Environment

Wildlife, oceans, forests, climate and conservation

In Environment, ECOnews covers wildlife and biodiversity, oceans, forests, climate change, pollution, recycling and conservation. Surprising stories from around the planet that explain how nature works and how people are changing it.

Vostok Station above Lake Vostok beneath the Antarctic ice sheet

Lake Vostok lies liquid four kilometers beneath Antarctic ice at minus 3°C, not from antifreeze but from pressure lowering water’s melting point while thick ice slows heat loss and Earth’s internal energy persists

By ECONEWS

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August 21, 2026 at 12:45 PM

Aerial view of As Pontes lake in Galicia, Spain, created by flooding the former open-pit lignite mine.

A closed coal pit in Spain became a lake holding 547 billion liters of water over four years, with scientists documenting chemically distinct layers that show careful oversight remains crucial for ecosystem recovery

By ECONEWS

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August 20, 2026 at 8:47 AM

Exposed foundations and concrete steps at the St. Thomas ghost town in Lake Mead, Nevada.

Lake Mead dropped below its previous record at 1,039.70 feet, exposing St. Thomas ruins with foundations now visible 60 feet above the waterline, marking the Colorado River system’s deepening water crisis

By ECONEWS

—

August 19, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Heavy machinery works on protective lava barriers as an eruption sends lava across Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula.

Beneath Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, magma continues to accumulate 28.3 million cubic meters waiting underground while barrier work pauses and warning windows narrow to hours or less

By ECONEWS

—

August 18, 2026 at 3:03 PM

Antarctic tourists and expedition staff near a penguin colony during a shore landing.

Twenty-five Antarctic guides gave up the job they loved as visitor numbers passed 113,000 in a single season, and the question that pushed them out has no comfortable answer

By ECONEWS

—

August 17, 2026 at 6:11 PM

Aerial view of archaeological cropmarks revealed across a drought-parched field in Wales.

The drought burned Welsh fields brown and turned them into an X-ray, showing a 5,000-year-old burial mound, a Roman fort and First World War trenches that no one had recorded

By ECONEWS

—

August 17, 2026 at 2:08 PM

Cindy Mora and her son Fabrizio outside their recycled-plastic block house in Costa Rica.

A Costa Rican mother saved for nine years to buy land, and 850 blocks of recycled plastic became the walls of the house 800 volunteers are wrongly credited with building

By Adrian Villellas

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August 16, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Lear's macaw chick being hand-fed by a keeper at Pairi Daiza.

A Belgian park has now bred all three blue macaw species, and the two chicks that completed the record needed twelve hand feedings a day to survive their first week

By ECONEWS

—

August 16, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Rescued female saltwater crocodile from Magalang, Pampanga, Philippines

Saltwater crocodiles vanished from Philippine coasts decades ago, and a 10-foot female’s rescue this August revealed more about captive wildlife than a comeback

By ECONEWS

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August 16, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Aerial view of a dam and fish passage infrastructure on the St. Croix River in Maine.

A fish elevator on a Maine dam could reopen 600 miles of river to a small fish, and the whales people keep mentioning are not part of the story yet

By Adrian Villellas

—

August 15, 2026 at 6:30 PM

King cobra with its hood raised on the leaf-covered floor of a forest.

Mushroom gatherers walked into a Nepalese forest and found a nest built by the only snake known to make one, and officials have now restricted access to the site

By ECONEWS

—

August 15, 2026 at 10:15 AM

People planting young trees together during a Green Legacy tree-planting event in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia put 805 million seedlings in the ground in twelve hours with 26 million people helping, and the number that will actually decide whether it worked is still years away

By ECONEWS

—

August 15, 2026 at 8:49 AM

Map of Europe showing extreme summer heat across western and southern Europe with a thermometer in the foreground.

NASA satellite images show France, Spain and Italy turning brown within weeks, and the measurement behind the color change is one Europe has never recorded in a summer before

By ECONEWS

—

August 14, 2026 at 6:30 PM

GPS collars reveal snow leopards roam far larger territories than previously recorded, crossing international borders.

Four snow leopards wearing GPS collars in Nepal sent back 4,707 signals, and three of them crossed into China and India so often that the conservation map no longer fits

By ECONEWS

—

August 14, 2026 at 7:15 AM

Agricultural sprayer applying herbicide across a large crop field.

Syngenta is leaving Australia’s paraquat market after an 80 percent spraying cut, but the weed killer linked in studies to Parkinson’s concerns will remain

By ECONEWS

—

August 13, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Several moose gathered in open habitat in Newfoundland.

Newfoundland introduced moose in 1878 and released four more in 1904, and today about 110,000 descendants are reshaping the island’s forests

By Adrian Villellas

—

August 13, 2026 at 5:00 PM

An invasive black rat on a tropical island where introduced rodents have reduced seabird populations and altered nearby coral reef food webs.

Rats never touch the coral, yet on islands where they wiped out the seabirds the whole underwater food chain took another route, and crabs gained the ground the fish lost

By Adrian Villellas

—

August 13, 2026 at 3:00 PM

Phil Brown walks through vegetable fields in Bowen, Queensland, where plastic mulch and drip irrigation are widely used in crop production.

A Queensland couple keeps the plastic matting and drip tape that grew their tomatoes, because Australia recycles only 7 percent of farm plastic and no truck will take the rest

By ECONEWS

—

August 13, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Leonardo DiCaprio alongside a pink iguana featured in the Phoenix Species Project

Leonardo DiCaprio and others fund a USD 200 million project to recover 100 species on the brink of extinction, a genetic rescue plan

By ECONEWS

—

August 12, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Colorful pollinator-friendly garden replacing a traditional front lawn in Florida.

A Florida homeowner turned lawn into pollinator sanctuary using cardboard and patience, proving that even boxes can start an ecosystem

By ECONEWS

—

August 12, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Previous Next

Environment

Lake Vostok lies liquid four kilometers beneath Antarctic ice at minus 3°C, not from antifreeze but from pressure lowering water’s melting point while thick ice slows heat loss and Earth’s internal energy persists

A closed coal pit in Spain became a lake holding 547 billion liters of water over four years, with scientists documenting chemically distinct layers that show careful oversight remains crucial for ecosystem recovery

Lake Mead dropped below its previous record at 1,039.70 feet, exposing St. Thomas ruins with foundations now visible 60 feet above the waterline, marking the Colorado River system’s deepening water crisis

Beneath Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, magma continues to accumulate 28.3 million cubic meters waiting underground while barrier work pauses and warning windows narrow to hours or less

Twenty-five Antarctic guides gave up the job they loved as visitor numbers passed 113,000 in a single season, and the question that pushed them out has no comfortable answer

The drought burned Welsh fields brown and turned them into an X-ray, showing a 5,000-year-old burial mound, a Roman fort and First World War trenches that no one had recorded

A Costa Rican mother saved for nine years to buy land, and 850 blocks of recycled plastic became the walls of the house 800 volunteers are wrongly credited with building

A Belgian park has now bred all three blue macaw species, and the two chicks that completed the record needed twelve hand feedings a day to survive their first week

Saltwater crocodiles vanished from Philippine coasts decades ago, and a 10-foot female’s rescue this August revealed more about captive wildlife than a comeback

A fish elevator on a Maine dam could reopen 600 miles of river to a small fish, and the whales people keep mentioning are not part of the story yet

Mushroom gatherers walked into a Nepalese forest and found a nest built by the only snake known to make one, and officials have now restricted access to the site

Ethiopia put 805 million seedlings in the ground in twelve hours with 26 million people helping, and the number that will actually decide whether it worked is still years away

NASA satellite images show France, Spain and Italy turning brown within weeks, and the measurement behind the color change is one Europe has never recorded in a summer before

Four snow leopards wearing GPS collars in Nepal sent back 4,707 signals, and three of them crossed into China and India so often that the conservation map no longer fits

Syngenta is leaving Australia’s paraquat market after an 80 percent spraying cut, but the weed killer linked in studies to Parkinson’s concerns will remain

Newfoundland introduced moose in 1878 and released four more in 1904, and today about 110,000 descendants are reshaping the island’s forests

Rats never touch the coral, yet on islands where they wiped out the seabirds the whole underwater food chain took another route, and crabs gained the ground the fish lost

A Queensland couple keeps the plastic matting and drip tape that grew their tomatoes, because Australia recycles only 7 percent of farm plastic and no truck will take the rest

Leonardo DiCaprio and others fund a USD 200 million project to recover 100 species on the brink of extinction, a genetic rescue plan

A Florida homeowner turned lawn into pollinator sanctuary using cardboard and patience, proving that even boxes can start an ecosystem

Roman soldiers guarded a German forest fort for 150 years, and archaeologists digging just inches below the forest floor have found a temple of Mars and a pin hinting at who came after

A volunteer diver picking up trash at the bottom of a Wisconsin lake found a 1,000-year-old dugout canoe, and the Wisconsin Historical Society has decided the safest place for it is exactly where it lies

Czech cave explorers and a robot have measured the Hranice Abyss to 1,476 feet underwater, and a decade after it became the world’s deepest flooded cave, nobody knows where the bottom is

A Hawaiian tree snail vanished from the wild after Hawaii brought in a predator to fight a garden pest, and 33 years later it is back behind walls that keep its hunters out

A Swiss glacier has pulled back far enough to reveal a larch that stopped growing about 10,300 years ago, and its still-attached roots show the tree grew on ground the ice later buried

Chinstrap penguin droppings across Antarctica release an estimated 540,000 tons of methane a year, and the bare ground between the guano patches gives off almost nothing

Twenty family dogs listened to nonstop invented words while wearing electrodes, and scientists found that dog brains lock onto the same hidden detail of speech that human brains rely on from infancy

Norway’s largest Viking coin hoard has grown to 5,550 coins since two metal detectorists found it in a field, and an archaeologist cataloging them spotted one struck for a king who became a saint

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