Friday, 23 October 2026
International edition · English
News, analysis, explainers and guides on the climate and biodiversity crisis. We always separate measured facts, scientific projections and opinion.
27 articles · RSS
The Sierra Nevada de Mérida once had at least six glaciers. By 2024 the last one —Humboldt— had shrunk into a small ice field. Venezuela thus became the first country in modern times to lose all its glaciers.
When a border follows the watershed across a glacier, melting can move it. That is what has happened around the Matterhorn, where Switzerland and Italy have had to adjust their shared boundary.
Adopted in 2024 after a fiercely contested process, the Nature Restoration Regulation requires EU countries to bring degraded ecosystems back. What it says, what it does not say and when its effects will be seen.
A glacier is a balance between the snow it gains and the ice it loses. When the books come out in the red year after year, it retreats. We explain why this is happening almost everywhere and what it means for us.
With a wingspan of almost three metres and a diet made up mostly of bones, the bearded vulture is one of the most astonishing birds on the planet. After disappearing from much of Europe, it is soaring over its mountains again.
Snow is not just scenery: it is a natural reservoir that releases water when it is needed most. When it snows less or melts earlier, rivers, forests, wildlife and the economy of entire valleys change.
There are still corners of the planet where human presence is minimal and natural processes set the pace: active volcanoes, deltas in the middle of the desert, immense ice fields and rainforests still to be explored.
It lives in twelve countries, roams huge territories above 3,000 metres and is so elusive that many researchers study it for years without seeing it. This is how the snow leopard survives.
Some landscapes that seem eternal today could look very different by the end of the century. We review ten places where scientists are already measuring profound changes, separating what has been observed from what is projected.
In summer, some snowfields in the Alps, the Pyrenees or the Arctic turn pink. It is not dust or pollution: it is microscopic algae with their own 'sunscreen'. And their colour has consequences.
It lives only in the canals of Xochimilco, in Mexico City, never loses its juvenile look and can regrow legs, tail and even parts of organs. While it thrives in labs and aquariums, in the wild it is on the brink of extinction.
Vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered... Behind each label are very specific scientific criteria. We explain how the world's most widely used tool for measuring extinction risk works.
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