UK Nature and Environment

British ash trees are poised to finally make a comeback with scientists working on gene-edited saplings that are immune to ash dieback.

Dieback, a pathogen originally from Asia, has blighted British ash trees since it arrived in the UK a decade ago and estimates suggest it could kill up to 80 per cent of the UK population.

The disease causes little damage to the ash species of other continents, but the predominant British species, Fraxinus excelsior, is far more vulnerable.

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Moderation

This community was founded by Kim (originally using another account). Neither of Kim's accounts that I know of have had any activity for the last 3 months now. I have reached out - but no response, so I am guessing that Kim is not active on Lemmy these days.

That leaves me as the only mod for the community, which is not ideal. I am not planning on going anywhere any time soon, but it is always better to have more than one mod. So: would anyone be interested in joining me on the moderation team? It is not exactly arduous. I check in a couple of times a day and I think that I have had to remove something like 4 comments in total since I started. I post some articles each day, but that is not part of mod duties, that's just me, which brings me on to...

Content and direction for the community

I post a handful of UK wildlife and environment news items each day. This is partly since I find them interesting anyway, and partly since any community that is going to thrive needs fresh content. I am delighted when anyone else posts something. I often wonder whether more items would be posted by other people if I didn't post as much. I have even avoided posting a couple of larger wildlife news stories at times to see whether someone else would instead. The results have been mixed.

But these are all news stories. I didn't originally intend the community to be exclusively a news sub - and when Kim was around, we did have more variety. There was a time when I was into wildlife photography for example, and, especially since I was working as a ranger then, was capturing some good shots quite regularly. These days life has moved on. I don't carry the camera kit with me at all regularly and am not directly working with wildlife now anyway, so the opportunities don't arise anything like as much.

Anyway, are you happy with the current content? What would you like to see more of or less of? Do you have any other comments? Let's have a discussion about the way forward for the community.

The "crex crex" call of the corncrake was once a familiar sound in the British countryside.

But habitat loss caused by modern farming methods pushed the bird to the brink of extinction.

Now there are hopes the corncrake can stage a comeback in England, after being reintroduced to the fenlands of Norfolk.

Wildlife campaigners are calling for even tougher policing of Scottish grouse moors on the eve of this year’s “Glorious Twelfth”, which marks the legal start of the grouse shooting season.

On Monday 12 August moors across the British uplands will echo to the sound of shotguns and estate vehicles.

But for the first time, grouse moors in Scotland must hold a licence for shooting under new powers brought in earlier this year to reduce the unlawful killing of birds of prey by gamekeepers.

Results are in for the 4th year of the Raptor Transect Survey Project, administered by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) for Scotland’s Regional Moorland Groups. Carried out from April to July each year, independent surveyors record the presence of raptors along 10km routes in different areas of moorland across Scotland. These moorland areas are predominantly comprising of managed heather habitat, but also incorporate some rewilding or forestry initiatives.

This year, a total of 15 transects have been monitored across four moorland areas in Southern Scotland, Tayside, Angus Glens and the Grampians, with surveys taking place once a month. The aim of this work is to build a simple index of conservation status over time for key raptor species, with the goal of enabling the GWCT’s biometrics team to detect long-term trends and raptor conservation status indices in these areas. The work has been strongly supported by Scotland’s Regional Moorland Groups and Scottish Land & Estates.

Nature 2030 has released new report showcasing the importance of safeguarding the UKs biodiversity, outlining a roadmap for councils to increase biodiversity in their boroughs through methods such as reducing mowing frequency and community engagement.

The report launch, supported by global charity Plantlife, comes as the new Labour government has set nature recovery as one of the five priorities for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Plantlife, who’s on the ground research is a central feature of the report, are experts in creating wildflower-rich road verges and green spaces, with their ‘Managing Grassland Road Verges – A best practice guide’ awarded the ‘Best Practice Knowledge Sharing’ in 2020 by CIEEM.

Peatland restoration is an essential part of the UK’s pathway to decarbonisation. Nature is the only mechanism of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in this country at present, mainly through woodland ecosystems and also healthy peatlands. When in good condition, in a waterlogged or re-wetted state, peatlands are a wildlife hotspot; home to rare plants like sundews and cotton grass, butterflies like the marsh fritillary, and beautiful birds like the golden plover.

Peatlands hold enormous amounts of carbon in their soils; around 3.2 billion tonnes across the UK. But 80% are in poor condition, and are releasing rather than capturing carbon. Around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (4% of total UK emissions) is being emitted each year. If the UK is going to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions, this needs to stop, and the carbon stored within peatlands to be protected from further losses.

Getting peatland emissions down is part of the UK Government’s Net Zero Strategy, but to date both the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Climate Change Committee (CCC) have been warning that the level of restoration is far too low. The Climate Change Committee in its last progress report recommended to UK Government that restoration rates need to be around 67,000 hectares per year across England, Wales and Scotland by 2025. The UK Government has set itself a much lower target of 32,000 hectares per year. By the Climate Change Committee’s latest count, only 12,700 hectares came under restoration in 2022/23; way below both interim targets.

Insect numbers are in freefall and most people know that pesticide use in agriculture is partly to blame.

But many domestic products including flea treatments for dogs, ant killer applications, washing-up liquid and herbicides can also contribute to the problem.

In fact, some substances that are banned for use in agriculture in the UK and other countries are routinely used in the home. Products containing fipronil and imidacloprid, the main domestic products in use for flea treatments and ant traps, have been found to be highly toxic to bees, triggering agitation, seizures, tremors and paralysis. They can also be harmful to aquatic life: dogs which have had flea treatment swim in rivers and lakes, where the chemicals wash off and kill wildlife. Or sometimes the treatments enter the water system after owners bathe the animals.

Butterflies, bees and bats are among the wildlife being boosted by England’s nature-friendly farming schemes, new government research has found.

Birds were among the chief beneficiaries of the strategy, particularly ones that largely feed on invertebrates. An average of 25% more breeding birds were found in areas with more eco-friendly schemes.

A shift away from eating meat will be required if agriculture in England is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as more land will need to be used to store nature and carbon, the peer-reviewed study by Natural England, the government advisory body, also warned.

Two white-tailed eagle chicks have fledged from a nest in England, only the second time these iconic birds have bred here for over 240 years. The chicks were reared by a pair of white-tailed eagles released by Forestry England and the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation’s project to return this lost species to England.

The chicks, both males, are the offspring of two white-tailed eagles released by the project in 2020. The parent birds - female G405 and male G471 – were the same pairing that last year successfully raised a single male chick (G625), the first white-tailed eagle to be born in southern England since 1780.

The two chicks – G636 and G637 - are fitted with satellite tags so that the project team can track their progress. Over the last year they have used satellite data to follow last year’s chick (G625) as he has explored widely across the UK travelling as far as the north of Scotland.

Our seabird experts have raised concerns after observing a slow start to the seabird breeding season, which runs from April to September each year, as well as a reduction in nesting activity for key species such as fulmars, guillemots and shags.

The data was gathered during annual monitoring surveys, carried out by our ranger teams and groups we support on our islands, to measure the health of the seabird population in our care.

With over 1 million seabirds nesting at Trust places every year, our charity has recruited additional staff to work on new initiatives aimed at protecting Scotland’s natural heritage. Two new seabird ecologists, James Crymble and Elizabeth (Liz) Morgan, have joined the Trust at a crucial time; one of their first jobs has been to help rangers to complete the annual monitoring surveys and record vital data about the seabird species that breed in Scotland.

Fascinating detailed surveys by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) have captured how Britain’s broadleaf woodlands have changed dramatically over the past 50 years, due to disease, lack of management, climate change and an increase in deer numbers.

Initially undertaken in 1971 by the late Professor Bob Bunce was repeated in 2001 and in 2021, the survey examines around 100 broadleaf woodlands in different landscapes across Britain.

A new UKCEH report looks at the data from that latest survey, commissioned by the Woodland Trust, and the changes compared to the previous two studies.

Nature 2030 releases new report including a roadmap for how local councils can boost Britain's biodiversity through improved road verge management

Campaigners are today calling on local government to seize the opportunity to turn road verges into wildlife corridors that can deliver a major increase in UK biodiversity.

That is the headline recommendation from campaign group Nature 2030 and global charity Plantlife's new report Restoring a Green Britain, which was published today and highlights how road verges have "particular significance" for Britain's efforts to reverse biodiversity decline.

The report reveals how verges feature up nearly 45 per cent of the UK's total plant diversity and can be home to 87 species that are threatened with extinction.

Farmers have united to form a new alliance to protect and enhance wildlife and the countryside, while also maintaining profits from their food production.

The Waveney Hundred Farming Group will link the Broads National Park, external with the Suffolk and Essex Coast and Heaths National Landscape, external, which was formerly known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The group is made up of 23 farmers who collectively own or manage nearly 19,000 acres (7,677 hectares) of land between the River Waveney and River Blyth.

Conservationists say the Cairngorms has its first wild-born beavers since the animals died out in Scotland more than 400 years ago.

The two babies, called kits, were born following the release of four beaver families at selected sites in the Cairngorms National Park late last year.

The first kit was born on land owned by Wildland Cairngorms Ltd and the second at Rothiemurchus, near Aviemore.

Two strikingly plumaged juvenile Western Marsh Harriers have been seen in Oxfordshire in recent weeks.

The birds have been observed regularly at Otmoor RSPB throughout July and stand out due to their wings, back, belly and tail feathers being heavily marked with white.

According to observers, one of the harriers is larger than the other, suggesting that they are different sexes. Furthermore, an adult male with 'white' plumage is said to be on the reserve.

Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon has been leading the UK's biggest underwater habitat restoration project off the north Wales coast.

More than 1.5 million seagrass seeds have been harvested from the sea around the Llyn Peninsula.

They will be used to plant new underwater meadows elsewhere in Gwynedd and Anglesey which can support thousands of fish and other sea creatures.

The tenth report in its series, The State of the South-West’s Seas Report has been published, bringing the marine and coastal community together annually to consider and communicate the changes that are taking place in our local seas.

Every year brings exciting and interesting observations of marine life and environmental conditions that help us to understand how the marine environment ‘works’, how it is changing and whether management of human activities and impacts is making a difference to the health of our seas. Capturing and interpreting those observations and activities is what the group of specialists reporting in the ‘South-West Marine Ecosystems in 2023’ do. Their report on 2023 has just been published.

Plans to create an artificial island on the River Ouse to help wildlife and improve water quality have been put forward.

Environmental charity St Nicks wants to install the pontoon-like structure on the river near North Street Gardens in York.

A spokesperson for the charity said the "floating ecosystem" would "inject life" into that part of the River Ouse and give birds a place to "rest and nest".

They said the island would be attached to the river wall via an anchoring system so it could rise and fall during flooding.

The Butterfly Conservation charity’s big butterfly count asks the UK public to record butterflies wherever they see them each summer. In 2024 so far, sightings are the lowest in the survey’s 14-year history.

Cool weather in Britain this summer is partially to blame. The butterflies are still somewhere though. On a cool day, they’re nowhere to be seen but when it’s hot, they suddenly reappear, so where do they go?

Like all insects, butterflies are poikilotherms – they don’t produce their own body heat like humans do. Instead, they rely on the ambient temperature for everything their body does: moving, growing and their general metabolism.

Behind the record fines announced by Ofwat for the routine dumping of sewage into rivers and seas by three water companies, there is a voiceless victim, one that does not sit in boardrooms, or get a chance to count dividends. It is our rivers and coastal waters, subjected to years of continuous pollution under the noses of the regulators, which are suffering.

In all likelihood the £168m penalties for the already struggling Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water will be followed by fines for the remaining eight water and sewerage companies, all of whom Ofwat is investigating over failure to treat sewage according to the law.

The penalties are yet more evidence of the systemic, industry-wide failure of the privatised water industry to fulfil its legal duties. Now is the time to ask how much, if any, of the millions in fines, which will all go to the Treasury, will be spent in the months and years ahead on ecological restoration and mitigation for these damaged habitats?

The UK is not doing enough to track wasp populations as numbers appear to plummet, a leading expert has warned.

While there were national monitoring schemes for some invertebrates, including bees and butterflies, there was no such programme in place for wasps, said Dr Gavin Broad, principal curator of wasps at the Natural History Museum.

This year, wasps appear to have faced a sharp decline, with the colder and wetter weather believed to have dampened their numbers, as reported by gardeners, experts and pest controllers.

England’s first official “hedgehog crossing” road signs have been unveiled amid a battle to save the species.

About 150,000 hedgehogs are killed every year on roads across the country, with experts believing that these deaths are contributing to the animal’s decline in the UK.

It is feared there are just one million hedgehogs left in Britain, compared with 36 million in the 1960s.

Last month, Kingston council in south-west London installed four newly approved crossing signs in Old Malden after discovering the ward had become a surprise “stronghold” for hedgehogs, with about 100 of the animals in the area.

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More than two years ago one of the "most important places in Europe" for wildlife was destroyed by fire.

A blaze, started deliberately, ripped through 10 hectares of the Neston reedbed marshland on the Wirral Peninsula in March 2022.

Three 15-year-old boys were handed nine-month referral orders for arson and damage of a site of special scientific interest last year.

The RSPB has said "nature is bouncing back" as they announced new measures to prevent future fires and anti-social behaviour.