Alaia Kai

04/15/2024

The restoration of a worked-out quarry in the north of the Isle of Man has been given a funding boost by the Manx Lottery Trust.

Manx BirdLife has received £25,000 grant from the Manx Lottery Trust to build a welcome area on former industrial land at the Ayres.

Currently about 105 acres (43 hectares) of the area has been leased to the charity for restoration.

The charity said the project was designed to "protect and enhance the native Manx biodiversity while simultaneously creating a centre of excellence for environmental engagement, experience, and education".

As further areas became depleted of their commercial minerals they would be added to the reserve, with the potential for it to grow to over 450 acres (182 hectares), it said.

The new reserve was being designed to showcase a diverse range of fauna and flora, particularly wetland birds, with work underway to create a "unique sanctuary for both birds and people", a spokeswoman for charity said.

"The restored quarries will also offer a brand new outdoors recreational attraction, providing an opportunity for residents and visitors to connect with nature," she added.

f you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it.

04/02/2024

Nienke Panis-Ringersma has made a career out of following the region's famous blooms. Here are her favourite ways to experience the season, from road trips to bulb picking.

Few images are as indelible as the sight of candy-coloured tulips bursting through the dark winter ground. But in the Netherlands – the world's largest exporter of the magical bloom – venerating tulips is a way of life. In the weeks leading from icy winter to spring, rows of flowers stud the country's landscape in technicolour streaks, most famously in the Bollenstreek "Bulb Region", stretching between the towns of Haarlem and Leiden, arching towards the North Sea. And with tulips come tourists; eager to experience the blooms for themselves.

03/21/2024

n the struggle to combat pollution and fight climate change, a growing number of scientists are beginning to look to one of nature’s oldest biotechnologies: fungi.

The city of Cleveland faces an epidemic of abandoned houses. Crumbling homes number in the thousands. These ramshackle structures are riddled with toxins like lead and dilapidated to the point of no return. And if tearing down and safely disposing of the waste of one such home sounds daunting, imagine thousands of them.
Among the numerous issues that arise, one essential question involves waste. What do you do with the waste material from so many teardown structures, when so much of it is toxic?
"All of the material from demolition – the studs, the floors, cellulosic mass [the primary structural component of plants], and even things like ceiling tiles and asphalt material like roof shingles, can be mixed into substrate that then becomes good for growing fungus," says Chris Maurer, founder of Cleveland-based architect firm Redhouse Studio. Through his firm, Maurer has been advocating for the use of substrate to address Cleveland's housing crisis, which is also a health crisis for the city's inhabitants.

03/07/2024

A herd of goats who were retired from their grazing duties at cliff edges in Norfolk will be used for breeding elsewhere in the county, conservationists have said.

The rare breed bagot goats were first introduced to Cromer in 2016 to help manage the vegetation.

They were taken to Thetford by Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) earlier this year.

NWT said the 12 Cromer goats would be paired up with six other bagots to help boost their numbers.

"There's very few of them left so we are hoping to up their numbers with our breeding programme," said Laura Davey, from NWT.

02/27/2024

The blue crab is so much more than just food for indigenous Esmeraldas, who live on Ecuador's emerald coast. It's an intrinsic part of the culture – and these women are fighting to save it.

As a young girl, Amada Cortez Caicedo would collect blue crabs and clams from the once dense mangrove forests along the coast of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. She and her two sisters would traverse the trees' tentacled roots that stand high above the water, to harvest them from muddy burrows.
"I liked spending time in the wetlands because you would find molluscs and crustaceans in the ground, but in the branches you would see other wildlife," says Caicedo. "So I would go and gaze at the birds and catch snails."
Caicedo's mother would sell the shellfish to market vendors, who would then sell them in big cities like Quito. The shellfish were an important source of income for the family, and they provided food sovereignty – the term used to describe indigenous people's right to eat culturally appropriate food.

02/14/2024

The race to fix clean energy's waste problem
In the race to reduce emissions, plans to build wind farms are skyrocketing. But while the electricity is clean, this green industry has a waste problem. Now there's a race to solve it - as Adrienne Murray has been finding out.

02/07/2024

Energy giant BP has reported its second highest annual profit in a decade, despite it being half the level it announced in the previous year.

Profits were $13.8bn (£11bn) in 2023, down from the record $27.7bn in 2022 when oil prices soared in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The price of oil fell back last year, which has cut profits at all energy firms.
However, BP said it was stepping up its plans to return cash to shareholders.
The results are the first released by BP since the company announced Murray Auchincloss as its new chief executive.
Previous boss Bernard Looney resigned last September after admitting he had not been "fully transparent" about his past personal relationships at the firm. BP's board said Mr Looney had committed "serious misconduct", resulting in him forfeiting up to £32.4m in pay and benefits.
The fall in BP's annual profits echo the results from rival Shell, who last week said profits fell to $28.2bn last year, down from $39.9bn in 2022.
However, excluding 2022's results, BP's annual profit figure was the biggest since 2012.
In the final three months of 2023, BP reported profits of $3bn, which was higher than expected, and its shares were up more than 5% by Tuesday afternoon.
The company also said it planned to increase returns to investors during the first three months of the year through $1.75bn of share buybacks. It has also committed to $3.5bn of buybacks over the first half of 2024.