Planet’s oldest bee species and primary pollinators were under threat from deforestation and competition from ‘killer bees’
Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.
It means that across a broad swathe of the Peruvian Amazon, the rainforest’s long-overlooked native bees – which, unlike their cousins the European honeybees, have no sting – now have the right to exist and to flourish.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/29/2025 - 09:00
Conservationists and scientists criticise state for backtracking and say alternative non-lethal methods such as netting are more effective
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The Queensland government has backtracked on plans to end the shooting of flying foxes from July 2026, continuing a practice wildlife advocates and scientists describe as “ineffective” and “inhumane”.
Permits issued by the state’s environment department allow Queensland farmers to shoot flying foxes for the purposes of crop protection, up to an annual statewide quota set at 1,630 animals. That includes 130 grey-headed flying foxes, listed as vulnerable under federal environment laws, along with 700 black and 800 little red flying foxes.
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12/29/2025 - 07:30
Trump ratcheted up his questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it
In the past decade at the forefront of US politics, Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of unusual, misleading or dubious assertions about the climate crisis, which he most famously called a “hoax”.
This year has seen Trump ratchet up his often questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it. In a year littered with lies and wild declarations, these are the five that stood out as the most startling.
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12/29/2025 - 07:00
Attenborough, 99, enthuses about tube-riding pigeons, foxes, parakeets and others in Wild London for the BBC
Filming the wildlife of London requires an intrepid, agile presenter, willing to lie on damp grass after dark to encounter hedgehogs, scale heights to hold a peregrine falcon chick, and stake out a Tottenham allotment to get within touching distance of wary wild foxes.
Step forward Sir David Attenborough, who spent his 100th summer seeking out the hidden nature of his home city for an unusually personal and intimate BBC documentary.
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12/29/2025 - 03:00
These unfairly maligned animals were nuggets for our ancestors and served for the UK during the second world war
Is there something I would figuratively die on a hill for? Yes, there is – and as it happens, I’m sitting on a literal hill right now, feeding them. Pigeons. Why pigeons? Because it’s about time they get the respect they deserve.
I like pigeons. Because they’re like me, working class. You can tell pigeons are working class because every pigeon looks knackered. It’s about this point in the conversation that people politely make their excuses and slowly back away (literally) while avoiding eye contact. No doubt, reading this, you are doing the same (figuratively).
Toussaint Douglass is a comedian from Lewisham, south London. His show Accessible Pigeon Material will be showing at Soho Theatre, 26-31 January 2026
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12/29/2025 - 00:00
In 2014 the Malaysian Airlines jet vanished over the Indian Ocean. Now the team that located Shackleton’s Endurance is looking again with the latest undersea robots
Search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 expected to resume on Tuesday
More than a decade after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing after veering thousands of miles off course, its location remains unknown.
The Malaysian government has promised to pay a private company, Ocean Infinity, $70m (£56m) to search for the plane on a “no find, no fee” basis.
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12/27/2025 - 06:07
West Somerset Lagoon would harness renewable energy for UK’s AI boom – and create ‘iconic’ arc around Bristol Channel
The architect of the London Eye wants to build a vast tidal power station in a 14-mile arc off the coast of Somerset that could help Britain meet surging electricity demand to power artificial intelligence – and create a new race track to let cyclists skim over the Bristol Channel.
Julia Barfield, who designed the Eye and the i360 observation tower in Brighton, is part of a team that has drawn up the £11bn proposal. It would curve from Minehead to Watchet and use 125 underwater turbines to harness the power of the second-highest tidal range in the world.
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12/27/2025 - 03:00
From merrily dismissing climate science, to promoting irresponsible health claims, the podcast was an unintentional warning for our times
Looking back on this crazy year, one event, right at the start, seems to me to encapsulate the whole. In January, recording his podcast in a studio in Austin, Texas, the host, Joe Rogan, and the actor Mel Gibson merrily dissed climate science. At the same time, about 1,200 miles away in California, Gibson’s $14m home was being incinerated in the Palisades wildfire. In this and other respects, their discussion could be seen as prefiguring the entire 12 months.
The loss of his house hadn’t been confirmed at the time of the interview, but Gibson said his son had just sent him “a video of my neighbourhood, and it’s in flames. It looks like an inferno.” According to World Weather Attribution, January’s fires in California were made significantly more likely by climate breakdown. Factors such as the extreme lack of rainfall and stronger winds made such fires both more likely to happen and more intense than they would have been without human-caused global heating.
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12/27/2025 - 01:48
With the snow line edging higher, 186 French ski resorts have shut, while global heating threatens dozens more
When Céüze 2000 ski resort closed at the end of the season in 2018, the workers assumed they would be back the following winter. Maps of the pistes were left stacked beside a stapler; the staff rota pinned to the wall.
Six years on, a yellowing newspaper dated 8 March 2018 sits folded on its side, as if someone has just flicked through it during a quiet spell. A half-drunk bottle of water remains on the table.
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12/27/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 27 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00178-7
No significant projected climate change effects on the geographic ranges of marine aquaculture species under the sustainable scenario (SSP 1-1.9, 1.5°C warming)
