The short lists were announced yesterday for the Wainwright Prizes. Books in contention for the prize for writing on conservation include A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts (Doubleday) and Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton). The winners will be announced on September 10.

The third Nature Chronicles Prize — an award for essay-length non-fiction conceived during the Covid pandemic “to create a place for original thinking about the present world” — is now open for entries. The winner will receive £10,000 and five runners-up £1,000 each; all six entries will be published in an anthology by the independent press Saraband. The prize is also a memorial to Prudence Scott, a lifelong nature diarist who died in 2019; her trust is the sponsor.