Former Orange Prize winner Ann Patchett could pick up the prestigious literary prize for a second time after she was nominated again 10 years after she first won.

Terrorist group kidnaps 40 workers less than a week after Peru's President said it had been 'totally defeated'

Zoologist, conservationist and TV presenter Mark Carwardine has had his share of exotic animal encounters. Here, he reveals some of his favourites

The Amazon rainforest is under threat but, as Mark Rowe discovers, tourism could help to save the planet's most precious natural resource

Over six months, the mystery of where cuckoos winter has revealed itself

Teeming with rare mammals, the Tripa swamp is an orangutan stronghold and vital carbon store in north-western Sumatra, an island larger than the UK whose natural wealth for decades has been relentlessly stripped by Indonesia's corrupt rulers. Nearly half its forest was burnt or chainsawed between 1985 and 2007, proportionally more than neighbouring Borneo, which is shared between Indonesia and the more orderly Malaysia and Brunei.

Christmas Island is a naturalist's dream, finds Kathy Marks (but a kabourophobe's nightmare)

Rebranding effort abroad – but elections leave country unmoved

This week I've been eating... dried pineapple, banana and mango chips

Hundreds of entries on the site were changed by Bell Pottinger without the subjects' knowledge

Cheering crowds greeted more than 1,000 indigenous protesters as they entered Bolivia's capital, La Paz, after a two-month march from the Amazon lowlands.

Poor James Boswell. After a triumphant London run and subsequent tour Russell Barr, who plays the irascible lexicographer's co-star and just about everyone else was taken ill. Luckily for the audience, David Beames tied on a pinny and played the ladies while Andrew Byatt read the sidekick's role from the script.

The Amazon rainforest may be one of the most impenetrable places on Earth, but Google is on a mission to tame it.