Cycling down the Mall tonight and it is all prepped for an Omani state visit to the UK - the first after 44 years Sultan Haitham arrives in Britain as the Gulf order fractures and the region moves to a post-American era where more and more US power is supplemented It remains the oldest treaty relationship the UK has with the Gulf at a time when London needs access to Hormuz and Bab el Mandab with Muscat maintaining relations on all sides of these divides

Are we consuming too much groundwater? 💧 Dynamic models for most of the world’s 3,400 aquifers say 61–82% of aquifers are pumped faster than is optimal, costing trillions of $. New paper w BGreaney & KWagner joseph-s-shapiro.com/researc… 1/🧵

Cymru could soon be SLAUGHTERING badgers. England has slaughtered ¼ million badgers but STILL has a higher incidence of cattle TB breakdowns than Wales. Both countries have achieved reductions on all key metrics, but in Wales without culling. petitions.senedd.wales/petit… #badgermonday

No, that’s not a ghost haunting the deep — it’s a rhinochimaera!👻🦈 Also called a ghost shark or spookfish, it is believed that the long snout of this eerie deep-sea dweller may help increase sensory input to further gain information about its environment.

Somos muchísimas más y mejores las personas que queremos al lobo ibérico libre, vivo y protegido en nuestra naturaleza. Por ellos y por los que vendrán. Por la vida salvaje.

Taking the food from starving whales penguins and birds China cruelty has no limits China's krill fleet grows to almost double size of Norway's driven by substantial state subsidies and growing domestic demand for krill-based aquaculture feed, omega-3 supplements, and biomedical products seafoodsource.com/news/suppl…

I was delighted to find my first ever Arbutus "the strawberry tree" even if it was in a Sainsbury's car park 🍓 🌳 It is an evergreen tree that blooms just now, between October and December when the bees need it most whilst interestingly also producing it's ripe, sticky sweet (if a little grainy) fruit at this time of year 🐝 The tree is a bit of an enigma as it has native wild populations in Ireland but none in Great Britain. There are a number of theories regarding how this fascinating tree managed to leap frog Britain and come to Ireland but the most likely seems to be that over 4,000 years ago Copper Age miners from the Iberian Peninsula brought it with them as a source of charcoal. And in fact the oldest remains of the tree were to be found as charcoal in a mine in County Kerry. Whilst whether or not the Strawberry Tree can still be considered a true Irish native is open to debate it remains a beautiful, beneficial and, importantly, ancient addition to our woodland flora 🍓