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.

566-year-old coolabah “matriarch” tree in the Gwydir Wetlands, NSW, studied for five centuries of climate and flood history

A 566-year-old “matriarch” tree still stands in the Gwydir wetlands, and scientists say its trunk contains a climate record spanning five centuries

By ECONEWS

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February 24, 2026 at 6:38 AM

Seychelles sea coconut (coco de mer) seed on a beach, the world’s largest seed at up to 66 pounds and nearly 20 inches wide

Weighing up to 66 pounds and measuring nearly 20 inches, the Seychelles sea coconut is the largest seed on the planet

By ECONEWS

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February 23, 2026 at 7:04 PM

Scientist releases biological control weevils onto invasive floating pennywort in a UK river

The war against invasive plants that devour rivers and fields enters creative mode: British scientists are releasing living allies that no one would have imagined in a modern scientific plan

By ECONEWS

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February 23, 2026 at 2:07 PM

Close-up of a wild boar linked to Fukushima’s post-disaster genetic experiment in abandoned farmlands

Fifteen years after the March 11, 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, scientists discover that wild boars were the subject of an unexpected genetic experiment

By ECONEWS

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February 23, 2026 at 12:18 PM

Joshua trees blooming in the California desert in October 2025, months earlier than their usual flowering season.

Something is not right in the California desert: Joshua trees began to bloom in October 2025 (yes, October), and now scientists are trying to figure out what “woke them up” months earlier than usual

By Adrian Villellas

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February 22, 2026 at 3:00 PM

Close-up of stingless guard bees at the entrance of their nest in Kerala, India

He is only 14 years old, used a 10-year-old camera, and won the world’s most important macro photography contest with a photo of bees in India

By ECONEWS

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February 21, 2026 at 5:09 AM

Four North American river otters swimming in a spring-fed lake in the Texas Hill Country near Waco

Four river otters spotted in a Texas Hill Country lake, a sign of recovering waters in Central Texas

By Adrian Villellas

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February 20, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Deep Arctic permafrost inside Alaska’s Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility where Ice Age microbes were revived in lab experiments

Microbes frozen since the Ice Age wake up and start devouring carbon in Alaska laboratories

By ECONEWS

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February 18, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Damian Gordon collecting cans and bottles through Australia’s Return and Earn program to fund his first home deposit

Damian Gordon recycled more than 450,000 cans and bottles in seven years and used the refunds as a deposit on a home

By ECONEWS

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February 17, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Remains of a 17th-century blubber oven at Smeerenburg with glacier and Arctic mountains in Svalbard.

They spent the deadliest winter of the 17th century in a makeshift cabin eating whale blubber, not knowing if anyone would ever come back to rescue them

By ECONEWS

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February 17, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Dense clusters of invasive quagga mussels cling to rocks underwater, a species newly detected in Lower Lough Erne, Northern Ireland.

Quagga mussels detected for the first time in Northern Ireland, in Lower Lough Erne

By ECONEWS

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February 16, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Bald eagle overlooking a five acre farm lake that evolved into a diverse wildlife sanctuary.

He created a lake to raise fish and installed cameras to monitor them, but ended up attracting eagles, deer, and owls to one of the continent’s most unexpected wildlife sanctuaries

By Adrian Villellas

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February 15, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Prehistoric animal paintings inside Lascaux Cave discovered in 1940 near Montignac, France.

In 1940, a boy chased his dog through a hole in a tree and ended up finding a secret cave with more than 600 human paintings dating back 17,000 years that no one had ever seen before

By ECONEWS

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February 15, 2026 at 1:30 AM

Paper parachutes with dead mice baits laced with paracetamol are lined up for an aerial drop to target brown tree snakes in Guam.

Guam drops 2,000 dead mice laced with paracetamol to kill invasive brown tree snakes

By ECONEWS

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February 13, 2026 at 8:15 AM

Stingless bee species in the Peruvian Amazon now recognized as legal subjects with environmental rights

Peru recognizes the legal rights of stingless bees, the first insects in the world to receive this status

By ECONEWS

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February 13, 2026 at 3:46 AM

UN flag waving as WMO warns 2025 could be the second or third hottest year on record

2025 is expected to be the second or third hottest year on record, warns the UN

By Adrian Villellas

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February 11, 2026 at 2:29 PM

Chestnut mining bee (Andrena rehni) held between a biologist’s berry-stained fingers in Syracuse, New York.

A biologist gets her fingers stained with berry juice… and accidentally discovers a species of bee that was believed to have been extinct in the region since 1904

By ECONEWS

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February 11, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Fernandina Island giant tortoise rediscovered alive in the Galápagos after being declared extinct

Fernanda, the Fernandina Island giant tortoise, confirms a Galápagos species thought extinct since 1906 survived

By ECONEWS

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February 10, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Glowing lava flows into the ocean during an ocean island eruption, illustrating how deep mantle processes can fuel volcanism and release CO2.

Your continent could be feeding a volcano in the middle of the ocean… and you didn’t even know it

By ECONEWS

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February 10, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Gray wolf walking through snow near an abandoned building in the Chernobyl exclusion zone

Chernobyl, 40 years later: mutant wolves are found surviving by feeding on radioactive prey… and resisting cancer like no other mammal

By Adrian Villellas

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February 9, 2026 at 3:22 PM

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Environment

A 566-year-old “matriarch” tree still stands in the Gwydir wetlands, and scientists say its trunk contains a climate record spanning five centuries

Weighing up to 66 pounds and measuring nearly 20 inches, the Seychelles sea coconut is the largest seed on the planet

The war against invasive plants that devour rivers and fields enters creative mode: British scientists are releasing living allies that no one would have imagined in a modern scientific plan

Fifteen years after the March 11, 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, scientists discover that wild boars were the subject of an unexpected genetic experiment

Something is not right in the California desert: Joshua trees began to bloom in October 2025 (yes, October), and now scientists are trying to figure out what “woke them up” months earlier than usual

He is only 14 years old, used a 10-year-old camera, and won the world’s most important macro photography contest with a photo of bees in India

Four river otters spotted in a Texas Hill Country lake, a sign of recovering waters in Central Texas

Microbes frozen since the Ice Age wake up and start devouring carbon in Alaska laboratories

Damian Gordon recycled more than 450,000 cans and bottles in seven years and used the refunds as a deposit on a home

They spent the deadliest winter of the 17th century in a makeshift cabin eating whale blubber, not knowing if anyone would ever come back to rescue them

Quagga mussels detected for the first time in Northern Ireland, in Lower Lough Erne

He created a lake to raise fish and installed cameras to monitor them, but ended up attracting eagles, deer, and owls to one of the continent’s most unexpected wildlife sanctuaries

In 1940, a boy chased his dog through a hole in a tree and ended up finding a secret cave with more than 600 human paintings dating back 17,000 years that no one had ever seen before

Guam drops 2,000 dead mice laced with paracetamol to kill invasive brown tree snakes

Peru recognizes the legal rights of stingless bees, the first insects in the world to receive this status

2025 is expected to be the second or third hottest year on record, warns the UN

A biologist gets her fingers stained with berry juice… and accidentally discovers a species of bee that was believed to have been extinct in the region since 1904

Fernanda, the Fernandina Island giant tortoise, confirms a Galápagos species thought extinct since 1906 survived

Your continent could be feeding a volcano in the middle of the ocean… and you didn’t even know it

Chernobyl, 40 years later: mutant wolves are found surviving by feeding on radioactive prey… and resisting cancer like no other mammal

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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