Topic description and stories

Life on Earth is at risk from an unprecedented rate of environmental change that threatens the natural resources on which we depend.

Planting a young tree

Forest restoration: trade-offs between environmental and wood production goals

17 Mar 2022

Forest restoration schemes should prioritise restoring native forests for greatest climate and environmental benefits, but these benefits incur a...

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Birds of prey populations suppressed by lead poisoning from gun ammo

16 Mar 2022

New study uses data on lead levels in the livers of thousands of dead raptors to calculate the impact of lead poisoning on population size.

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Puffins

Climate change threat to seabirds must be properly considered for their conservation to be effective

09 Mar 2022

A new study shows how knowledge of climate change threats could be better connected with conservation efforts to help protect seabirds and other at-...

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A wild horse on Wicken Fen, UK

Cambridge researchers to tackle major threats to 'UK’s vegetable garden'

15 Feb 2022

Cambridge researchers will tackle environmental threats that could affect a third of England’s home-grown vegetables and more than a quarter of the...

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The Lost Words: a ‘spell book’ that closes the gap between childhood and nature

01 Jan 2022

The Lost Words is a book by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris that summons the magic of nature to help children find, love and protect the natural...

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Pangolin trafficking: Iceberg tip of Nigeria's illegal trade revealed

04 Nov 2021

New findings on Nigerian-linked pangolin seizures suggest that current global estimates for trafficking of the animal are far too small, say...

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Map showing global areas of importance for terrestrial biodiversity, carbon and water

Integrated conservation strategies could simultaneously meet biodiversity, climate and water objectives

23 Aug 2021

Managing a strategically chosen 30% of land for conservation could safeguard 70% of all terrestrial plant and vertebrate animal species, while...

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The conservationist helping us to make better decisions

04 Jun 2021

Bill Sutherland has started a revolution in conservation. Put simply he’d “like us to stop doing the things that we know don't work and do more of...

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River mussel

Conservationists may be unintentionally spreading pathogens between threatened animal populations

12 Apr 2021

Moving endangered species to new locations is often used as part of species conservation strategies, and can help to restore degraded ecosystems. But...

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Beyond the pandemic: build a greener future

09 Nov 2020

It is crucial that recovery from the pandemic is shaped to support the responses to climate change and biodiversity loss if we hope to mitigate yet...

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Baby orangutans in Central Kalimantan. Expansion of oil palm plantations is destroying their forest habitat.

Climate change and food demand could shrink species’ habitats by almost a quarter by 2100

06 Nov 2020

Mammals, birds and amphibians worldwide have lost on average 18% of their natural habitat range as a result of changes in land use and climate change...

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Call of the wild collector

28 Aug 2020

Walking at ‘botanist pace’ on Mount Terror in South Africa, Dr Ángela Cano likes to stop and smell the succulents. She then measures, photographs...

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