Scientists believe they may now have found the cause of Fair Isle’s pollution – and warn that it should be ringing alarm bells in other coastal areas
When the wind picks up on Fair Isle, Britain’s most remote inhabited island, puffs of seafoam start to drift across fields like tumbleweed. The pale yellow blobs are ubiquitous enough to hold their own place in the island’s mythology: known as the butter churned by a local troll, Lukki Minni.
“When the Atlantic gets going, foam covers the whole island,” says Tommy Hyndman, an artist who moved to the Fair Isle from upstate New York two decades ago. “Your windows get caked and your plants all die from the salt.”
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/02/2026 - 03:00
06/02/2026 - 02:00
UN agency predicts phenomenon that supercharges weather extremes has 80% chance of forming before September
The world must prepare for the imminent return of El Niño and the supercharged weather extremes it brings, the UN has warned.
The powerful natural weather pattern, which raises global temperatures and worsens some rainfall, has an 80% chance of forming before September and a 90% chance before November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.
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06/01/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 02 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00213-1
Empirical analysis of project–purchaser dynamics in Japan’s blue carbon dioxide removal credit scheme
06/01/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 02 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00209-x
Interdisciplinarity in marine sciences is key to addressing ocean challenges
06/01/2026 - 18:01
Net zero industry accounts for more than a million jobs and benefits whole country, according to CBI Economics
More than a million jobs, higher wages, nearly half a trillion pounds in investment in the pipeline – the UK’s green economy is powering ahead, according to research by the country’s leading business organisation.
The net zero economy, which is worth more than £100bn a year, benefits all of the UK, according to the CBI Economics analysis commissioned by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, despite critics who want to abolish the UK’s net zero targets.
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06/01/2026 - 11:35
Our wildlife series Young Country Diary is looking for articles written by children, about their summer encounters with nature
Once again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months we ask you to send us an article written by a child aged 8-14.
The article needs to be about a recent encounter they’ve had with nature – whether it’s a nesting bird, a beetle on the move, a field full of flowers.
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06/01/2026 - 07:55
Letting nature take over at a former dairy farm has resulted in a surge of species in just three years
Three years of rewilding on a former dairy farm in east Somerset have led to the number of recorded bird species soaring from 67 to 94, butterfly species rising from 11 to 24 and small mammals growing in number.
Heal Somerset, the first site acquired by the charity Heal Rewilding, has produced a state of nature report mirroring a national survey by environmental charities that has tracked the decline in nature.
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06/01/2026 - 04:00
Seasonal wardens and netted fences are helping protect the rare ground-nesting birds that arrive each spring on the UK’s shores
On Ross Sands in Northumberland, a little tern has caught sight of a group of people and is sprinting across the beach. “It wants us to follow it,” says Andrew Craggs, senior manager at Lindisfarne national nature reserve. “It’s a diversionary thing – it’s got a scrape and it wants to take us away because it thinks we’re predators.”
Craggs is no predator, and he’s not after the scrape – a small pit the ground-nesting bird has dug into the sand to lay its eggs. He is a guardian of these little birds, as well as more than 3,500 hectares (8,600 acres) of sand dunes, saltmarsh and mudflats that make up this tranquil nature reserve perched on the tip of England’s north-east coast.
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06/01/2026 - 02:55
A world-famous conservation program that helped save Sweden’s endangered wolverines is now struggling as funding stagnates and local trust erodes. Researchers say the decline offers a cautionary lesson: protecting wildlife requires long-term commitment, not just early success.
06/01/2026 - 01:00
‘Megafires’ in California, Canada, South Korea and Europe in 2025, but changes to farming slowed spread in parts of Africa
“Devastating” wildfires ripped across the wealthier parts of the world in 2025, a study has found, even as globally, the area ravaged by flames fell.
Catastrophic blazes claimed lives, homes and jobs last year in California, Canada, Europe and South Korea. But the 335m hectares burned was the second-lowest since 2002, the review found, largely owing to the expansion of African farms that have fragmented landscapes and hampered the spread of large savannah fires.
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