Shoot to kill or live and let live? We're not always kind to animals, unless perhaps they're in a zoo. We'll get up close and personal with a zebra finch and find out why Germans really love their bears.

Women in Saudi Arabia made the headlines this week. They are now allowed to drive, thanks not least to the campaigning by some bold women. In this week's episode, we'll meet some other bold women: Abu Dhabi's first female falconer, an Indian activist fighting plastic pollution, an Italian investigative journalist uncovering a mozzarella scandal and a Canadian diver exploring underwater mysteries.

Most people think of insects as pests to get rid of — but our survival may be intimately tied to them. The problem is: Insects are in decline. Find out how the Berlin Philharmonic is drawing attention to the issue, why insects don't live at the seaside, and what makes bugs so important in the first place.

We live on a planet of finite resources but our demand for new consumer products and technologies keeps growing. That's driving a race to extract materials from ever-more remote corners of the Earth – and beyond.

Ever more people in the world are living in urban areas. But how can we make our cities sustainable? From the dangers of air pollution to shrinking natural spaces and our carbon footprint in cities — it's high time for action.

Fertile land in Nigeria is being eaten up drought, fueling conflict between herdsmen who need what's left to graze their animals and farmers who need it for their crops. Meanwhile in East Africa, tensions are rising over who controls the waters of the Nile.

It's time for a bit of spring cleaning, whether it's your summer wardrobe, the local beach – or even the air we breathe! From the heart of Europe to China – we're cleaning up our act.

There’s bat appreciation day, international day for biodiversity and the day of endangered species – we’re great at naming days after our animals, but is it enough? Are we treating our biodiversity wisely, or failing them badly?

This week, three stories from the African continent: In Rwanda, we explore the mountain gorilla's complex relationship with its human neighbors; in Kenya, we uncover the ugly side of the flower industry; and in the Congo Basin, we find out about how the world's second-largest tropical forest is under threat.

Climate protection is on the agenda at talks in Bonn. But back home, who's really taking action? We visit a budding environmental movement in Poland's coal heartland and find out how an oil pipeline has pitched environmentalists against the Canadian president. Plus, solar power in Kenya and a cool solution to LA's urban heat problem.