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Escaping poverty, violence and the climate crisis are factors, but the main driver is rich societies demanding cheap labour

We seem to be living in times of unprecedented mass migration. Images of people from Africa crammed into unseaworthy boats desperately trying to cross the Mediterranean, asylum seekers crossing the Channel into Britain, and “caravans” of migrants trying to reach the Mexico-US border all seem to confirm fears that global migration is spinning out of control.

A toxic combination of poverty, inequality, violence, oppression, climate breakdown and population growth appear to be pushing growing numbers of people from Africa, Asia and Latin America to embark upon desperate journeys to reach the shores of the wealthy west.

Hein de Haas is professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and the author of How Migration Really Works

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Colombia-based credit standard Cercarbono has released for public consultation a methodology that will allow project developers to earn Voluntary Biodiversity Credits (VBCs) for the protection of ecosystem indicator species.

Khai Cowley, 15, was killed by a suspected great white shark off Ethel beach on the Yorke Peninsula

A teenage boy killed in a shark attack off the coast of South Australia has been remembered as a talented and dearly loved member of the surfing community.

The 15-year-old, identified by friends and a family member as Khai Cowley, was mauled by a suspected great white while surfing off the remote Ethel beach on the Yorke Peninsula west of Adelaide about 1.30pm on Thursday.

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With Chandrayaan-3, Aditya-L1 and Gaganyaan, India's space agency Isro has had a spectacular year.

Finding the elusive species in far north Queensland is a unique challenge for birders. But the search demands extraordinary enthusiasm

For 100 years, the night parrot was the undisputed mystery bird of Australian ornithology. Until the discovery and subsequent study of a tiny population in Queensland’s far west in 2013, two specimens found by the side of remote outback roads in 1990 and 2006, also in Queensland, were the only hard evidence of its continued existence.

With the parrot now present and accounted for, there remains one Australian bird that has never been photographed: the buff-breasted buttonquail.

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The climate crisis poses an existential threat to cricket. Governing bodies like New Zealand Cricket need to up their sustainability game. Chris McMillan, Professional Teaching Fellow in Sociology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

When people first came to Australia 65,000 years ago, the Earth was in an ice age. Then the seas rose, drought and floods came – and still people endured. Penny van Oosterzee, Adjunct Associate Professor James Cook University and University Fellow Charles Darwin University, James Cook University Barry Hunter, Acting CEO, North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, Indigenous Knowledge Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Air quality improvements 2019-2022 from lowering vehicle emissions came even before scheme’s expansion to whole of city

More toxic air pollution has been averted by London’s ultra-low emission zones than is produced by the capital’s airports or its river and rail transport combined, according to a new analysis of the effects of the Ulez.

The report showed that improvements in air quality between 2019 and 2022 from lowering motor vehicle pollution – even before the expansion of the Ulez throughout the capital since August – rivalled the potential savings from entirely cleaning up London’s aviation or industrial and commercial heat and power generation.

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When we started out, we didn’t dare dream it would lead to this: expanded rainforest, a beaver release, and rewilding at Balmoral

Sid Rawle, the 1960s peace campaigner and infamous “King of the Hippies”, once remarked that if land ownership in Britain were to be divided equally, we would each get about an acre. Surprisingly, this thought experiment would just about hold true today.

The UK measures 60m acres in total and is home to around 67 million of us. There is something rather beguiling about such extreme egalitarianism – impractical though it might be. One person, one vote, one acre. But there’s also something about it that rather helps clarify the mind should you ever find yourself, as I have done recently, trying to reform the mind-bogglingly large amounts of land owned by the British royal family.

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UK households could put old toasters and hairdryers on the kerbside for pick-up under the proposals.

The paiche, one of the biggest freshwater fish, is a risk to native fish stocks in the Amazon.

Wood and glue is better for the environment than steel, says manufacturer, and could see taller turbines.

Households will be able to drop off cables and other electrical waste in-store or have home collections, says Defra

British households will benefit from improved routes for recycling electronic goods from 2026, under government plans to have producers and retailers pay for household and in-store collections.

Consumers would be able to have electrical waste (e-waste) – from cables to toasters and power tools – collected from their homes or drop items off during a weekly shop, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said in a consultation published on Thursday. The ambition is for retailers, rather than the taxpayer, to pick up the tab for these new ways of disposing of defunct, often toxic products safely. The measures are due to come into force in two years’ time.

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Exclusive: Developers still unwilling to put forward schemes despite change to planning rules in September

No new plans for onshore wind have been accepted in England since the government claimed it had “lifted” the de facto ban, new analysis reveals.

Renewable energy organisations warned at the time that this was likely. Despite the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, having changed planning rules introduced in 2015 by the then prime minister, David Cameron, to stop onshore wind projects being blocked by a single objection, they still face higher barriers than every other form of infrastructure, including waste incinerators.

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Monitoring what comes out of an animal is a vital part of keeping an eye on its health

I thought convincing my husband of the merits of my returning to study just as he had retired would be a tricky sell. So his enthusiasm for the idea caught me by surprise.

He helpfully suggested several interesting topics: sea turtles, dugongs and coral reefs. If it involved a boat in a warm climate, he was behind me 100%.

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California tempered compliance-grade offset issuance for the last bi-weekly distribution of the year, with one-fifth of issued credits tagged with direct environmental benefits to the state (DEBs), still, total offsets distributed through 2023 stood nearly 20% higher year-on-year, according to data published by state regulator ARB on Wednesday.

There is a rich history of people really loving frogs. But the history of human-frog relations is long and complicated – and not all of it is nice. Susan Broomhall, Director, Gender and Women's History Research Centre, Australian Catholic University Andrea Gaynor, Professor of History, The University of Western Australia Andy Flack, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Environmental History, University of Bristol Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Successive Australian governments have kicked the can down the road when it comes to the climate crisis – and colourful activism has followed them every step of the way

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Switzerland’s KlimaSeniorinnen are taking the government to the European court of human rights for doing too little to tackle the climate crisis

The women, mostly in their 70s, strode up the mountain with dogged grace. Clacking their hiking poles against sun-cooked rocks, they set sure feet on shaky stones and held hands to cross slippery streams. They knew the heat and strain were a threat to their health – they were perhaps uniquely aware of the risks – but they did not plan to let it limit their lives.

“I’m a mountain climber,” said 73-year-old Pia Hollenstein, brushing away the hand I offered to help her down a big rock. “I can manage.”

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Climate change is upsetting the regular rhythm of the seasons, making plants and wildlife more susceptible to disease.