Access-to-nature crisis ‘on par with that of Victorian Britain’s filthy air’ 17. September 2026 (08:00) Research finds many in England lack proximity to green and blue spaces as Labour urged to speed up manifesto pledgeNearly half of all parliamentary constituencies in England have low access to nature despite a government target to ensure everyone is within a 15-minute walk from a green or blue space, new research reveals.The analysis by the Wildlife Trusts comes as the charity presents a green paper to ministers in an attempt to speed up Labour’s manifesto promise to improve access to nature and promote biodiversity.Make it more affordable for local authorities to use compulsory purchase powers for land purchase.Establish a community right to buy land for nature access.Treat nature as essential infrastructure, and free up capital funds to pay for the ongoing maintenance of natural spaces.Make it mandatory for developers to create climate- and nature-friendly housing estates.Make access to major rivers, especially those in urban areas, a statutory right. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
Women in England with incurable breast cancer to get life-extending drug on NHS 17. September 2026 (07:00) Thousands with HER2-low advanced breast cancer will have access to Enhertu after ministers strike deal on priceThousands of women in England with incurable breast cancer will get access to a life-extending drug on the NHS after negotiations over its cost proved successful.About 1,000 women a year with HER2-low advanced breast cancer will be able to obtain Enhertu from Thursday after ministers and the drug’s makers struck a deal on its price. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
‘Like a Disney movie’: Three wild dog brothers make Africa’s longest journey 17. September 2026 (06:00) As three siblings came of age and had to leave their pack, scientists tracked the dogs’ perilous 2,500-mile odyssey to find their own territoryIt sounds like a Disney movie: three wild dogs, all brothers, on an epic journey to find a home of their own after their family tells them to leave. They dodge cars and hunters in search of a new life, navigating bushmeat snares and the hostility of a human-dominated landscape until they find a new haven on the African savannah.But this is exactly what happened in Zambia last year, when three endangered African wild dogs made the longest-ever recorded single journey of any mammal from the continent. The brothers travelled more than 2,500 miles (4,100km) over eight months in their “dispersal” – when a young dog comes of age and must establish new territory to find a mate and start a family of their own. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
English Heritage trains new generation of scythers to maintain meadows and craft 17. September 2026 (06:00) Initiative aims to keep alive age-old skill, and at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset improve habitat for rare shrill carder beeIt sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel: a merry band of men and women roaming the West Country cutting meadows by hand in exchange for hunks of bread and cheese.But the conservation charity English Heritage is recruiting a team of volunteer scythers to maintain 21st-century meadowland in the old-fashioned way. Continue reading...(The Guardian)
