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The village of Okere Mom-Kok was in ruins by the end of more than a decade of war in northern Uganda.Now, just outside Ojok Okello’s living-room door, final-year pupils at the early childhood centre are noisily breaking for recess and a market is clattering into life, as is the local craft brewe ...
We asked Guardian readers living in cities and towns across the world to share their images of the wildlife they can see from their homes. You answered in your droves, from Canada to Cardiff, and here are some of the best.
A herd of wild boar surrounded a woman who had just come out of a supermarket near Rome and stole her shopping, rekindling a debate about the presence of the animal in Italian towns and cities.
Every time we build something, another patch of ground that could have been a home to wildlife disappears. But Dusty Gedge argues that, in many cases, we can return that patch of ground to nature – up on the roof.
Mangroves are estimated to cover more than 150 square kilometres of the UAE's coastline, acting as a "green lung" for big cities such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai, while also providing habit for wildlife and recreation grounds for humans. Most of us would see mangroves as a beautiful element of our la ...
Faced with worsening floods and a shortage of housing, the Netherlands is seeing growing interest in floating homes. These floating communities are inspiring more ambitious Dutch-led projects in flood-prone nations, from French Polynesia to the Maldives.
Their cries are most commonly associated with the seaside, but as their natural homes come under threat, will gulls increasingly move inland to take up residence in our cities?
Berlin attracts more nightingales than almost any other European city. Although it's not an urban species, the little bird with the big voice seems to thrive in Germany's hectic capital.
San Jose's trees are slowly vanishing. Despite boasting, the nation's 10th largest city is in the midst of an environmental crisis as the tree canopy that shades it has dwindled by 1.82% between 2012 and 2018.
Parks and green spaces in cities provide health and wellness benefits to human inhabitants, but they’re not necessarily beneficial for other urban dwellers – like insects. Researchers are investigating urban biodiversity with approaches such as ‘bee hotels’ to see how cities can better foster in ...
Preserving local heritage and being in touch with nature is essential to living in a sustainable city, said students at a recent youth event in Singapore.
he World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched its “One Planet City Challenge 2019” on Tuesday.This year the One Planet City Challenge has a new assessment framework based on data from the IPCC, the UN climate panel.
Every roof in the city district of Utrecht is to be “greened” with plants and mosses or have solar panels installed under plans driven by the success of a similar scheme for the municipality’s bus stops.
Over half of the globe’s population currently lives in urban areas, a figure which will increase to 68 percent by 2050. According to scientists, increased urbanization drives changes in climate, land use, biodiversity, and human diet. A new study published in the journal One Earth has found that ...
“Everyone wants honey. But no one wants the bees near them,” says 34-year-old Pune city resident Amit Godse of Bee Basket, who runs a business extricating beehives from neighborhoods that don’t like them. Godse then relocates the beehives to wooded areas or farmlands bordering the city or sends ...
A growing appreciation of how bees can thrive in urban environments has led many city dwellers to protect their habitat. Pollinator gardens are a regular feature of neighborhoods and schools; parks and nature sanctuaries are managed with bees in mind. Yet one potentially bee-rich environ still r ...
Habitat change, for example through urbanisation, is one of the most important causes of biodiversity decline. By 2050, settlements and cities across the globe are predicted to increase by two to three million square kilometres - about half the size of Greenland. Natural and semi-natural habitat ...
In building cities, we have created some of the harshest habitats on Earth—and then chosen to live in them.Temperatures in cities are typically 2-3 C warmer than those of the surrounding landscape. Pollution levels and noise can reach levels seen few other places on Earth.
As the coronavirus pandemic forced lockdowns in many parts of the world, cities from Amsterdam to Singapore are unveiling measures to improve sustainability, food security and living standards that urban experts said would soon become the norm.
To thrive in urban environments, birds need to either have large brains, or breed many times over their life, according to a new study involving UCL.
Did you know that urban biodiversity makes you happier, increases sales at local businesses, and makes children develop their cognitive skills better, among other benefits? Urban restoration aims to renaturalize cities to make them compatible with lost nature, which is part of humanity. Why is i ...
After the Cop26 conference ended in Glasgow, many activists and climate scientists felt the agreement didn’t go far enough and that the US government was among those who had not backed strong words with enough actual deeds.
How can we make sure that cities become more inclusive, with a smaller environmental footprint, and leave no-one behind? These questions will be tackled at the UN Civil Society Conference, which is due to take place in the capital of Utah, Salt Lake City, at the end of August.
Newswise — Cities and nations around the globe are shooting for carbon neutrality, with some experts already talking about the need to ultimately reach carbon negativity. Carbon footprint declarations are used to ease product selection for low carbon building, but these standards don’t yet exist ...
Brumunddal, a small municipality on the northeastern shore of Lake Mjøsa, in Norway, has for most of its history had little to recommend it to the passing visitor. There are no picturesque streets with cafés and boutiques, as there are in the ski resort of Lillehammer, some thirty miles to the n ...
Green infrastructure has been embraced as a tool to help cities achieve sustainability and resilience goals while improving the lives of urban residents. How green infrastructure is defined guides the types of projects that cities implement, with enduring impacts to people and the urban environment.
More than five years ago, HIDCO had set up the Pakhibitan at Eco Park with the help of an NGO. Now, the park, which has two water bodies and mature indigenous trees of several species, has developed a beautiful ecosystem and turned into a safe haven for several species of birds, insects, mammals ...
Sea levels are rising around the world, but as they rise, Bangkok is sinking. The low-lying megacity, built on marshland, is also now so covered in concrete that during heavy rains—the type of storms that are becoming more common because of climate change—streets can quickly flood.
In the Dutch city Utrecht 316 bus stops now have a green roof. They do not only look great, they also help capture fine dust, storage of rainwater and provide cooling in the summertime.
The edges of cities around the world are being devastated by fires and floods. It’s drawing attention to suburban residents and the role they’re playing in exacerbating their exposure to climate change risks. But instead of focusing on the suburban way of life alone, planners and policy-makers n ...
The Rabbs’ fringe-limbed treefrog was unlike any other species on planet Earth. Inhabiting only the forests of Panama, the frog had enormously charismatic brown eyes, and feet so oversized they looked cartoonish. But what made the frog truly special was the way it looked after its tadpoles.
Remember those 100 resilient cities? We used to hear a lot about them. Turns out, they didn’t go away. Quite the contrary. Enter the Global Resilient Cities Network (GRCN). Announced last week at the United Nations Habitat Urban World Forum, the city-led initiative is the evolution and expansion ...
"I view urban agriculture as a wonderful Trojan horse," says Nicolas Brassier, owner of Peas&Love, an urban farm that has expanded to seven sites across France and Belgium in the past two years
Smart cities, liveable cities, green cities, biophilic cities, eco-cities and regenerative cities. Add to this, eco-villages, intentional communities, transition towns and place-making and it seems everyone is talking about the cities of the future. Yet in all this conversation there is little o ...
As exotic plants and trees multiply, vital indigenous species are being pushed out of city spaces.The kanaka champa (bayur) tree at the corner of the busy IT corridor in Chennai gave way to flowing traffic some years ago.
Environmentalism is often experienced as a desire to return to rural nature: from the pastoral sunlit uplands to the ancient forest. Yet more than half of the world human population lives in cities today.
Insects are important wildlife often overlooked in urban habitats. What we do notice are the cockroaches, ants and mosquitoes in and around our homes. All too often we reach for the insect spray.
When Fred Schoeps bought a 150-year-old building in downtown Ithaca, New York, a decade ago, he was one of only a handful of building owners dedicated to ending their reliance on fossil fuels and reducing their carbon footprint.
How urban living can cap population growth and help conserve natural resources.
The news that Derby has approved what promises to be Britain’s largest urban rewilding project so far is very welcome. The 320-acre Allestree Park will, subject to detailed consultation, be given over to a range of habitats and perhaps even see the reintroduction of species such as dormice and r ...
Smart cities are developing all over the world, marketing themselves as helping us innovate and become more technologically advanced as a mostly-urban species.
Today, half of the world’s population lives in cities. By 2050, that number is expected to increase to two-thirds. More people living in condensed areas means higher amounts of waste, higher resource consumption and higher energy use. As the world’s cities already emit over 70% of carbon emissio ...
The Vertical Forest buildings of the architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri make the most of the often overlooked and profound contributions of a single tree.
Italian architect Stefano Boeri aims to combat climate change by building forests in the city. From the first Vertical Forest in Asia in Nanjing, China, to another Forest City in Liuzhou, the designer is planning to turn the country from the world's biggest polluter to an eco-friendly place.
The borough of St-Laurent is setting up the first urban biodiversity corridor in Quebec to combat hot spots.
Dr Caitlin von Witt's message is clear: 'If you want to support the most biodiversity, you should support local biodiversity.' Through the FundaFynbos project, she is educating Capetonians about indigenous plants and encouraging them to plant them at home.
The spread of the coronavirus and the need for social distance is seen by some as a fundamental challenge to globalism, population density, and urban life. The virus is both a challenge and a catastrophe, but it does not change the basic appeal and benefit of our way of life.
“Sun’s out, snakes out!” exclaimed Shuayb Ahmed, and Yatin Kalki as they jumped to action. Ahmed, an independent snake rescuer, had received a frantic call from a woman who spotted a snake – claimed to be a juvenile spectacled cobra – in her house in Bengaluru.
Some believe John Lennon’s ashes were scattered at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, New York City. After a recent goosebump-inducing sing-along of Áll You Need is Love at the supposed spot, I was much closer to being one of them.
Kermit the Frog once lamented that it wasn't easy being green. Large-scale developers who for years have been trying to reconcile their economic and environmental concerns would agree.