The radical project is an attempt to preserve wildlife in one of Europe’s most light-polluted countries, but can they persuade local people they will still feel safe?
Two yellowing street lamps cast a pool of light on the dark road winding into the woods outside Mazée village. This scene is typical for narrow countryside roads in Wallonia in the south of Belgium. “Having lights here is logical,” says André Detournay, 77, who has lived in the village for four decades. “I walk here with my dog and it makes me feel safe and gives me some protection from theft.”
Belgium glows like a Christmas decoration at night, as witnessed from space. It is one of the most light-polluted countries in Europe, with the Milky Way scarcely visible except in the most remote areas.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/11/2026 - 07:00
02/11/2026 - 05:00
Lead author of Australian study says breeding slowdown is linked to climate-driven changes in ‘magnificent’ whale’s foraging grounds
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After decades of recovery, southern right whales are showing signs of a climate-driven decline in breeding rates, which scientists say is a “warning signal” about changes in the Southern Ocean.
After being hunted to near extinction by commercial whaling in the 19th and 20th centuries, southern right whales remained endangered in Australia.
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02/11/2026 - 03:00
Wildfires that left 23 people dead were made about three times more likely by global heating, researchers say
The climate crisis inflamed deadly wildfires that left 23 people dead in Chile and devastated forests in Argentina that host some of the world’s oldest trees, scientists have found.
The hot, dry and windy conditions that enabled the fires to blaze across huge areas in January were made about three times more likely by global heating, researchers from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium found.
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02/11/2026 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 11 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00177-8
Achieving 30×30: How different nations report their contributions to international marine conservation targets
02/10/2026 - 18:43
Three-year-old black coat female, known as BEY03F, crossed into LA county around 6am on 7 February
A gray wolf wandered into Los Angeles county for the first time in more than a century on Saturday morning.
“This is the most southern verified record of a gray wolf in modern times,” Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California department of fish and wildlife, said.
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02/10/2026 - 17:17
Climate groups vow to fight rollback of 2009 finding determining CO2 and other greenhouse gases harm health
In what is set to be its most audacious anti-environment move yet, the Trump administration on Thursday will roll back the mechanism allowing the government to regulate planet-heating pollution, the White House press secretary has told reporters.
“President Trump will be joined by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalize the recession of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding,” Karoline Leavitt said at a press conference on Tuesday. “This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history.”
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02/10/2026 - 14:00
Restaurants face one-star reviews and less business in an already precarious industry. Some restaurateurs fear speaking out as immigrants themselves
Amid calls for a national shutdown on 30 January, Anton Kinloch displayed a sign on the sidewalk outside Lone Wolf, his craft cocktail bar and restaurant in Kingston, New York. In large block letters he wrote: “WE LOVE ICE IN DRINKS. WE DON’T LOVE ICE IN REAL LIFE. SOLIDARITY ALWAYS.”
Along with his wife and business partner, Lisa Dy, he had made the difficult decision to stay open, electing instead to donate a portion of the night’s proceeds to a local immigrant advocacy group. With frigid temperatures and inclement weather stymying business in the region this winter, he simply could not afford the lost revenue. But he refused to stay silent in the aftermath of the brutal killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in Minneapolis.
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02/10/2026 - 10:32
In Lancashire, I met people living with dangerous levels of Pfas, including in their food. The government is failing them
Last week, on the morning the government published its Pfas action plan, I got a worried phone call from a woman called Sam who lives next door to a chemical factory in Lancashire. Sam had just been hand-delivered a letter from her local council informing her that after testing, it had been confirmed that her ducks’ eggs, reared in her garden in Thornton-Cleveleys, near Blackpool, are contaminated with Pfas.
Pfas – per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as “forever chemicals” due to their persistence in the environment – are a family of thousands of chemicals, and I have been reporting on them for years. Some, including those found in the eggs Sam and her family have been eating, have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including certain cancers.
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02/10/2026 - 09:00
US courts, scholars and Democrats are pushing back against the president’s aggressive drive to boost fossil fuels
Donald Trump’s aggressive drive to boost fossil fuels, including dirty coal, coupled with his administration’s moves to roll back wind and solar power, face mounting fire from courts, scholars and Democrats for raising the cost of electricity and worsening the climate crisis.
Four judges, including a Trump appointee, in recent weeks have issued temporary injunctions against interior department moves to halt work on five offshore wind projects in Virginia, New York and New England, which have cost billions of dollars and are far along in development.
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02/10/2026 - 08:00
Bill limits type of science used to determine health risks and gives industry major role in chemical review process
A new Republican House bill proposes sweeping changes to US toxic chemical laws that would gut protections for consumers, workers and the environment, public health advocates mobilising against the legislation warn.
Among other changes to the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), the bill would limit the type of science that is used to determine health risks, stop legally requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure chemicals won’t harm people, give industry a prominent role in chemical review processes, and make it more difficult legally for the agency to ban toxic substances.
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