UK Nature and Environment

Labour appeared to be in disarray on Wednesday over ambitions to clean up the River Thames for swimming.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced ambitions to prioritise an area of the river in Teddington, south-west London, to make it safe and clean for swimming as part of a new 10-year strategy to reduce pollution in the river and encourage people to spend time in and around it.

Supporting Khan as he made the announcement was the environment secretary, Steve Reed. But Reed just last week approved the next stage in the development of a controversial scheme to allow Thames Water to pump 75m litres a day of treated sewage into the river at the same spot in Teddington.

Great Northern is helping to enhance biodiversity on the railway by working with the Bee Friendly Trust to create 20 ‘homes for nature’ at six stations including in Cuffley and Hadley Wood.

The village stations now have two types of bird boxes, an iconic striped bug hotel for small animals and insects, and hibernacula – shelters filled with timber and wood to give small animals and insects a place to live in the winter months.

Since the 1970s UK species have declined around 19 per cent on average and nearly one in six species are now threatened with extinction.

AS World Rivers Day approaches, Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust is championing the importance of restoring rare chalk river habitats.

A celebration of the world’s waterways, the day highlights the many values of our rivers, strives to increase public awareness and encourages improved stewardship of them. This year’s event is on September 22.

There are only 260 chalk streams in the world, and Hertfordshire and Middlesex is home to 10% of them.

A nature reserve has seen numbers of a rare species of butterfly reach record highs.

One count recorded 1,714 silver-studded blue butterflies at Studland and Godlingston Heath in Dorset - the highest since monitoring began.

The positive results follow a change in the way the heathland is maintained, according to the National Trust.

Humber Forest has planted a quarter of a million tress in the last twelve months, taking their three year total to 400,000 trees planted across East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

Funded by Defra (the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs), Humber Forest is one of 15 community forests across the UK established around some of the country's largest towns and cities.

Community forests seek to provide a wealth of green space for people to enjoy whilst boosting the area's biodiversity. These trees can play a vital role in reducing soil erosion and flooding, improving air quality, creating habitats for wildlife, and improving community spaces.

The turtle, named Nazaré, washed up on a beach in Cumbria in February, showing no signs of movement and covered in algae.

The creature had a successful rehabilitation programme at various Sea Life facilities.

Nazaré was flown to the Azores and released back into the wild earlier this month.

The reptile was rescued from a beach on Walney Island, Barrow-in-Furness, on 4 February.

It was found severely cold-stunned, suffering from pneumonia, and covered with a thick build up of algae and seaweed upon its arrival at Sea Life Blackpool.

Nazaré's care involved gradually raising its body temperature, hydration injections, and closely monitoring condition around the clock.

The team created floats to make sure Nazaré did not drown, as well as using a toothbrush to clean the turtle's shell.

Some call them heaven hounds, as their distinctive squeals fill the skies at dusk.

For others, they herald summer taking wing as autumn closes in on the Norfolk coast.

Tens of thousands of geese spend the winter on the Wash as the colder months creep in.

The IUCN UK Peatland Programme (IUCN UK PP) publishes a new report today which reveals for the first time that 250,000 hectares (ha) of restoration has been undertaken across the UK’s peatlands since the process began 30 years ago. While this is an impressive achievement to be celebrated, it is a long way short of what is needed to meet the UK’s nature and climate commitments.

The scale of damage to the UK’s 3 million hectares of peatlands is vast. The IUCN UK PP’s peatland strategy highlighted that an estimated 80% of UK peatlands have been damaged by drainage, agricultural intensification and unsustainable practices. The current IUCN target to restore 2 million ha by 2040 would mean that two-thirds of UK peatlands could help nature recover and store carbon. However, current estimates show that this target is unlikely to be met.

The UK is known for its impressive areas of blanket bog – one type of peatland – including the recently designated UNESCO Flow Country World Heritage Site. It also has a vast network of raised bogs and fens across the UK. These habitats are vital for rare wildlife and to provide drinking water as well as climate and flood mitigation; they are also deeply entwined in the UK’s cultural identity.

A national “butterfly emergency” has been declared by Butterfly Conservation after the lowest Big Butterfly Count since records began.

An average of just seven butterflies per 15-minute count were recorded by participants in this summer’s butterfly count, the lowest in the survey’s 14-year history.

It was the worst year on record for once-ubiquitous species, including the common blue, small tortoiseshell, small white and green-veined white. Eight out of the 10 most-seen species have declined – in many cases dramatically – over the count’s history. Previous lowest-ever numbers of butterflies-per-count were logged in 2022, 2021 and 2020.

Severn Trent has agreed to pay £327,500 to restore a waterway after a sewage spill killed the “vast majority” of its aquatic life.

A blocked sewer polluted a 1.7km (1.05m) stretch of Dimore Brook in Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, in August 2021.

An investigation by the Environment Agency (EA) found the incident killed hundreds of sticklebacks, several eels and thousands of insects.

Farmers and landowners in Higher Tier agri-environment schemes are facing uncertainty as they lack a clear pathway into the newer Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes.

The NFU is calling on Defra to give farmers in existing Higher Tier schemes access to equal payments for options delivering the same outcomes in other ELM schemes, such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive and Countryside Stewardship (CS).

Many farmers with Higher Tier stewardship agreements ending this year – and many others on annual rollovers on historic payments – have been left unable to apply for a newer Higher Tier ELM scheme because it hasn’t been made available.

Plans have been unveiled to reintroduce White-tailed Eagle to Cumbria.

White-tailed Eagle was once found across Cumbria, with the last recorded breeding attempt near Haweswater in 1787. Now, the Cumbrian White-tailed Eagle Project has been exploring the possibility of bringing the species back to the county.

The raptor has been successfully reintroduced to Scotland and the Isle of Wight, as well as to Ireland. There are now breeding populations across Scotland and Ireland, while in 2023 a White-tailed Eagle chick was born in southern England for the first time in 243 years.

A Suffolk wildlife and conservation charity has called for "greater transparency" from Sizewell C in relation to its wildlife compensation schemes.

Earlier in September, developers of the new Sizewell C nuclear power station announced a new partnership with the nature restoration movement WildEast to promote the return of land to nature across the region.

In announcing the partnership, Sizewell C flagged up how it had pledged to return a large part of the land to nature during the construction of the new power station.

One of the most ambitious peatland restoration projects ever consented to a developer in the UK is now complete on the outskirts of East Kilbride.

ScottishPower Renewables' £1.4 million project marks a significant milestone in valuable habitat conservation and climate change mitigation at Whitelee Windfarm in Eaglesham, bringing SPRs investment in peatland restoration to £4million to date.

Degraded peatlands release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, accounting for around 15 per cent of Scotland’s emissions, but healthy peatlands store carbon and have a net cooling effect on the climate, so they’re critical to mitigating the effects of climate change.

Draught horses are being put to work in south-west London as part of a council's bid to "enhance" its grasslands.

The horses are pulling mowers and harrows - heavy frames with teeth or tines that are dragged over land to stir the soil - in Wandsworth Park and King George’s Park to create wildflower meadows.

Wandsworth Council said the traditional method allowed horses’ hooves to create small gaps in the grass, helping wildflower seeds to take root more effectively.

Beavers have been born in Hampshire for the first time in 400 years.

The two baby beavers, known as kits, were first spotted in early July in an enclosure on the Ewhurst Park estate near Basingstoke, its team announced on Tuesday.

The kits have since been captured on camera, swimming, splashing and gnawing on bark.

"The UK government is planning to appoint a special envoy for nature for the first time, as the foreign secretary, David Lammy, seeks to put the UK at the centre of global efforts to tackle the world’s ecological crises, the Guardian has learned.

Labour will also appoint a new climate envoy, after the Tories abolished the post over a year ago, a move that dismayed foreign governments and climate campaigners..."

The British Government is being urged to “boldly commit” to rewilding 30 per cent of land and seas by 2030, as polling shows high levels of support for the approach.

Charity Rewilding Britain is also urging the new Labour Government to expand nature-based jobs and businesses, boost access to nature for people to benefit health and well-being, empower communities to lead the way with rewilding, and create a “game-changing” shift in rewilding funding and investment.

The call comes on the back of polling of more than 2,200 people by YouGov for Rewilding Britain which suggests that more than 83 per cent of people support rewilding, a slight increase on 81 per cent in polling in 2021.

A project to increase the number of plover birds has been hailed a success.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said chick numbers had increased after efforts by volunteers to keep visitors and dogs away from coastal nests at Snettisham, Norfolk.

The ringed plover, with its black eye mask and distinctive orange and black-tipped bills, were red-listed by the bird charity, after their breeding populations suffered declines of greater than 50%.

Three years ago, 40 pairs of birds fledged 19 chicks, rising to 71 this year after funding from the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, and nature reserve Wild Ken Hill.

Public outrage over river pollution has been heartening to see. Over the past few years, stories about sewage contamination in rivers have captured public attention, and prompted campaigns and protests, such as the forthcoming River Action UK march for clean water on 26 October in London. It is important to protect our rivers because they are biodiversity hotspots and essential for human health. However, as a freshwater ecologist, I know there is more nuance to the story than you may have been led to believe. From my perspective, there is some good news when it comes to our rivers. I would even say that some rivers in England are in the best state they have been in for hundreds of years.

Many rivers in England are polluted, but we need to recognise that this is not an emerging issue but a much longer-standing one that has been largely ignored by the media and politicians for decades. Much of the recent furore over pollution has to do with increased awareness, rather than a sudden increase in pollution itself. It’s only by understanding how these ecosystems have changed over time and reflecting on previous successes that we can make real progress.

Dolphins gliding across the water of a Hampshire beach have been captured on camera by a stunned passer-by.

Sarah Coulson was walking along the beach at Barton-on-Sea this morning when movement in the sea caught her eye.

A pod of dolphins was spotted swimming in the sunshine.

She immediately stopped to take a video, zooming in to watch the dolphins appear above the surface of the sea, before disappearing again.

From photographs of a majestic kingfisher playing in the rain to a water vole enjoying a salad lunch, the winners of an annual nature photography competition have been revealed.

Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) announced the winners of its 2024 nature photography competition, which saw more than 600 entries.

The photographs beautifully captured various species found in Norfolk with Stuart Merchant's photograph of two emperor dragonflies being declared the overall winner.

Cattle egret birds have nested at a wetland site in West Sussex for the first time.

Three nests, all with hatched, active chicks, have been spotted at WWT Arundel Wetland Centre.

The birds were uncovered by reserve manager Suzi Lanaway after she heard the noise of chicks last week.

Not as many submissions this time as for the summer banner competition, so I am including a couple of my own as well.

So, please upvote your favourite from the comments below.

The winner will be the one with the most votes by 10:00pm (BST) on Sunday 22nd. In the event of a tie, I will flip a coin or similar.

The number of rare bats in a Devon town has "plummeted", a bat-observing group has said.

Be Buckfastleigh, a community interest group, said the decline of greater horseshoe bats in the town was "alarming".

Director and resident Pam Barrett has been observing the protected species for about 10 years and said her group would normally expect to see around a thousand bats at this time of year.

However she said earlier this year they had counted "as few as 20" greater horseshoe bats in Buckfastleigh.