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.

Discarded tires lie scattered across the seabed at Florida's failed Osborne Tire Reef project.

In the early 1970s, Florida dumped between 1 million and 2 million tires into the Atlantic to build an artificial reef, and the plan turned into an ecological disaster

By ECONEWS

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August 7, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Make Sunsets team prepares a weather balloon for a solar geoengineering experiment using sulfur dioxide.

In 2022, a California startup released sulfur dioxide balloons over Mexico to test ‘cooling credits,’ and the backlash pushed Mexico to move to block solar geoengineering experiments

By Adrian Villellas

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August 7, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Byron Kominek drives a tractor beneath elevated solar panels at Jack's Solar Garden in Longmont, Colorado

A Colorado farm now grows berries and herbs beneath 3,276 solar panels, and four years of data show the shade actually helped crops survive drought

By ECONEWS

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August 6, 2026 at 12:30 PM

A Florida homeowner covers a dry front lawn with overlapping cardboard sheets before adding mulch and native pollinator plants.

It all started when a Florida homeowner had some old cardboard boxes he was going to throw away and ended up transforming a withered lawn into a garden full of butterflies, bees, birds, and edible plants that requires almost no maintenance

By Adrian Villellas

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August 4, 2026 at 2:01 PM

The Pascua Lama mining district in Chile's high Andes, surrounded by glaciers and alpine terrain.

A Diaguita community is fighting Barrick’s El Alto drilling permit in Chile’s high Andes, arguing it would reopen ground already covered by a binding closure order

By ECONEWS

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August 3, 2026 at 8:45 AM

A reef cube is loaded onto a vessel before deployment for a native oyster restoration project in northeast England.

Britain is dropping 20 concrete reef cubes and 44 tons of scallop shells into the sea, and the goal is to bring back oysters down more than 95% since the 1800s

By ECONEWS

—

August 2, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Black2Green's 15-tonne-per-day plastics-to-energy facility in Whangārei, New Zealand.

A New Zealand plastic-to-fuel plant can keep operating after an Environment Court ruling, and Zero Waste Aotearoa says the missing emissions evidence is the real alarm

By ECONEWS

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August 2, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Colombian Navy personnel board a fishing boat during an operation near the Malpelo Marine Sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean.

Colombia intercepted a boat with 1,764 pounds of marine animals near Malpelo, and the catch may have come from one of the Pacific’s most protected sanctuaries

By ECONEWS

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August 2, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Wild Iberian rabbit (Oryctolagus algirus) in its natural habitat on the Iberian Peninsula.

Scientists split the Iberian rabbit from the European rabbit after 2 million years apart, and the newly named Oryctolagus algirus is already vanishing from western Iberia

By Adrian Villellas

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August 2, 2026 at 10:14 AM

Mixed forest in France undergoing reforestation as part of national forest renewal efforts.

France promised a billion trees in ten years, and its Council of State has now struck down the decree that paid for it, for skipping public consultation

By Adrian Villellas

—

August 2, 2026 at 8:45 AM

President Donald Trump in front of the Bears Ears landscape after signing proclamations that dramatically reduced the Utah national monument.

Trump cut Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 2.93 million acres, leaving barely a tenth protected and reopening the Utah desert to mining and oil

By ECONEWS

—

August 1, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Aerial view of the protected River Lugg after a British farmer used heavy machinery to reshape the riverbank

A British farmer drove a 20-metric-ton excavator into a protected river, uprooted 71 mature trees, and the damage he caused in just a few days could take 50 years to disappear

By ECONEWS

—

August 1, 2026 at 2:55 PM

Worker unloads recycled oyster shells collected from restaurants for coastal reef restoration.

Florida is turning the shells left behind by restaurant patrons into living reefs, but the figure of 500,000 metric tons does not appear in official records

By ECONEWS

—

August 1, 2026 at 1:48 PM

Empress cicada with transparent wings used to develop an ultrasensitive optical sensor

Scientists have transformed a simple fragment of a cicada’s wing into an optical platform capable of detecting molecular signals that, under normal conditions, would be virtually impossible to detect

By ECONEWS

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August 1, 2026 at 1:00 PM

The U.S. wants to auction deep waters around American Samoa, and the minerals lying up to 20,000 feet down could open a new ocean fight

By ECONEWS

—

August 1, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Low water levels expose sandbanks along the Rhine River during Europe's 2026 summer drought.

Europe’s great rivers are shrinking under heat and drought, and the Danube, Rhine and Loire are showing how fast summer can redraw the continent

By ECONEWS

—

August 1, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Illegal agricultural plastic waste dump near greenhouses in Boqueras Altas, Almería, Spain.

One plastic-covered plot in Almería is exposing the hidden cost of Europe’s greenhouse vegetables, and the waste has been piling up for more than a decade

By Adrian Villellas

—

August 1, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Global CADI map showing projected climate-driven gains and losses in agricultural productivity across the world's croplands.

A new climate map can forecast farm decline almost six miles at a time, and the warning is already visible in one in six croplands

By ECONEWS

—

August 1, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Aerial view of an Adélie penguin colony surrounded by guano stains in Antarctica used to study diet changes from satellite imagery.

Satellite images are reading penguin droppings across Antarctica, and the color of the stains is revealing how climate change is reshaping their food web

By ECONEWS

—

July 31, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Semi-pelagic trawl doors being tested off Spain to reduce seabed contact during commercial fishing.

Scientists are testing “flying doors” that keep trawls above the seabed, and the result could change how fishing scars the ocean floor

By ECONEWS

—

July 31, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Previous Next

Environment

In the early 1970s, Florida dumped between 1 million and 2 million tires into the Atlantic to build an artificial reef, and the plan turned into an ecological disaster

In 2022, a California startup released sulfur dioxide balloons over Mexico to test ‘cooling credits,’ and the backlash pushed Mexico to move to block solar geoengineering experiments

A Colorado farm now grows berries and herbs beneath 3,276 solar panels, and four years of data show the shade actually helped crops survive drought

It all started when a Florida homeowner had some old cardboard boxes he was going to throw away and ended up transforming a withered lawn into a garden full of butterflies, bees, birds, and edible plants that requires almost no maintenance

A Diaguita community is fighting Barrick’s El Alto drilling permit in Chile’s high Andes, arguing it would reopen ground already covered by a binding closure order

Britain is dropping 20 concrete reef cubes and 44 tons of scallop shells into the sea, and the goal is to bring back oysters down more than 95% since the 1800s

A New Zealand plastic-to-fuel plant can keep operating after an Environment Court ruling, and Zero Waste Aotearoa says the missing emissions evidence is the real alarm

Colombia intercepted a boat with 1,764 pounds of marine animals near Malpelo, and the catch may have come from one of the Pacific’s most protected sanctuaries

Scientists split the Iberian rabbit from the European rabbit after 2 million years apart, and the newly named Oryctolagus algirus is already vanishing from western Iberia

France promised a billion trees in ten years, and its Council of State has now struck down the decree that paid for it, for skipping public consultation

Trump cut Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 2.93 million acres, leaving barely a tenth protected and reopening the Utah desert to mining and oil

A British farmer drove a 20-metric-ton excavator into a protected river, uprooted 71 mature trees, and the damage he caused in just a few days could take 50 years to disappear

Florida is turning the shells left behind by restaurant patrons into living reefs, but the figure of 500,000 metric tons does not appear in official records

Scientists have transformed a simple fragment of a cicada’s wing into an optical platform capable of detecting molecular signals that, under normal conditions, would be virtually impossible to detect

The U.S. wants to auction deep waters around American Samoa, and the minerals lying up to 20,000 feet down could open a new ocean fight

Europe’s great rivers are shrinking under heat and drought, and the Danube, Rhine and Loire are showing how fast summer can redraw the continent

One plastic-covered plot in Almería is exposing the hidden cost of Europe’s greenhouse vegetables, and the waste has been piling up for more than a decade

A new climate map can forecast farm decline almost six miles at a time, and the warning is already visible in one in six croplands

Satellite images are reading penguin droppings across Antarctica, and the color of the stains is revealing how climate change is reshaping their food web

Scientists are testing “flying doors” that keep trawls above the seabed, and the result could change how fishing scars the ocean floor

Chemists are turning ammonia into pure hydrogen at 482°F, far cooler than standard cracking, and the trick is using electricity to pull the gas through a palladium membrane

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

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