From a seed in China to the ‘backdrop for countless love stories’: a ginkgo’s 167-year journey to Victorian tree of the year

28 October 2026 at 05:32

National trust of Victoria award celebrates much-loved arboreal icons while calling for protection of green spaces

For more than 160 years, a humble ginkgo tree raised from seed in Geelong’s botanic gardens has been the backdrop to “countless local love stories”. Standing beneath it is the most popular spot to get married at the park, its branches forming the backdrop of many wedding photos.

Now, in addition to being the largest ginkgo biloba in the state – and possibly Australia – at a whopping 20 metres tall, it has a new claim to fame. The much-adored Geelong icon has been crowned Victoria’s tree of the year.

Do not be distracted by global crises. Nature cannot wait for a better year – we must act now | Steven Guilbeault

The Guardian - Europe

By: Steven Guilbeault

20 October 2026 at 08:00

In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real action

When I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me down. A few days later, the tree was cut down anyway.

I thought about that tree in the early hours of a freezing Montreal morning in December 2022, as the gavel came down on a global agreement between nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. I thought about how important nature is for our health, our food security and our economies, but also how much passion there is around protecting it, and how it has the power to inspire people all around the world.

Antarctica Once Had Wildfires: Tiny Charcoal Fragments Reveal a Burning Forest Near the South Pole

LBV Magazine English Edition

By: Guillermo Carvajal

13 October 2026 at 12:21

Forest fires and Antarctica are hard to picture together. Today the continent lies under a thick sheet of ice, and the cold preserves almost everything that falls on it. Around 90 million years ago, in the Cretaceous (the last period of the age of dinosaurs), the scene was very different. The planet was going through […]

Absolute destruction: 42% of forests in Attica burned 2017-2026 (MAP)

Keep Talking Greece

By: keeptalkinggreece

4 August 2026 at 19:46

The map of absolute destruction: 42% of the forests in Attica burned in the last 10 years. From 2017 until yesterday, August 3, 2026, a total of 15 major fires have burned more than 800,000 stremma* or 80,000 hectares and approximately 197,684.3 acres acres. The data resulting from the updated analysis of the burned areas […]

The post Absolute destruction: 42% of forests in Attica burned 2017-2026 (MAP) appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Reading view