All designers who have gone through carbon audit are eligible for consideration for green award A green medal for sustainability is to be introduced at the Chelsea flower show, rewarding gardens with the lowest carbon impact. Landscape designers are reporting that clients are commissioning them to make their gardens more wildlife-rich and eco-friendly, and that nature-friendly gardening is becoming increasingly important ..read more

Mayor of Alicudi appealed for homes for 600 feral goats which will be removed from tiny volcanic island When the mayor of a remote Italian island grappling with an overpopulation of feral goats offered to give the animals away, he anticipated a smattering of interest from farmers on neighbouring isles who were perhaps keen to boost their production of ricotta cheese. But as news of his “adopt a goat” initiative spread beyond Alicudi, he received a flurry of offers from around the world – not just from Europe, but also the US, and even from an animal-lover in Nigeria ..read more

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world ..read more

Well … this is unexpected Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints ..read more

Trust aims to boost small pearl-bordered fritillary colonies in Shropshire Hills by planting 20,000 violets this year for their caterpillars A mass planting of marsh violets across England’s Shropshire Hills is to take place to try to prevent further decline of the small pearl-bordered fritillary or Boloria selene, a rare UK butterfly. The small pearl-bordered fritillary’s distribution across the UK has plunged 71% since the mid 1970s and the species is now listed as vulnerable, according to the 2022 state of UK butterflies report ..read more

County Antrim, Northern Ireland: To visit Jubilee Farm is to discover a success story, both in its community outreach and its commitment to nature A dunnock is burbling from the tangled hedgerow. Across the field, a blackbird serenades. My mind turns to a snippet from an old book … “Look at the birds of the air”. A croak startles me back to the visible world, and I look up to see the raven winging towards Glynn Woods. My gaze drops to the cerulean waters of Larne Lough as Nuala points to the button of land that supports a tern colony. Behind us, Geoff and Martin are scrutinising species of sol ..read more

The 44ft-long whale corpse was an endangered sei whale, which will now be examined to determine how it died A cruise ship has journeyed into New York City’s harbor bearing a gruesome cargo in the form of a huge, dead whale sprawled across its bow. The incident happened on Saturday, according to local US media reports, and the event is being held by some as further evidence of the unfortunate impact on sea life that large vessels can have ..read more

Andreas Heide has been shortlisted for a Shackleton award for his work in the far north, getting up close to nature to connect people emotionally with a fragile ecosystem To say the images of Andreas Heide during his working day are dramatic is an understatement: a freediver deep underwater in a black wetsuit, his lean silhouette enhanced by powerful bladed fins, looking up towards a group of orcas; or standing on an ice sheet next to a small sailboat in the Arctic, amid a sea full of dangerous looking ice floes in poor visibility. But for the marine biologist and adventurer, plunging into fre ..read more

‘Orangutan diplomacy’ strategy aims to ease concern over environmental impact of palm oil production, says minister Malaysia plans to give orangutans as gifts to countries that buy its palm oil as part of an “orangutan diplomacy” strategy to ease concerns over the environmental impact of the commodity. The south-east Asian country is the world’s second biggest producer of palm oil, which is found in more than half of supermarket packaged goods – from pizza and biscuits, to lipstick and shampoos. Global demand for palm oil has been blamed for driving deforestation in Malaysia and neighbouring I ..read more

The discovery of these underwater hot springs in 1977 solved the mystery of how life first began on Earth, but it was locating the world’s most famous shipwreck that made me a celebrity The mid-ocean ridge is where the Earth creates its outer skin. It’s called the boundary of creation. We knew there was life on the bottom of the ocean but not entire ecosystems supporting large animals until our expedition went down there in 1977. First, we sent down an unmanned vehicle called Angus, which was essentially a camera system and strobe lights within a two-tonne steel cage. It was going down in the ..read more