The natural environment or natural world encompasses all biotic and abiotic things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:
Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are those in which humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as in urban settings and agricultural land conversion. Even in acts that seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment is considered artificial. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human; hence beaver dams and the works of mound-building termites are considered natural.
There are no absolutely natural environments on Earth. Naturalness usually varies in a continuum, from 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. The massive environmental changes of humanity in the Anthropocene have fundamentally affected all natural environments including: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution from plastic and other chemicals in the air and water. More precisely, considering the different aspects or components of an environment, it becomes apparent that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. For instance, in an agricultural field, the mineralogic composition is quite similar to that of undisturbed forest soil while the structure is quite different. (Full article...)
Water pollution due to dairy farming in the Wairarapa area of New Zealand (photographed in 2003)
Agricultural pollution problem refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The pollution may come from a variety of sources, ranging from point source water pollution (from a single discharge point) to more diffuse, landscape-level causes, also known as non-point source pollution and air pollution. Once in the environment these pollutants can have both direct effects in surrounding ecosystems, e.g. killing local wildlife or contaminating drinking water, and downstream effects such as dead zones caused by agricultural runoff is concentrated in large water bodies.
Management practices, or ignorance of them, play a crucial role in the amount and impact of these pollutants. Management techniques range from animal management and housing to the spread of pesticides and fertilizers in global agricultural practices, which can have major environmental impacts. Bad management practices include poorly managed animal feeding operations, overgrazing, plowing, fertilizer, and improper, excessive, or badly timed use of pesticides. (Full article...)
... that Hitomi Tohyama, who was raised primarily in an English-speaking environment, did not learn Japanese until she began performing professionally in Japan?
... that environmental journalist Gloria Dickie wrote her thesis on how cities in Colorado changed garbage laws to prevent bear incursions?
... that scholars have described the 1946 book The Failure of Technology as a precursor to the environmental movement?
Formed in 2001 at the First Global Greens Congress, the network has grown to include 76 full member parties and 11 observers and associate parties as of May 2022, so a total of 87 members. It is governed by a 12-member steering committee called the Global Greens Coordination (GGC), consisting of nominated representatives from each of the four regional federations. Each member party falls under the umbrella of one of these four affiliated regional green federations– Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and Europe. The day-to-day operations of the Global Greens are managed by the Secretariat, with current Co-Conveners Jose Miguel Quintanilla and Bodil Valero responsible for coordinating the work of the Executive, the Secretariat and the GGC. (Full article...)
Image 5Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 6Environmental science is the academic discipline with the largest change in the number of works per year in OpenAlex after one decade compared to the output in 2015. A 2025 study found that for 1365 identified papers about environmental degradation, the annual number of papers increased tenfold between 2016 to 2022 A similar study found articles related to the carbon footprint of economic growth surged after 2017 (from Environmental science)
Image 7Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 15Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions. (from Habitat)
Image 16A false color composite of the greater Boston area, created using remote sensing technology, reveals otherwise not visible characteristics about the land cover and the health of the surrounding ecosystems. (from Environmental science)
Image 19Funding for climate change research in the natural and technical sciences compared to that in the social sciences and humanities according to the study "The misallocation of climate research funding" (from Environmental science)
Image 20The Paris Agreement (formerly the Kyoto Protocol) is adopted in 2016. Nearly every country in the United Nations has signed the treaty, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (from Environmental science)
Image 25Loch Lomond in Scotland forms a relatively isolated ecosystem. The fish community of this lake has remained stable over a long period until a number of introductions in the 1970s restructured its food web. (from Ecosystem)
Image 31View of Earth, taken in 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew. Approximately 71% of Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) consists of ocean (from Ecoregion)
Image 33Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (Olson et al. 2001, BioScience) (from Ecoregion)
Image 34Compartments established by C&SF projects that separated the historic Everglades into Water Conservation Areas and the Everglades Agricultural Area. One-fourth of the original Everglades is preserved in Everglades National Park. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 35Global oceanic and terrestrial phototroph abundance, from September 1997 to August 2000. As an estimate of autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential and not an actual estimate of it. (from Ecosystem)
Image 38Biodiversity of a coral reef. Corals adapt and modify their environment by forming calcium carbonate skeletons. This provides growing conditions for future generations and forms a habitat for many other species. (from Environmental science)
Image 42Climbing ferns overtake cypress trees in the Everglades. The ferns act as "fire ladders" that can destroy trees that would otherwise survive fires. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 44Cattails indicate the presence of phosphorus in the water. Cattails are an invasive species; they crowd out sawgrass and grow too thick to allow nesting for birds and alligators. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 47Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 50A team of British researchers found a hole in the ozone layer forming over Antarctica, the discovery of which would later influence the Montreal Protocol in 1987. (from Environmental science)
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