Natural capital is a way to quantify the value of the world that nature provides for us – the air, soils, water, even recreational activity. Advocates say this is crucial if biodiversity is to have any clout in a world governed by raw economics. Others believe the concept merely turns the natural world into a commodity. Is natural capital our last chance to halt the carnage mankind inflicts on the environment or are its supporters naively dancing with the devil?

The reason for the unusual location of Mount St Helens is becoming clearer

Simon Reeve is an author and TV presenter whose latest BBC show is The Mediterranean with Simon Reeve. His new book is Step by Step: The Life in My Journeys

Glacial melt is increasing  land instability in mountainous regions, with huge tsunamis rising in frequency as a result

Most plants thicken their leaves in response to higher carbon levels in the atmosphere – a new climate change model reveals this could have a big impact on global warming

For this month’s Discovering Britain viewpoint, Laura Cole visits Kennington to look at a stretch of fencing that has led a double life

Not just the preserve of flatulent cows, methane is causing problems on a much wider scale discovers Marco Magrini

A large-scale terrain mapping project makes Antarctica the best-mapped continent on Earth 

As the United States’ Supreme Court delays a landmark climate change legal case, young people in the US and across the world are demanding that their voices be heard and their futures protected 

Klaus Dodds analyses the proposed land swap between Kosovo and Serbia and its implications for wider global relations 

Morocco reintroduces compulsory military service, one of many countries debating the ‘merits’ of conscription

New research reveals that microplastics can survive in mosquitos from larvae to adult, raising the possibility of particles being transferred from freshwater to land

In this penultimate instalment of our monthly series of reports looking at the impact China’s BRI project is having on the local infrastructure situated along its route, explorer and China scholar Charles Stevens visits the Khorgos Gateway that bridges China and Kazakhstan