UK Nature and Environment

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Thames Water may avoid paying a £104m fine for historic sewage spills as the regulator Ofwat is leaving the door open to negotiation with the firm, i understands.

Ofwat has handed out fines totalling £168m to three English water companies as part of its ongoing investigation into persistent sewage dumping and environmental pollution.

Thames Water has been handed out the largest fine (£104m), followed by Yorkshire Water (£47m) and Northumbrian Water (£17m).

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Responding to massive enforcement penalties imposed by Ofwat on three water companies Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water totalling £168 million, Chair and Founder of River Action Charles Watson said, “Last year sewage was discharged across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales more than 596,666 times. That’s over 1,600 times a day – and with many of these discharges being illegal, this situation is completely unacceptable.

“Thankfully the water regulator, for so long toothless, is finally waking up to the scale of the public’s outrage and we are starting to see some meaningful penalties being imposed upon the worst offenders. However, remember that the water industry was able to find more than £1.4 billion to hand out to their shareholders in dividends last year, which gives context to these fines. Until the ability of these polluting companies to hand out so much cash is severely curtailed, pollution will continue to be a highly profitable activity with inadequate incentives for the water companies to fix their creaking infrastructure and stop filling our rivers with raw sewage.

This is in response to the story as posted here, of course.

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Two companies have teamed up with a wildlife charity to help an endangered species.

Native White-clawed Crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) numbers have fallen drastically since escaped North American Signal Crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) took to British waterways in the 70s. This non-native species can carry an infectious disease which white-claws have no resistance to. Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has spearheaded several projects to save White-clawed Crayfish over the years, relocating thousands of them to new sites, called ark sites, away from signal crayfish. This work enables new colonies of healthy White-clawed Crayfish to establish.

Ibstock PLC, who have bases in Cannock and Newcastle-under-Lyme, and their transport partner Bimson Haulage Ltd are gifting surplus perforated bricks for use by the Midland Crayfish Partnership. Once submerged in water the bricks create ‘crayfish reefs’ at various ark sites in Staffordshire. The crayfish use all the nooks and crannies of the bricks as resting spots during the day. The donated bricks are seconds which would otherwise be crushed. A win for nature and sustainability!

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  • Great crested newts and lesser silver diving beetles discovered
  • Species first for the nature reserve
  • Natural England funded work to create scrapes for wetland habitat

Two rare wetland species have found a new home on the Shapwick Moor Nature Reserve following work to create new wetland features. This is part of action in hand across the country to recover nature and grow a national Nature Recovery Network.

Great crested newts and lesser silver diving beetles have been found at the nature reserve after Natural England funded work to create four scrapes. These are scraped out areas of earth that fill with water, creating new habitats.

The work is part of the Somerset Coast, Levels and Moors Nature Recovery Project. Neither species had been recorded on the site before, making this is an exciting discovery for the Hawk and Owl Trust owned reserve. The reserve forms part of the Somerset Wetlands National Nature Reserve.

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A pair of Common Crane has bred successfully at Ham Wall RSPB for the first time, with one chick fledging.

The popular Somerset reserve is home to a rich variety of wetland birds, including large numbers of Eurasian Bitterns and a thriving population of Great Egrets.

This year, a pair of Common Cranes settled on-site and nested. The single chick fledged on 10 July when it was aged at approximately 10 weeks old.

It marks a first breeding record for the site, as the species bounces back in the UK.

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A large-scale vaccination programme could help eradicate bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in badgers, according to a first-of-its-kind study with “really promising” results for cattle farmers, whose herds have been devastated by the disease.

Over four years, researchers vaccinated 265 badgers across 12 farms in Cornwall. They found the percentage of badgers testing positive for bTB fell from 16% to zero.

“It’s the best result you could get from a small study,” said the lead researcher, Prof Rosie Woodroffe, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). “The results are really promising but we’d want to see it replicated over a larger area.”

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In a bid to continue its pioneering wilding project at the Somerset Levels, Somerset Wildlife Trust is seeking public support.

The project, called 'Honeygar', is a transformation scheme transforming a former dairy farm into a place for biodiversity and a showcase of science and monitoring.

Launched in 2022, the Trust now requires extra funds to maintain its process of converting the former farm into its inaugural wilded site.

This conservation initiative intends to further connect the ecological-rich areas within the Somerset Levels.

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Latest testing of the River Nidd has revealed it continues to suffer high levels of the bacteria E.coli, which scientists say is a strong indicator of raw sewage.

The government accepted a bid for Bathing Water Status on the Nidd in May. Since then, the Environment Agency has undertaken weekly testing of a stretch of the river by Knaresborough Lido.

The idea behind the status is that more monitoring should help Yorkshire Water and other polluters better understand the problem so they can work to reduce the amount of waste that goes into the river.

Sampling has so far highlighted the huge amount of work required to clean up the river so it’s safe to swim in.

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COMMUNITIES across Somerset are being encouraged to plant new trees in the coming months to help create new woods and improve tree cover in urban areas.

Around eight per cent of Somerset is currently covered by trees – far below the national average of 13 per cent.

Somerset Council launched its tree strategy in June 2023, which intended to bring the tree cover up to the national average by planting 240 hectares (93 square miles) of trees every year up to 2033.

The council is now encouraging schools, churches, residents’ associations and other community groups to “root for Somerset” and plant trees in their area, with the Woodland Trust providing free saplings until the end of August.

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Bison are up to two metres tall. An adult male can weigh up to a ton. If you ended up on the wrong side of one sitting down, you wouldn’t live to tell the tale. And for all I knew, peering through the bushes, I was just a few metres away from a wild one. In Kent… A deadly wild animal! In England! My sense of excitement is easy to understand. No place in the world has lost so much of its natural habitat as us.

No one walking around the English countryside will ever fear being attacked by wolves or bears, nor will they have a feeling of being truly lost. It is both tranquil and sedate. That isn’t to say that it’s impossible to have a meaningful interaction with the natural world. Anyone who watched David Attenborough’s latest series based in the UK would have felt the excitement of seeing unfamiliar creatures in our familiar landscape.

And that’s why I went in search of the Kentish bison. We arrived in Canterbury on a drizzly Friday morning. Our destination was the Blean Woods, an ancient piece of woodland about five miles outside the city. Sally Smith, comms tsar of this bison rewilding project, drove us out to the woods. She’d recently switched from the Kent police and was luxuriating in her new life as a bison hype-person.

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Blue-green algae has returned to Lough Neagh in high levels.

Large green mats have formed around the lough, particularly in the north-east.

The blooms previously closed bathing waters in Portstewart and Portrush.

A "very sharp uptick" in the amount of potentially toxic algae has been noticed by scientists monitoring the lough.

But what actually is it?

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A dolphin has been found dead on the bank of the Thames in west London days after one was spotted in the river last week.

On Thursday, a dolphin nicknamed Jo Jo was spotted swimming between the Hammersmith and Putney bridges.

However, on Monday morning a dolphin was pictured dead on the bank of the river near Chelsea Harbour Pier.

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A £450,000 initiative to explore solutions to tackle the blue-green algae crisis at Lough Neagh has been launched.

Environment minister Andrew Muir said he hoped solutions could also be applied in other areas affected by the noxious blooms.

In phase one of the Lough Neagh: Blue-Green Algae Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) five applicants will be selected to develop concepts to deal with the algae.

In phase two two to three concepts will be selected and developed as potential pilot solutions.

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More than two decades ago, I had the honour of running the world’s last (possibly only) frog telephone helpline. No, this is not a set-up for a punchline. It was a real service. Gardeners would grab the Yellow Pages, dial the frog helpline number and physically manifest, using their voice, sentences most of us would type into Google today: “If I dig a pond, will frogs come?” callers would ask, or: “How can I make my garden more attractive to amphibians?”

My role was simple. I was to fire these callers into action, offering realistic guidance on how gardens could be made more suitable for wildlife, especially frogs. Froglife, the charity that owned the helpline, saw in gardens a way for more amphibian habitats to be secured, away from the countryside which was then (and is still) being ravaged by pollution, land-use changes and more. And so, paid a minimum-wage salary, I spoke to 9,000 callers over a period of about three years.

It was perhaps the best job I ever had. In my spare time, I turned our small concrete backyard into a nature oasis, with two ponds for amphibians. In the years that followed, barely a day would go by when I wouldn’t see a frog stirring or hear the distinctive “plop” of one diving for cover as I walked past the pond. Some years, we had 15 frogs at a time; in spring, the bigger pond became a theatre for raucous, slimy sex. It was like a seasonal soap opera.

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Research is being carried out on why blue tits have been nesting in cigarette butt bins and if it could have any long-term impact on the birds.

Douglas Russell, a senior curator who is based at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Tring, Hertfordshire, is carrying out the study after more tits were reported to be nesting in the bins.

The phenomenon has been noted anecdotally for some 20 years, said Mr Russell, who recently recovered two bins from Old Buckenham, Norfolk, and Harrogate, Yorkshire, where the birds had fledged.

Tests would be carried out on the boxes and nests to find out more about any toxicity passed onto the birds, and to establish if the bins need redesigning to prevent tits from nesting in them.

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An action plan for Alderney’s West Coast and Burhou Islands Ramsar site has been approved, the States of Alderney has confirmed.

It includes an agreement to draw up a five-year strategic plan for the area which will be carried out by the Alderney Ramsar Secretariat on behalf of the States.

It will consider rezoning the site or creating additional Ramsar sites around Alderney to accommodate conservation expectations.

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A wildlife trust is looking to restore some of its peatlands which were historically burned to help heat homes.

Cumbria Wildlife Trust conservation manager David Harpley said the group wanted to restore about 14 acres at Burns Becks Moss in Killington, near Kendal.

The land is degraded because its peat had been burned as fuel for hundreds of years, said Mr Harpley.

The trust hopes to get planning permission for the works so that restoration can start in the autumn.

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A rare moth has been spotted for the first time in West Sussex.

Michael Blencowe, a professional wildlife surveyor, discovered a ringed border moth in a light trap on Graffham Down in the South Downs National Park.

The species was first seen in mainland UK in Somerset in 2009. It has since been found in three East Sussex locations.

Mr Blencowe said the find was exciting because it had "the double benefit of being rare and attractive."

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Nature is declining faster than at any time in human history, with an estimated one million species across the globe currently threatened with extinction due to human activities. In December 2022, a landmark agreement called the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was established by world leaders from 196 nations, to halt nature loss and prevent ecosystem collapse. One of the Framework's key targets, known as '30 by 30', was to protect 30% of the world's land, coastal waters, and oceans by 2030. This has led to a rapid expansion in land being designated as specially protected in recent years.

We know that protected areas benefit biodiversity. It's also true that some protected areas are in a better state than others – for example, some experience pressures from pollution, non-native species, or unsustainable practices. So, as well as designating new protected areas, we need to understand how much could be gained from managing protected areas to reduce pressures and recover from previous impacts.

In the UK, protected areas are categorised as being in favourable or unfavourable 'condition' for biodiversity based on attributes such as habitat extent and structure, or the species present, with management generally needed to improve unfavourable sites. The BTO-led research, in partnership with the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), compared protected areas that were in a favourable versus an unfavourable condition, and how breeding bird populations fared across the various types.

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Bury Council has become the first authority in Greater Manchester to adopt the integrating of 'swift bricks' into new housing.

Local campaigners, who have long pushed for the move, described their inclusion as an "easy win for builders, birds and biodiversity".

It comes after the latest Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) reported a decline in the populations of Common Swift due to a loss of nesting sites. In 2022, another study identified the reasons behind the long-term slump in numbers.

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Despite their bad reputation and tendency to disrupt picnics, wasps are an important part of our ecosystem.

During this time of year, it can seem like most outdoor activities are plagued by the flying insects... but they appear to have lacked their usual numbers in 2024.

Colder and wetter weather and climate change have had a global impact on the invertebrates.

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Efforts to save Wales' most threatened bird species, the curlew, saw electric fencing go up around nests to protect their chicks from foxes and off-lead dogs.

Trail camera footage from a wetland reserve near Wrexham shows chicks surviving behind the fencing.

It is giving hope for the bird after an expert assessment warned the upland wader could be gone as a "viable breeding species" by 2033.

As few as 400 curlew still breed in Wales and their nests are so hard to find that thermal imaging drones were trialled as a way to find and help more birds through the breeding season.

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A local non-profit is crowdfunding to create 3000sqm of habitat for wildlife.

Wilba Conservation is a non-profit based in Llandrindod Wells, with the aim of creating areas of habitat to help nature.

It has now launched a crowdfunding campaign for one of its projects, which will create 3000sqm of habitat near Llanbister.

The organisation is aiming to crowdfund £4000 to turn an area of unproductive farmland into a highly beneficial riparian habitat.

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THE next time you take a walk along the river in Kidderminster, keep your eyes peeled because you might just spot an otter.

Lee Bollington says he was "astonished" to see one in the River Stour when he was walking near to St Mary's Church in the town centre on Friday morning (August 2).

He said: "It was such a shock. I could not believe what I saw.

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