along the ridge above the wood, on the north side of the path we find ponies raising the browse line as they stretch high into the hollies. A large white one strains every muscle in its neck to get at the most tender branch-end leaves. Forest ponies eat a huge quantity of holly during the cold weather. People often cut branches to make life easier for them, but this group don’t need any help.

On the other side, we spot one of the woodland’s giants that has come to grief. Possibly dating from the origins of Red Shoot Wood in the 17th and 18th centuries, this huge oak has been caught by some vortex-wind, and lifted enough to break the myriad of cable-like roots anchoring it into the shallow clay that coats the underlying gravels.

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An app that turns a smartphone into an earthquake detector helps citizens monitor tremors.

The UK fishing industry will need continued access to EU markets after Brexit, a House of Lords report warns.

There's a problem. The seeds won't germinate and the plant is endangered. Could the answer lie in a heady mix of gauze gift bags, heat torture, forced smoke inhalation and emu digestive juices? This is a repeat episode from the Off Track archives.

Ministers claim soaring number is a success in effort to cut bovine TB in England but charities question cull’s effectiveness

The number of animals shot in England’s controversial badger cull soared to more than 10,000 this autumn, as part of the government’s attempt to cut tuberculosis (TB) in cattle.

Ministers claimed the result as a success but a leading scientist said there was “no basis” for suggesting the cull was effective, while wildlife charities said badgers were being used as a scapegoat for failures in the intensive livestock industry.

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The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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Feeding Bryde’s whales, fighting seals and a Harry Potter spider are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Patrick Muhayirwa was trapped in an ambush while patrolling to protect gorillas in Africa’s oldest national park

• Another day, another dead wildlife ranger. We must do more to help them
  

A 26-year-old wildlife ranger has been gunned down by militia operating in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

According to park authorities, Patrick Prince Muhayirwa was part of a group of rangers and DRC army personnel patrolling the huge park to prevent poaching.

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Mexican authorities try to save the world's smallest porpoise by seizing illegal fishing nets.

Improved light, ventilation and heat control can boost workers’ productivity by thousands of dollars a year and reduce instances of sick building syndrome

People working in green buildings think better in the office and sleep better when they get home, a new study has revealed.

The research indicates that better ventilation, lighting and heat control improves workers’ performance and could boost their productivity by thousands of dollars a year. It also suggests that more subjective aspects, such as beautiful design, may make workers happier and more productive.

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Scientists stepped outside their comfort zones to protest the attacks they face from the incoming administration

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for scientists, these are desperate measures.

Tuesday in San Francisco’s Jessie Square, approximately 500 people gathered for a ‘rally to stand up for science.’ Many of the attendees were scientists who had migrated to the rally from the nearby Moscone Center, where some 26,000 Earth scientists are attending the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference this week.

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'Most humans are smarter than a fox, and yet …'—What the Fox pays poetic attention to the population of red foxes with which we share our urban and suburban environments. While often unperceived, these hardy creatures—so well established in Australia—are deeply fascinating to the human ear, eye, and imagination.

Company owned by Centrica gave $20,000 to TPPF, praised by new US energy secretary for opposing ‘hysteria of global warming’

British Gas’s parent company, Centrica, has given tens of thousands of dollars to a US thinktank that denies climate change and is backed by Donald Trump’s energy secretary.

Direct Energy, a US energy company wholly owned by Centrica, donated $20,000 to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) in 2010, according to tax filings.

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Stanage, Derbyshire On a bleak night, with a folk memory of wolves and belief in evil spirits, who wouldn’t need protection?

The long flowing line of Stanage Edge is, for rock climbers, one of the world’s great crags, segmented, like a gritstone worm, into various buttresses and features, each of them named, each providing many different routes to the top, each of those – and there are hundreds – also named.

I am at a buttress at the crag’s southern end known, paradoxically, as Apparent North, near a short tough climb called Hamper’s Hang. I am shrinking inside my jacket against a dismal wet day. I thought I knew this place, having been here as a climber scores of times, but my understanding of it has just been turned on its head.

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For more than a decade, Australia has been held back by climate science denial and an antipathy towards environmentalism

If you can hear what sounds like a faint drumroll coming from across the Pacific then it’s the sound of millions of jaws dropping on hard surfaces.

President-elect Donald Trump is a phrase journalists are regularly typing into their keyboards. That was jaw dropping enough, even for some Republicans.

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In the wash up of this week's COAG Energy meeting, there's a real risk the importance of the Finkel Review will be lost.

Lazard report says rooftop solar costs on "by far the steepest cost decline of any technology," with energy storage looking like following suit.

GE technology chief says days of "relying solely on synchronous generation for everything are over". In a direct challenge to those who say grid security can only be assured by spinning coal and gas turbines, the world's biggest provider of energy equipment says wind and solar can do the job just as well.

How much will the Hazelwood coal power plant closure really cost you? Let's shed some (energy efficient) light on the matter.

New guideline on "ring fencing" still gives too much latitude to the networks, and may work against the interest of consumers.