UK Nature and Environment

A wildlife project is using a new technique to reintroduce shellfish to the East Yorkshire coast.

Wilder Humber aims to reintroduce 500,000 native European flat oysters to the Humber estuary over the next five years.

A new method is being tested where oyster larvae are placed in a tank filled with scallop shells.

Conservationists, cattle and a remote-controlled mower are helping to save one of Wales's most endangered animals.

Butterfly Conservation has deployed the mooing and mowing machines to protect the beautiful High Brown Fritillary butterfly at the last known site where it is found in Wales.

The team have also recruited commoners to graze their cattle at Oldcastle Down in the Vale of Glamorgan for the first time in 60 years, all to create more habitat for the rare and precious species.

Sewage pollution of Scotland’s rivers and beaches is far more widespread than realised because ministers have failed to take the problem seriously, an environment watchdog has found.

Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) said there were thousands of sewage overflow incidents last year, and that nearly half of the country’s storm overflows released sewage more than 50 times.

Of those, a third released sewage at least 100 times, and four sites more than 500 times. Few of these incidents were publicly disclosed; most failed to be justified as exceptional.

New Programme for Government a key moment to prevent Scotland being “left behind” on nature recovery, says Alliance.

80% of Scots think the Scottish Government should have policies in place to support rewilding, shows polling carried out for the Scottish Rewilding Alliance.

But the coalition of more than 20 organisations is warning that despite overwhelming public opinion in favour of large-scale nature restoration, the Scottish Government and public bodies are being too slow to engage with the opportunities offered by rewilding.

The Environment Agency has reduced flood risk to the Cornish village of Calstock while creating 11 hectares of intertidal habitat.

Over 600 metres of new earth embankments have been built to protect Calstock from flooding from the River Tamar. These embankments are set back from the river and a section of the old flood bank was removed, allowing water from the estuary to flow into newly created pools and creeks. This has reconnected this section of the river with its floodplain, creating new intertidal wetland habitat.

The Environment Agency’s monitoring and management plan has been created to monitor the area’s wildlife. This is being implemented by us, Natural England and volunteers from the Calstock Wetlands Management Partnership. Greenshanks, avocets, snipes, water rails and European smelts are among the growing number of species spotted in the area.

Experts from the crown dependencies will be in Jersey this week to discuss what can be done to protect and enhance the natural environment

The 2024 installment of the annual Inter-Island Environment Meeting [IIEM] will take place on Thursday and Friday.

Groups such as Guernsey Nature Commission, the Alderney Wildlife Trust and the Manx Wildlife Trust should be attending.

Hosted at the Société Jersiaise and Jersey Museum in St Helier, speakers will explore how to prevent environmental guidance being ignored by government and stakeholders.

The government is to slash the nature-friendly farming budget in England by £100m in order to help fill what ministers say is a £22bn Treasury shortfall, the Guardian can reveal.

Nature groups and farmers have called this a “big mistake”, saying it jeopardised the government’s legally binding targets to improve nature.

This cut would mean at least 239,000 fewer hectares of nature-friendly farmland, according to research by the RSPB, and this could increase if the smaller budget puts farmers off applying.

A pair of Great Egrets has successfully nested in Scotland for the first time, marking the most northerly breeding record of the species in Britain.

On 22 August, three Great Egret chicks were seen leaving their nest near Loch of Strathbeg RSPB reserve in Aberdeenshire.

It is thought that the adults had been visiting the reserve for a few years, nesting this year for the first time in a tree nearby.

The vast majority of people in Great Britain believe it’s important to have access to the countryside close to where they live, according to new polling from CPRE, the countryside charity and YouGov.

85% of those asked responded that access to the countryside was either ‘very important’ (53%) or ‘fairly important’ (32%). Strong support for countryside access was evident across every age group, gender, region and socioeconomic background.

Strikingly, 85% of those who voted Labour in 2019 agreed that access to the countryside was important. The figure for Conservative voters was 91%.

Sightings of polecat in Norfolk have increased recently, but is this native predator good for our wildlife? Norfolk Wildlife Trust Reserves Officer Robert Morgan investigates

The successful re-introduction and re-establishment of an animal by wildlife conservationists is often announced with a fanfare.

Be it beaver, that are now living wild in Britain, the propagation and release of the large blue butterfly, or the amazing revival of red kite and otter, both of which can now be found in every county of the UK.

All these creatures have one thing in common; it was human activity that led to their decline or extinction, but our intervention and efforts that brought about their recovery.

Laws to protect water quality are not being implemented in Northern Ireland as they should be, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has found.

It said the "serious consequences" are "vividly illustrated" by Lough Neagh, which has been badly affected by blue-green algae.

In its first report to be laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly, the OEP has examined whether plans to improve water bodies will be enough to meet the Water Framework Directive (WFD) NI Regulations.

Based on its assessment, Northern Ireland will miss its own target, which itself is not adequately clear and measurable enough to meet the requirements.

More than a quarter of neighbourhoods in England have pollution levels that are highly harmful to wildlife, new data shows.

Friends of the Earth has named 27.5% of areas “nature pollution hotspots” in new research. These are defined as places where air, water, noise and light pollution all exceed levels that are damaging to nature.

Chelsea and Fulham was identified as the parliamentary constituency with the highest concentration of pollution hotspots, followed by Salford, Worsley and Eccles, Vauxhall and Camberwell, and Battersea.

The research found that 9,062 out of 32,844 neighbourhoods in England, areas of about 1,500 people designated for statistical purposes such as conducting the national census, are pollution hotspots.

A visit to a seabird colony in summer is an assault on the senses. First there’s the noise, then the overwhelming ammonia smell that stains the memory, and then the swirl of colour and activity on the white-washed cliffs.

When you’re standing hundreds of metres above the crashing sea, there can be hundreds or thousands of breeding seabirds in the air or on the sea below, or precariously perched on poorly made nests or ridiculously narrow ledges.

In these seabird cities you can spot tender moments, like an auk delicately turning its single egg for incubation while another feeds its oversized youngster. Brutality is never far either: a chick snatched to feed a bigger brood, an incoming parent robbed of its hard-won fish supper by a piratical gull, a dead bird bobbing face down on the sea.

All life is here in the seabird colony, and the British Isles is particularly rich.

We are into September and the equinox is not so far away, so it is time for our seasonal banner competition.

So please comment below with a link to any photos that you have taken or artwork that you have made that you would like to be considered for the banner. Let’s say a maximum of three items per person; photos that you have taken or art you have created and have the rights to; something suitable for the subject of the community: maybe a natural landscape, or wildlife, or volunteers working for the environment (as long as you have the permission of anyone identifiable in the photo) or something along those lines. And preferably, but not necessarily, “Autumn” themed.

I’m not absolutely clear about the optimum dimensions etc for a banner, but the size and shape of the section that appears varies with the browser dimensions and appears differently again in the sidebar, so keep that in mind. Otherwise the larger the better.

I’ll leave this post stickied until midnight on Sunday Sept 15th for submissions then put up a voting thread for the following 7 days with all the submissions that we have by then and then decide the winner. It'll basically be on upvotes, but I reserve the right to disqualify any ‘Naturey McNatureface’ ones or others that I really don’t think are suitable. The winner will become the banner until the winter solstice and the next competition, and obviously we’ll make it clear in the sidebar who should be credited for that banner.

It comes about a fortnight after cases were discovered at the mouth of the River Bann, about two-and-a-half miles to the south-west.

Last year along the north coast, there were cases discovered in Portstewart harbour, Portrush harbour, and Castlerock beach.

The discoveries are logged onto a system called Bloomin' Algae, run by The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and are then checked to see if they are “confirmed cases”, “probable cases”, or false alarms.

ver 1,000 climate scientists, academics, and medical professionals have signed a letter urging MPs to support a bold new bill to tackle the climate and nature crises.

The Climate and Nature Bill (CAN Bill) is a proposed piece of legislation in the UK that aims to address the interlinked climate and ecological crises in a “holistic” manner.

It aims to reduce UK emissions in line with the country’s fair share of the remaining global carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

The bill also sets a goal to halt and reverse nature’s destruction by 2030. To do this, backers propose a radical, integrated plan that involves all parts of the government to address these crises.

The reintroduction of beavers to wetlands in England and Wales is leading to an increase in bat activity, a new study suggests.

Researchers from UWE Bristol found that bat movements in beaver enclosures were significantly higher than in comparable wetland sites where no beavers are present.

For one species of bat, Barbastella barbastellus, activity was recorded as 393 per cent higher in the beaver enclosures than in other wetland sites unimpacted by beavers.

The academics say their study is the first to demonstrate that beavers in the UK have a positive impact on bats, which depend on freshwater ecosystems such as wetlands for drinking water and use them as a foraging resource.

MORE than 200 animals belonging to a 'critically-endangered species' have been released along a river in the Vale of Glamorgan.

In a bid to improve their habitat, over 200 captive-bred water voles have been released along the River Thaw in the Vale of Glamorgan this weekend.

A spokesperson for the Vale of Glamorgan Council, said: "The critically endangered species are at risk of extinction, so our Restore the Thaw project has been working with partners to improve their habitat after a 90% decline in 30 years."

Living sea wall tiles and vertical micro pools will be created in a new project which aims to enhance marine biodiversity and support wildlife.

"State of the art" structures are due to be installed at Southwick beach in a bid to boost the number and diversity of species there.

One example of a successful similar project is at Falmouth Harbour in Cornwall, where they were installed in October 2023.

Climate activists from campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR) have ended a three-day series of protests near Windsor Castle.

Tents, stages and speakers were set up without permission in Windsor Home Park on Friday.

On Saturday and Sunday, activists staged marches to the gates of the royal residence in Berkshire.

The poet and broadcaster, 77, on supporting wildlife, growing vegetables and why gardens are good for the soul.

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The Isle of Wight National Landscape (IWNL) partnership, which works to promote the conservation and enhancement of the Island’s legally protected areas of natural beauty, has said the pipeline’s visual effects will be “significant, permanent, harmful” in a letter to the American multinational corporation.

ExxonMobil is currently undertaking a public consultation on its proposed pipeline corridor routes, two of which run through the IWNL.

Though the partnership acknowledged ExxonMobil had mentioned avoiding Ancient Woodland habitats in its application documents, its letter emphasises the presence of other nature designations including coastal areas, protected species, special protection areas for birds and special areas of conservation for other wildlife.

Water companies are allowing important natural landscapes they own to fall into disrepair, data shows, with only 16% of sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) under their control in good condition.

The companies have been accused of “polluting for profit” by not investing to improve the status of their SSSIs.

Charles Watson, the chair of River Action, said: “Nothing demonstrates better the appalling environmental record of our polluting water companies than the fact that they are not even taking care of the highly protected areas that they actually own. It simply cannot be right that the payment of large dividends to shareholders and huge bonuses to bosses is prioritised before protecting SSSIs. This entire culture of polluting for profit must end.”