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The UK’s biodiversity net gain (BNG) legislation’s burdensome requirements for small sites will cause the scheme to fail without action, said a survey by a professional body of ecologists published Wednesday.

These tiny organisms matter. They have been used to map dark matter and improve transport networks, and they’re living all around us

A few years ago, I started looking at the underside of logs and it changed my life. I found a secret carnival of the most bodacious and interesting organisms I had ever seen. Bubbles of candy-pink gloss on stilts (Comatricha nigra), bunches of rainbow iridescence on toffee strings (Badhamia utricularis), bouffants of raspberry parfait (Arcyria denudata) – and those are just a few that have appeared on bits of wood in our urban garden.

Slime moulds, or myxomycetes, spend part of their life cycle as what are known as fruiting bodies – which look a bit like tiny mushrooms, hence why they were once classified as fungi (they’re actually in the kingdom Protista). Often you will find them, at this stage, in a colony – or, well, I’d suggest galaxy, sweetshop or funfair would be more accurate for a collective noun.

Lucy Jones is the author of Matrescence, Losing Eden and The Nature Seed

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Bangladesh has included a list of project activities under Article 6.4 mechanism of the Paris Agreement in its latest submission to the UNFCCC, even as it prepares a positive and negative list for Article 6 projects that will be incorporated in its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).

A recent study has highlighted the careful balance Australian policymakers must strike between growing the country’s renewable energy capacity and electrifying much of its natural gas demand.

Active worker bumblebees were spotted in Scotland over the Christmas break.

Diminutive bird breeds in Alaska and Arctic Canada and sightings in Britain are rare enough to attract a crowd

If you’d asked me which rare bird I might see in Somerset in early January, the least sandpiper would have been very low on my list. Yet on a fine, bright, chilly morning here it was: running along the edge of the water like a clockwork toy, probing the mud for food with its stubby bill.

This species is well-named. It is the world’s smallest wading bird, just 13-15cm long and weighing less than 30 grams – about the same as a house sparrow. Even its scientific name, minutilla, is Latin for “very small”. Standing next to a dunlin and a teal, it made them look enormous.

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Steve Reed to announce focus on making farming ‘more profitable and sustainable’ at Oxford Farming Conference

The government is aiming to reset its relationship with farmers with what it describes as a “new deal” for the industry.

Farmers have protested in their tens of thousands after controversial changes were made to agricultural inheritance tax and the EU-derived subsidy scheme.

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The US Department of Treasury (DOT) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released on Tuesday final federal guidance on eligibility for income tax credits in the investment and production of clean electricity, days before the start of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.

The Alberta Technology Innovation and Emission Reduction (TIER) programme’s spot price continued to fall during the last month of 2024, while supply kept on an upward trajectory, according to a report published Monday.

Countries without net-zero targets could play a pivotal role in limiting climate change through the adoption of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), according to a new study.

The new House Energy and Commerce subcommittee chair introduced a bill on Friday targeting changes to the Clean Air Act (CAA) that could reduce permitting barriers for industrial operations.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Tuesday announced the appointment of over 30 members to an advisory council for a newly established federal programme that helps rural stakeholders participate in the voluntary carbon market (VCM).

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation from Canada's top seat could have little impact on the country’s carbon markets, or the broader clean fuels market, according to a new report by a US-based analytics group.  

Active worker bumblebees were spotted in Scotland over the Christmas break.

A reforestation project in Burkina Faso has become the first that is pending registration on the Verra registry to achieve validation under the VM0047 afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) methodology, approved for the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market’s (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label.

Efforts to finance conservation in Africa through carbon offset revenues may prioritise fire management regimes to the detriment of biodiversity and local livelihoods, a new study warns.

The World Bank has disbursed funds through the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to Chile for 1.03 million tonnes of CO2 reduced via a REDD+ programme, at a price of $5 per tonne.

Revenues from emissions trading in Germany amounted to a record €18.5 billion in 2024, driven by the country's domestic scheme, according to government data, but the latest figures also reveal a lack of momentum in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the buildings and transport fuel sectors.

A California fossil fuel producer announced Monday that it will be moving forward with constructing the state’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in a depleted oil and gas field, despite an unresolved legal challenge from environmental groups aiming to block the initiative.

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) ended up falling just short of the annual credit retirement volume record in 2024, while a surge in issuances pushed the market’s surplus to new heights.