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Despite January rains heavy enough to cause flooding in some areas, the effects of severe drought continue to be felt keenly in many areas of Bolivia, affecting about 125,000 families. A resourceful village in Mizque province has come up with ways to eke out what little water is available

All photographs by Andrew Philip/Tearfund

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Is the restoration of Tasmania's Lake Pedder a big idea worth considering?

More than half of people surveyed had never seen a hedgehog, once common in UK gardens

The plight of the hedgehog in Britain appears to be worsening, with a new survey revealing a further decline in garden sightings.

The spiky creature was once a common sight, with the population estimated at 30 million in the 1950s. But that has plummeted to fewer than one million today, with a third of this loss thought to have taken place in the past decade.

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Kinder Scout, Peak District Walking along the western escarpment, it feels like the land has been brushed by Arctic exoticism

Driving out of Sheffield, I pass half a dozen men hurrying up and down Manchester Road, pointing long lenses into the glacier-blue sky, like paparazzi, and pull over to see what the fuss is about.

The cause is a flock of exquisite, starling-sized birds, their silky-smooth, dusky-pale plumage flushed with cloudberry amber, their heads topped with a punky crest, and their eyes dark with a warlike black mask. They are ransacking the ornamental rowans lining the road, much to the annoyance of a mistle thrush, which sallies angrily from its berry-laden perch to rebuff the raiders.

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Big Oil appears to have come up with a new fashion item to hide their fossil fuel addiction: "green gas plants". Most people call them solar plants.

AEMO says basic changes to ride-through settings on wind farms will be enough to prevent a repeat of the "system black" experienced in South Australia last September. But will the Coalition tone down its scare campaign about renewables?

When the Prime Minister announces things, they have to be taken seriously. So Turnbull has certainly succeeded in producing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). Congratulations.

Nuclear utilities are in crisis, and no major commodity had a worse 2016 than uranium.

Clean Energy Regulator warns electricity retailers intentional failure to meet 2016 RET obligations will result in investigation, audit, embarrassment.

EnergyAustralia signs country's largest PPA for a solar farm, as CEFC makes first equity investment in a solar project to speed up development.

Greens say WA's SWIS grid could shift to 100% renewables by 2030 for cheaper than business as usual.

Elon Musk is now at sweet spot of 3 big trillion-dollar energy ‘tsunamis’ that team Trump hopes to stop.

China will reportedly launch trading of certificates for solar and wind power from July 1st 2017, in a bid to reduce government subsidies going to the renewables sector.

The Tesla Model S and Nissan LEAF clocked in as the best-selling electric cars in the world in 2016.

Increasing the water table under arable peatland can help boost yields and the amount of carbon stored in the soil, a study says.

Scientists say a pest that destroys maize is spreading rapidly across Africa and could reach Asia and the Mediterranean in the next few years.

Once too precious to use, now too cheap to notice – the significance of the light bulb is profound.

JA Solar provided export buyer's credit insurance to export around 300 MW JA Solar modules for a PV project developed by ENEL in Brazil.

Tritium has officially opened the doors of its first overseas premises, based in Torrance, California.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 9 February 1917

An alder, its roots undermined by the current just below a bend, fell some years ago and formed a dam across the stream; below the obstacle the silt collected until a long, narrow, sandy islet was formed. On this the snow now lies, a white patch in midstream, and across its narrowest neck is a line of footprints – the “seals” of an otter. I noticed them first last Sunday, immediately after the fall; the otter had been out hunting for its breakfast. These otter footmarks are peculiarly broad; they cannot be confused with the prints left by a dog; indeed, no rat-hunting dog had been there since the snow fell, for there were no marks on either bank. The otter had come down stream, landed and crossed the islet, and entered the water again. From the size of the prints it was only a small animal, but it was pleasing to find that there are some about; as I have no wish for otter hounds to come or for traps to be put down I do not mention the name of the stream, but it is not far from Manchester.

A Congleton correspondent was astonished to see a gull feeding in his garden a week ago. The black-headed gull is now so widely distributed over Cheshire that I should have thought it occurred near, Congleton, though doubtless usually avoiding gardens.

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