During your commute this morning, have a look outside. See anything different? If you’re taking the bus or driving, you could see some of the UK’s newest wildflower meadows on what was once empty turf. Thanks to a campaign to encourage councils to reduce their mowing of roadside verges to just once a year in late summer, meadows have sprung up along motorways and on roundabouts in Sheffield, Rotherham and Hull.

From red poppies to blue cornflowers and yellow cowslip, these meadows ripple with colour, but 97% of them have disappeared since World War II, replaced with farmland or concrete. No wonder one third of British pollinators have declined since 1980, says Olivia Norfolk. This wild grassland feeds bees and butterflies with nectar, but what’s left is often lost under a lawn mower.

By mowing just once between late July and September, the wildflowers growing along Britain’s roadsides will have time to flower and feed insects before producing seeds, so that they can grow back each year. The UK’s road network spans over 246,000 miles, so that’s a lot of potential new habitat for pollinators. The deal isn’t bad for councils either – Rotherham Borough Council is set to save £23,000 a year in mowing costs by creating an eight-mile “river of flowers” along a local motorway. In the fourth issue of our Imagine newsletter, we asked experts to consider how letting more of the wild into our everyday lives could help biodiversity, slow climate change and make people happier. You can read an online version of the newsletter here.

News for wildlife is rarely this sunny, and some of the most distressing comes from lion and tiger farms, where animals are bred in captivity to provide products like tiger bone ointment for traditional “medicines”. Though big cats often suffer horrific cruelty on these farms, Niki Rust and Amy Hinsley warn that banning them outright could actually increase poaching in the wild. In politics, Roman Gerodimos explains the significance of the New Democracy party’s election win in Greece and former astronaut Pedro Duque talks about his journey from space to the Spanish government as minister of science, innovation and universities.

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