United Kingdom News

Great Britain has lost its entire suite of top land predators over the past few thousand years: wolves (Canis lupus), brown bears (Ursus arctos) and lynx (Lynx lynx) have all…

After years of scallop dredging and fish farming, Loch Craignish, a coastal inlet near Argyll, Scotland, was in disrepair. The dredging had destroyed parts of the seafloor, effluent had polluted…

The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.

Japan and South Korea are increasingly burning biomass, such as wood pellets, to make energy, with potentially adverse impacts on the global climate, deforestation and biodiversity.

Just east of Birmingham in the U.K. sits the sixth-largest university in the country, Coventry University,  home to 38,000 students and a relatively new center for the study of agroecology — a…

It may be a straw man argument to suggest a distinction between an amateur and professional naturalist (a word that may still mean something). "Natural history" was once like history…

Each morning as the sun rises into the sky, ranger Donovan Wright stands on the outskirts of Blean Woods in the United Kingdom. The ancient woodland in southern England covers…

In December, the British government announced a plan to ban the import of hunting trophies into the UK.  The proposal has popular support, but there is a vocal contingent that…

BRUSSELS — This past week, the U.K. and Western Europe were hit by a trio of powerful storms that battered the region with wind and rain, causing widespread damage to…

Proposed legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies (e.g. horns, antlers, tusks) apparently enjoys popular support within the UK, yet the effects of these policies are likely to be…

Amid the smog, butterflies, bees and other insects are having a hard time smelling the flowers they so dutifully pollinate. Researchers found that common, ground-level air pollutants such as nitrogen…

WildEast hopes to rewild large, interconnected tracts in East Anglia and also introduce regenerative farming practices on farmland still in use, but some local farmers complain the project lacks consultation.

Despite living in a concrete jungle, London’s urban bees fly shorter distances to feast on nectar-rich flowers than their neighbors in the countryside—a counterintuitive discovery explained by the many lush…

Vanessa Nakate, a Ugandan climate activist, emerged as one of the most prominent youth voices at COP26 in Glasgow. "Prove us wrong," was her message to delegates at the climate…

The Glasgow climate summit is failing to address the danger of burning forests to make energy — a practice classified as carbon neutral, though science shows that its emissions exceed that of coal per unit of energy produced.

More than 100 scientists have issued a letter urging U.S. President Biden and Congress to remove provisions promoting logging, forest biomass and fossil fuels from the multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and reconciliation (Build Back Better) bills.

As delegates from around the world convened in Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 climate summit, most top climatologists say the threshold for reining in global warming is already out of…

In May, the U.K. Forestry Commission announced a grant program designed to encourage the creation of new English woodlands as a means of mitigating climate change, boosting biodiversity, and reducing…

New research has tracked biomass industry carbon emissions, finding that U.S. wood pellet production, transatlantic shipping, and U.K. and E.U. pellet burning, plus a loss of stored forest carbon, combine in substantial unreported emissions.

2020 will forever be remembered as the year a global pandemic brought the world to its knees. But at the rate the planet’s temperature is rising, forever might not be…

A group of researchers is preparing to dive into the shallow waters of Dale Bay in Wales. They’re on a mission to monitor the restoration of the local species of…

On one of the first dry, hot days of summer, Rachel Langley walks past farmhouses and tractors, heading for the edge of the Colne Estuary in Essex, U.K. She’s on…

Britain’s largest supermarket chain, Tesco sells a lot of meat – hundreds of millions of chickens a year alone. Three weeks ago, Tesco produced a new set of requirements for…

Ikea has allegedly been sourcing timber for its products from Russian companies engaged in illegal logging of pine trees in Russia’s protected Siberian boreal forests, a new investigation has revealed.…

The biomass industry says that burning wood to make energy is carbon neutral. Environmentalists say biomass is a disaster for forests, biodiversity and the climate. Mongabay reviews independent scientific evidence on both sides.

SCOTLAND - “To restore the landscape we need cathedral thinking,” says Thomas Macdonell gazing up at a stand of ancient pines within Glen Feshie, Scotland, where he has worked as…

Seven years ago, I published a major report for the US think-tank Forest Trends: ‘Consumer Goods and Deforestation’ revealed how international markets for commodities like beef, soy and palm oil…

The US, China, UK, EU, Japan, South Korea, Canada and others upped their climate ambitions at Joe Biden’s Earth Day Leaders Summit on Climate, but activists pointed to duplicitous policies on forest biomass, coal, and more.

A new initiative to mobilize at least $1 billion to reward tropical countries for halting deforestation was announced April 22, Earth Day, at the Leaders Summit on Climate hosted by…

Last fall, the ruling New Democratic Party promised to defer cutting BC’s last old-growth, but the NDP has so far failed to act and may be embracing the province’s old policy: forestry first; nature and planet a distant second.