With hundreds of highly prized species, bird tourism is thriving in the country – and farmers are increasingly turning their land into nature reserves

When it came to dividing up his late father’s farm between five brothers, Vinicio Bacuilima says he drew the short straw. Maraksacha, on the main road out of Ecuador’s capital Quito, is a tiny patch of land on the edge of a steep ravine, making it very difficult to make a living from farming.

Then Bacuilima’s wife Anita Cajas had an idea: turn their paltry inheritance into a site to attract visiting birders. Creating the Maraksacha Reserve was a risky venture, but it paid off, with feeders attracting a host of colourful hummingbirds and tanagers.

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© Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy

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© Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy

Readers extol the benefits of sustainable gardening in response to a long read about the untapped potential of home gardens

Kate Bradbury’s article struck a very loud chord (Where the wild things are: the untapped potential of our gardens, parks and balconies, 28 May). I have been gardening for many moons, having caught the bug as a child, and have gone from the days of double digging and spraying anything that moves to the current advice to avoid digging and to plant for the climate. In all that time it barely occurred to me that what I was doing might be bad for the planet, but lately I have wondered if gardening itself might be a problem.

It’s not just the paving and plastic grass, but the constant desire to have the latest plants, the most up-to-date garden designs, and the need to buy ever more compost, chemicals, and equipment. All of this uses energy and natural resources, and comes with the need to dispose of the unfashionable, whether it be vegetation or planters or decking. It’s a huge industry, and shows like Chelsea add fuel to the fire with the annual catwalk of new ideas.

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© Photograph: Pat Savage/Alamy

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© Photograph: Pat Savage/Alamy

RHS fears non-native fungi could alter microbiology of soil when grown in gardens or disposed of in compost heaps

A boom in the popularity of mushroom-growing at home could lead to a biodiversity disaster, UK garden experts have warned.

There has been a rise in the number of people growing mushrooms in their gardens, and this year, the RHS Chelsea flower show’s plant of the year award included a mushroom – the tarragon oyster mushroom, thought to be found only in the British Isles – in its shortlist for the first time, despite it being a fungus, not a plant.

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© Photograph: Jennifer Gauld/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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© Photograph: Jennifer Gauld/Getty Images/iStockphoto

A football academy will be built on the site and campaigners say high court decision threatens other public parks

Public parks across London and beyond are being put at risk by a high court judgment in favour of Enfield council leasing a rewilded golf course to Tottenham Hotspur for a football academy, campaigners say.

The court has ruled that Enfield council is allowed to hand over more than half of the 97-hectare (240-acre) Whitewebbs Park to Spurs, which has submitted plans to the council to build a new women’s and girls’ academy on the green belt site.

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© Photograph: Friends of Whitewebbs park

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© Photograph: Friends of Whitewebbs park

Heat and drought are taking a toll on the tiny soil creatures that help to lock away planet-warming carbon, according to a new analysis.

Agriculture is often seen as the enemy of biodiversity, but in an excerpt from her new book Sophie Yeo explains how techniques from the middle ages allow plants and animals to flourish

The Vile clings on to the edge of the Gower peninsula. Its fields are lined up like strips of carpet, together leading to the edge of the cliff that drops into the sea. Each one is tiny, around 1-2 acres. From the sky, they look like airport runways, although this comparison would have seemed nonsensical to those who tended them for most of their existence.

That is because the Vile is special: a working example of how much of Britain would have been farmed during the middle ages. Farmers have most likely been trying to tame this promontory since before the Norman conquest.

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© Photograph: Robert Melen/Alamy

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© Photograph: Robert Melen/Alamy

The loss of the ecosystems, which are vast stores of carbon, would ‘be disastrous for nature and people across the globe’, says IUCN

Half of all the world’s mangrove forests are at risk of collapse, according to the first-ever expert assessment of these crucial ecosystems and carbon stores.

Human behaviour is the primary cause of their decline, according to the analysis by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with mangroves in southern India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives most at risk.

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© Photograph: Francis R Malasig/EPA

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© Photograph: Francis R Malasig/EPA

Right now, across much of the midwestern and eastern US, trillions of cicadas are crawling out from the soil. And this year is extra special, because two broods are erupting from the ground at once. The first brood hasn’t been seen for 13 years, the other for 17 years and the last time they emerged together Thomas Jefferson was president. Ian Sample speaks to entomologist Dr Gene Kritsky to find out what’s going on, why periodical cicadas emerge in cycles of prime numbers and how they keep time underground

Clips: CBN News

Everything you need to know about the US cicada-geddon

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© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

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© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Scientists in the United States are reporting “unprecedented patterns” of surface warming, an ominous sign for coral.

© Jorge Silva/Reuters

At 14, Ned stumbled upon a perfect jungle. He didn't know he would spend the next two years fighting to save it. When a teenager uncovered a critical refuge for endangered species, it marked the start of a journey that eventually saw the parcel of land named after him.

Biodiversity loss, global warming, pollution and the spread of invasive species are making infectious diseases more dangerous to organisms around the world.

© Bill Draker/Rolf Nussbaumer Photography, via Alamy

An effort to protect 30 percent of land and waters would count some commercial fishing zones as conserved areas.

© Karsten Moran for The New York Times

New research questions the long-held theory that reintroduction of such a predator caused a trophic cascade, spawning renewal of vegetation and spurring biodiversity.

© Diane Renkin/National Park Service

When traditional conservation fails, science is using “assisted evolution” to give vulnerable wildlife a chance.