In the past six years, 10 million hives, worth $2bn, have been wiped out in the US. Last winter alone, a third of all US honeybees died. Should we be worried? John Hearne reports

THE Ballymaloe Cookery School operates throughout the year with everything from one day, two and half day and week-long courses as well as three, three month certificate courses every year.

A FROG with fangs, a blind snake and a round-headed dolphin are among more than 1,000 species recently found on the Melanesian island of New Guinea, environment group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has said.

JAPAN’S next prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has delighted environmental activists but worried business leaders by vowing to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020.

AUSTRALIA’S Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest living organism, is under grave threat from climate warming and coastal development, and its prospects of survival are “poor,” a major new report has found.

The Redheaded Vulture, a bird that thrived in South Asia feeding on the dead, is itself dying out.

UP TO 100 live bottlenose dolphins can be exported from the Solomon Islands every year, and the government is encouraging residents to enter into the lucrative trade, the fisheries minister said yesterday.

Up to 100 live bottlenose dolphins can be exported from the Solomon Islands every year, and the government is encouraging residents to enter into the lucrative trade, the fisheries minister said today.

SCIENTISTS have discovered a “Lost World” in an isolated Indonesian jungle, identifying dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants — as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere.

Scientists discovered a “Lost World” in an isolated Indonesian jungle, identifying dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants – as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said today.

A UN conference on global warming has ended with a watershed agreement by more than 150 nations - the US not among them - to open talks on mandatory post-2012 reductions in greenhouse gases.

China’s top health official today said the pollution of the Songhua River by a chemical spill was a big problem which has highlighted the country’s need to have contingency plans for emergencies.

PEOPLE are plundering the world’s resources at a pace that outstrips the planet’s capacity to sustain life, the environmental group, World Wide Fund for Nature, said yesterday.

Heavily armed poaching gangs in Congo have been slaughtering the world’s minuscule population of northern white rhinoceroses, reversing recent hopes for the species’ survival, a major conservation body said yesterday.

Organisers of the Olympic Games in Athens have destroyed vital wildlife habitats, a trail of destruction which is threatening to spread to nearby mountains, the World Wide Fund for Nature said today.

THE world’s cod stocks could be wiped out by 2020 because of over-fishing, illegal catches and oil exploration, the environment group WWF said yesterday.

EU nations are close to agreeing on measures to save the lives of thousands of dolphins and porpoises caught accidentally in fishing nets, officials said today.

The Court of Appeal was today ruling on a legal row over use of the initials WWF.

The world moved a step closer today to agreeing a political deal on rules for the Kyoto Protocol on curbing harmful climate change ... without the United States.

The main food source for Antarctic blue whales is under threat from the melting polar ice cap caused by climate change, wildlife campaigners have warned today.