Environment secretary says Defra will be launching changes to post-Brexit scheme for sustainable farming
Farmers in England will get new payments for cleaning up the waterways near their land, the environment secretary has said.
Agricultural pollution affects 40% of Britain’s lakes and rivers, as fertiliser and animal waste washes off the land into waterways.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/28/2025 - 10:00
Two huge swarms have made themselves at home inside author Pip Harry’s house – but learning to live together revealed bees can be excellent housemates
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As a child, I was allergic to bees. Just one sting on my fingertip could swell my whole arm. I was allergic to most things – dust, cat hair, pollen – and was always clutching an inhaler, sniffling into my sleeve and keeping a safe distance from stinging insects.
As an adult, when my family bought our first house, a mid-century gem nestled in thick bushland on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, I wasn’t expecting a visit from my former nemesis. But one warm spring day, we heard the unmistakable hum of 20,000 of those honey-producing insects.
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07/28/2025 - 10:00
Undocumented migrants form the backbone of the ‘salad bowl of the world’ – Trump’s crackdown has led to hyper-vigilance
Driving into the Salinas valley, about two hours south of San Francisco, hand-painted signs fly by, advertising cherries, pistachios, avocados and garlic.
From above, the valley looks like a quilt stitched together out of a thousand shades of green – the fields of lettuce, spinach and strawberries that give the region its nickname, “the salad bowl of the world”.
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07/28/2025 - 05:00
Microplastics have been found in the placentas of unborn babies, the depths of the Mariana Trench, the summit of Everest and the organs of Antarctic penguins. But how do they travel through the world, and what do they do to the creatures that carry them? Here is the story of how plastic contaminates entire ecosystems – and even the food we eat. Illustrations by Claire Harrup
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07/28/2025 - 02:29
Experts welcome move by NSW government, saying nets are ineffective at preventing shark bites and ‘indiscriminately’ kill marine life
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A trial to remove shark nets from three Sydney and Central Coast beaches has been welcomed by scientists who say the nets create a false sense of security and are ineffective at preventing shark bites.
Shark nets, about 150 metres long and installed roughly 500 metres offshore at selected beaches in New South Wales and Queensland, were “like a table tennis net on a soccer pitch”, said Lawrence Chlebeck, a marine biologist at Humane World for Animals.
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07/27/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 28 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00140-7
Scenario planning from the bottom up: supporting inclusive and ecosystem-based approaches to marine spatial planning
07/27/2025 - 03:00
Exclusive: Solar-powered units reciting biblical passages have appeared in the Javari valley, despite strict laws protecting Indigenous groups
Read more on this story: ‘A computer, a radio, a drone and a shotgun’: how missionaries are reaching out to Brazil’s isolated peoples
Missionary groups are using audio devices in protected territories of the rainforest to attract and evangelise isolated or recently contacted Indigenous people in the Amazon. A joint investigation by the Guardian and Brazilian newspaper O Globo reveals that solar-powered devices reciting biblical messages in Portuguese and Spanish have appeared among members of the Korubo people in the Javari valley, near the Brazil-Peru border.
Drones have also been spotted by Brazilian state agents in charge of protecting the areas. The gadgets have raised concerns about illegal missionary activities, despite strict government measures designed to safeguard isolated Indigenous groups.
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07/26/2025 - 23:00
Alga from east Asia is major threat to biodiversity, say experts as they warn of environmental catastrophe
Thousands of tonnes of an aggressive invasive seaweed from east Asia are piling up on the beaches of the strait of Gibraltar and Spain’s southern coast in what local environmentalists say is a major threat to the region’s biodiversity.
Since May, the local authority in Cádiz has removed 1,200 tonnes of the alga Rugulopteryx okamurae from La Caleta, the city’s most popular beach, including 78 tonnes in a single day.
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07/26/2025 - 19:00
The vast salt lake in the South Australian outback is dry for most of its life, having only filled to capacity three times in the past 160 years. So when water does arrive, this enormous landscape becomes a riot of colour
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07/26/2025 - 01:00
Water firms claim wet wipes, which shed microplastics and cause blockages, are main source of sewage pollution
Wet wipe producers should be charged to remove their pollution from England’s waterways, the author of a government review into reforming the sector has said.
Sewage has been a critical factor in the devastating pollution of our waterways, but other sources of pollution include microplastics, consumer products such as wet wipes, and the byproducts of modern manufacturing, such asPfas (“forever chemicals”), as well as fertiliser and pesticides from farming. Many of these have been linked to harmful effects on human health and the natural environment.
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