The Guardian

Campaigners call for protection and careful tree-planting to help restore the temperate rainforests that once covered swathes of the country

Temperate rainforest, which has been decimated over thousands of years, has the potential to be restored across a fifth of Great Britain, a new map reveals.

Atlantic temperate rainforest once covered most of the west coasts of Britain and Ireland, thriving in the archipelago’s wet, mild conditions, which support rainforest indicator species such as lichens, mosses and liverworts. Today, it covers less than 1% of land, having been cleared over thousands of years by humans and is only found in isolated pockets, such as the waterfalls region in the Brecon Beacons and Ausewell Wood on Dartmoor.

Yellowfin and bigeye tuna catches rise outside 1.5m sq km marine protected area, proving value of no-catch zone, researchers say

Six years ago, the then US president, Barack Obama, created the world’s largest fully protected ocean reserve by expanding the existing Papahānaumokuākea marine national monument in Hawaii, a world heritage site that include islands, atolls and archeological treasures. Now scientists have found that the reserve, which spans 1.5m sq km (580,000 sq miles) and is inhabited by whales and turtles, has brought unexpected benefits to the surrounding ocean.

Catches of yellowfin tuna, known as ahi in Hawaiian, were found to have risen by 54% between 2016 and 2019 near the reserve, within which fishing is banned, while catches of bigeye tuna rose by 12%.

Exclusive: Unexpected arrival at a pioneering rewilding project in Kent after introduction of animals in July

A pioneering rewilding project has had an early surprise: a bouncing baby bison. It is the first wild bison to be born in the UK for thousands of years.

Three bison were released in Kent in July but, unknown to the rangers, one had a secret passenger on board. Bison conceal their pregnancies to prevent predators targeting pregnant animals or their offspring.

Royal Entomological Society to sponsor garden in effort to show importance of less glamorous creepy-crawlies

Stag beetles and hornets will be among the stars of Chelsea flower show next year as horticulturalists encourage people to welcome invertebrates into the garden.

Bumblebees and butterflies tend to get a lot of press, but in a 2023 garden sponsored by the Royal Entomological Society, less glamorous creepy-crawlies will take centre stage.

Don’t use pesticides. Massey says: “It’s about creating balance. Ladybirds eat aphids, for example, both are valuable in their own right, but it’s about being patient – if you get aphids causing a problem, don’t panic and spray them but know a ladybird will come soon and gobble them up. Create a garden that is attractive to all kinds of life.”

Embrace mess. “We don’t need to tidy everything up to the maximum degree … there has to be some kind of movement towards a looser, I suppose more patient style of gardening. Leave some leaves on the floor, don’t tidy everything up,” Massey says.

Welcome weeds. “Dandelions, for example, are a good source for insects and are actually a really attractive flower. Yes, they can sow seed everywhere but you can allow them to spread around and it creates less work for us and it’s very beneficial for wildlife at the same time.”

Accept and enjoy garden life. “Slugs and snails have been demonised but they are actually really important in breakdown of material and a food source for other types of animals that are more desirable, like frogs or toads. Be a bit more accepting of new sorts of life forms and maybe if you look at them closer, and you know more about them through things like science, they become more interesting and more fascinating and more appealing.”

It’s not enough to shock. Protesters need to win as many people over as possible – and it’s not clear they succeeded

Last week two activists from Just Stop Oil who threw tomato soup on a landscape painting by Vincent Van Gogh in the National Gallery and then glued themselves to the wall, symbolizing, um, well, ah… I’m really not quite sure.

The head-scratching disconnect between the activists’ tactics and the message they were trying to convey – linking oil to the climate crisis, in case you hadn’t figured it out – has been widely discussed, and ridiculed, in the media.

Stephen Duncombe, a lifelong activist, is professor of media and culture at New York University and co-founder of the Center for Artistic Activism, a non-profit organization that trains artists and activists around the world be become more affective and effective. His forthcoming book Æffect is on assessing the impact of arts and activism.

Elms – seen by some as one of few promising Brexit dividends – has been put under review

Three hundred and 40 British farmers have signed a letter to Conservative MPs criticising plans to scrap plans to pay them for their stewardship of nature.

The environmental land management scheme (Elms), a set of subsidies to replace the EU’s common agricultural policy, had been due to be rolled out this year. But last month, ministers placed it under review. A result is expected in the next week – within the seven days that Liz Truss has to remain as prime minister.

A National Grid director sets out plan to reward homes and businesses for using energy outside of peak hours

• National Grid to pay households more to use off-peak power

This month we published our analysis of the British electricity system this winter. Our message is clear: in the base case our analysis indicates that supply margins are expected to be adequate, however this winter will undoubtedly be challenging. Therefore, all of us in the electricity system operator (ESO) are working round the clock to manage the system, ensure the flow of energy and do our bit to keep costs down for consumers.

One of the tools we have developed is the demand flexibility service. From November, this new capability will reward homes and businesses for shifting their electricity consumption at peak times. And we are working with the government, businesses and energy providers to encourage as high a level of take-up as possible. We are confident this innovative approach can provide at least 2 gigawatts of power – about a million homes’ worth.

More than dozen activists in custody after protest at department store in London that also stopped traffic

Just Stop Oil protesters have sprayed orange paint on the front of Harrods in central London as they continue to call on the government to end all “new oil and gas”.

About 20 demonstrators gathered outside the department store in Knightsbridge at about 9am on Thursday for a 20th consecutive day of disruption to the capital.

Heavy rain and rising waters continue to take a deadly toll in countries including Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam

It has been a drenched 2022 for many parts of the world, at times catastrophically so. A year of disastrous flooding perhaps reached its nadir in Pakistan, where a third of the country was inundated by heavy rainfall from June, killing more than 1,000 people in what António Guterres, the UN secretary general, called an unprecedented natural disaster.

While floods are indeed natural phenomena, a longstanding result of storms, the human-induced climate crisis is amplifying their damage. Rising sea levels, driven by melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of water, are increasingly inundating coastal areas, while warmer temperatures are causing more moisture to accumulate in the atmosphere, which is then released as rain or snow.

Catastrophic floods around the world are triggering warnings of unprecedented natural disaster – and the human-induced climate crisis is amplifying the damage.

Floods are natural phenomena, a result of storms, but the climate crisis is amplifying their damage. Rising sea levels, driven by melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of water, are increasingly inundating coastal areas, while warmer temperatures are causing more moisture to accumulate in the atmosphere, which is released as rain or snow.

Scientists have said flash floods are becoming a problem in some countries, with short, severe bursts of rain causing anything from inconvenience to mayhem

Cultivating organic produce may be backbreaking, but it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done

In July 2016, I was sitting on the rooftop of a building in central London, listening to the gentle rumble of a nearby beehive, when I realised that my life had changed entirely. I didn’t intend to quit – quitting crept up on me. After eight years of working in the media, I was on a path to becoming an organic food grower, with a temporary side hustle of city beekeeping.

Not long before that point, I was just like the people in the office building below me. My work days were spent behind a desk or lugging around camera equipment, but now I am devoted to a life of nurturing the soil and growing the plants that end up on our plates.

Claire Ratinon is an organic food grower and writer

Participants in £33m scheme that improved 3,000 community spaces note confidence and wellbeing boost

Young people’s mental health, self-confidence and employability were boosted by participation in nature projects across the UK, according to a report on a £33m programme.

More than 128,000 people aged 11 to 24 took part in the Our Bright Future scheme. The 31 projects improved 3,000 community spaces and created 350 nature-rich areas, from a vandalised churchyard in Hull to a rewilded quarry in County Down. The programme was led by the Wildlife Trusts and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.

North Carolina reptiles showed extremely high levels of PFAS compounds and markers of immune disease in their blood

High levels of PFAS discharged into the Cape Fear River from a Chemours plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, are likely making local alligators sick with autoimmune disorders that appear similar to human diseases like lupus, a new study finds.

The peer-reviewed study, published Thursday in the Frontiers in Toxicology journal, tested blood from alligators in the Cape Fear watershed that have been exposed to Chemours pollution for decades. The alligators showed extremely high levels of PFAS compounds and markers of immune disease in their blood.

About half of the CO2-equivalent caused by releasing methane in Australia comes from agriculture. The rest comes mainly from coalmines, oil, gas and waste

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First it was electric cars trying to tow away your weekend, and now it’s a non-binding global pledge to make modest cuts to methane emissions that will devour your steak (apologies to the vegetarians and vegans).

The Albanese government is considering signing a global pledge alongside more than 120 other countries, led by the United States and Europe, to cut all methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

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A Labour motion that would have forced a vote on a bill to ban fracking has been defeated in the House of Commons. The government has won the vote after MPs voted 230 for yes, 326 for no, giving a government majority of 96. 

It had earlier been reported that the Conservative party whip had made it a confidence vote, although three Tory MPs said they would refuse to vote to back fracking, even if it meant they would lose the party whip.

The vice-chairman of the 1992 Committee, Wiliam Wragg, admitted he would be voting against his principles on fracking to keep his position

• Labour MP says Tories ‘bullied and manhandled’ during vote on fracking ban – live

Exclusive: Concern over government plans to relax environmental and planning rules to lure business

The government’s investment zones could put the UK’s ancient woodlands under threat, the head of the Woodland Trust has warned.

An ancient woodland is one that has existed continuously since at least 1600. They are a precious part of the country’s history, store large amounts of carbon and are important habitats for animals.

Its call has freaked people out for centuries

Is there a scene more horrifying than the baby cuckoo alone in a nest: the waxy skin, the eyeballs covered in the skull, the sunken back – evolved to help it scoop the other eggs over the edge and on to the ground. Nobody has taught the baby how to eliminate its adoptive siblings. The cuckoo hatches with this instinct driving it: a natural born “obligate brood parasite”.

When a common European cuckoo has successfully laid her egg in a red warbler’s nest, she “gives a chuckle call, as if in triumph”: the call sounds like a sparrowhawk, a predator, which distracts the host. “The female cuckoo enhances her success by manipulating a fundamental trade-off in host defences between clutch and self-protection,” the authors who discovered this wrote, in a paper titled Female cuckoo calls misdirect host defences towards the wrong enemy. In one summer, a female cuckoo can lay 25 malevolent eggs.

Prof Aoife Foley says it would remain light for part of energy peak between 5pm and 7pm, reducing household bills

Households could save more than £400 a year on energy bills if clocks are not put back at the end of October, according to an expert, who said it would help people with the cost of living crisis and reduce pressure on the National Grid this winter.

Evening energy demand peaks between 5pm and 7pm during winter, when the sun has already set after daylight savings time (DST). If clocks didn’t go back, it would remain light for at least part of this time, reducing carbon emissions and energy demand.

Suit claims the agency has yet to respond to legal petition demanding tighter Clean Water Act enforcement for factory farms

Dozens of advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming the federal department has failed to come up with a plan to regulate water pollution from factory farms.

The suit claims the agency has yet to respond to a 2017 legal petition from more than 30 environmental groups demanding that the EPA tighten its Clean Water Act enforcement for factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (Cafos), where thousands of animals are sometimes confined.

Speculation had been rife that government would block Elms subsidies for creating wildlife habitats

Farmers in England say they are increasingly optimistic that the government may yet row back on its plans to cut funding for nature-friendly farming initiatives.

The farming minister, Mark Spencer, this week met the RSPB and the chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), both organisations that had been critical of plans to remove subsidies for creating wildlife habitats.