As summers get hotter, investment and education are vital to ensure we all have access to the clean, safe water we need
A local row about swimmers and swans in Hampstead Heath has now inspired a government reaction. Environment ministers over the weekend wrote to the City of London Corporation, which oversees the heath, to say that they were “deeply concerned” by footage of crowds of people in the water during last week’s heatwave.
One viral video showed young revellers – who had defied a “no swimming” sign – in a wildlife pond, disturbing the nesting birds. It was picked up by the press, with headlines calling the swimmers “selfish”, “horrible” and “appalling”. Like many who saw it, I was saddened and shocked at the disregard for animals: people were clambering over nests, and trying to reach an island specially safeguarded for birds. Yet I also wondered what a polarised, emotive debate is going to achieve when, lurking behind the justified anger, is another question about our access to water.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/03/2026 - 09:02
06/03/2026 - 05:53
One of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded this early in the Pacific season did more than unleash flooding and extreme winds—it sent enormous ripples all the way into the upper atmosphere. As Super Typhoon Sinlaku rapidly exploded into a category 5-equivalent storm, satellites captured rare gravity waves spreading outward like rings on a pond, visible high above Earth through a faint glow in the atmosphere.
06/03/2026 - 05:03
Governments urged to act to prevent potentially disastrous impacts on human resistance to medicines
The use of antibiotics on livestock will rise by nearly a third in the next 15 years without government intervention, according to new global estimates, with potentially disastrous impacts on human resistance to essential medicines.
Animal husbandry accounts for close to three-quarters of global use of antimicrobial medications and in many countries their use is poorly monitored. Some herds are routinely dosed and in many countries antimicrobials are used to increase the growth of animals bred for meat.
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06/03/2026 - 05:00
In the Guardian’s Against the tide series, the documentary photographer got to know some ‘amazing’ 16- to 25-year-olds living on the fringes of England and Wales, and now her work is the centre of a new touring exhibition
It was while reading a landmark report about the poor health of people who live on the English coast that documentary photographer Polly Braden had her big idea. “I was just blown away by it,” she says. “I thought: this is about England. And it affects all of us.”
At the same time, as a single mother of teenagers, she had become interested in the lives of young people who had grown up under austerity, lived through a pandemic and were becoming adults during a cost-of-living crisis.
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06/03/2026 - 01:00
Campaigners say builders’ demolition of nest site highlights weak protection of wildlife from development
A building that was a noted nesting site for swifts, among the UK’s most at-risk birds, has been demolished during the nesting season, highlighting significant weaknesses in the protection of wildlife from development, campaigners say.
Contractors for the housebuilder Hill Group carried out the demolition of Regent House near Dorking station in Surrey over the last few weeks, during the nesting season which runs from 1 March to 31 August.
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El Niño expected to develop in coming months, bringing hotter and drier weather to eastern Australia
06/02/2026 - 23:29
BoM and other agencies expect transition to the first El Niño since spring 2023 sometime during winter
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Australia should prepare for an imminent El Niño, with the Bureau of Meteorology and other agencies forecasting that the weather phenomenon is likely to develop in the coming months.
“The models are really aligning now,” Felicity Gamble, a senior BoM climatologist, said. “We are expecting a transition to El Niño sometime during winter.”
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06/02/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 03 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00210-4
A practical approach to assess equity in fisheries management
06/02/2026 - 18:01
Bank of England says updated imagery will celebrate native wildlife while bolstering anti-counterfeit features
Puffins, dolphins and bumblebees are among the wildlife that could feature on new banknotes in the UK as the Bank of England announces its shortlist.
There has been controversy over the decision, with figures including Nigel Farage criticising the Bank for, he claimed, wanting to replace Winston Churchill with a beaver. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said it was “a silly thing to do”, and Reform UK’s Farage called it “absolutely crackers”. In the end, no beaver appeared on the shortlist. Mammal options include bottlenose dolphins and red foxes.
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06/02/2026 - 17:35
Ocean Observatories Initiative, $368m network that has provided crucial climate data, latest victim of Trump cuts
The Trump administration plans to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system that has for more than a decade provided crucial data on ocean systems and climate change.
In a notice, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it had “initiated descoping of the Ocean Observatories Initiative” (OOI), a vast ocean observation network comprising more than 900 instruments that collect data on ocean health, including current patterns, climate variability and marine biodiversity.
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06/02/2026 - 11:29
Utility company pleaded guilty to criminal offence of supplying water unfit for humans
‘My son is still suffering’: the ill effects of water contamination in ‘Brixham incident’
A utility company has been fined £1.85m for supplying water unfit for human consumption after a parasite outbreak made hundreds of people sick and forced thousands of households to boil their water.
South West Water (SWW) pleaded guilty to the criminal offence relating to a cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Brixham, Devon, in the spring and summer of 2024.
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