UK Nature and Environment

Groups of blue jellyfish have been spotted on a North East beach after high temperatures in the water have brought the sea creatures onto the shores of the region.

On Sunday (July 21), the blue jellyfish were spotted at Redcar Beach - with the animals scattered across the sand next to dog walkers and people enjoying the sun.

Despite plenty of people on the beach, many passed by without a second glance - with the sun shining off the jellyfish; giving them the blue tinge.

It's believed that the return of the jellyfish has been linked to the rise in temperatures in the water, as the heat outside the water reached over 25 degrees on Sunday in Redcar.

Almost 8,000 people have signed a petition to stop the use of pesticides to control weeds in the city.

The Change.org petition has been started by local parish councillor Judith Heinemann and is aimed at The Parks Trust, MK City Council and school landscaping contractors.

It aims to get to 10,000 signatures and has already gathered more than 7,700.

Civil Action Update: Leigh Day Solicitors has sent a legal letter to the poultry companies its clients believe are responsible for the devastating pollution in the River Wye.

Lawyers representing hundreds of people and businesses affected by River Wye pollution have made their first legal move in the groundbreaking civil action.

The team at leading environmental law firm Leigh Day has sent a ‘letter before action’ (LBA) to the companies its clients believe are behind the damage allegedly caused by industrial-scale chicken production in the area.

Work to create wildlife corridors in Aberdeen is ongoing with the aim of helping bees thrive in the city.

The Aberdeen B-Lines project is hoping to use 20 hectares of council owned land to help offset the loss of flower-rich grasslands.

It is focusing on areas such as the River Don, River Dee, and along the coast.

Sites selected for habitat improvements stretch from TECA in the north to Torry Battery in the south, and include the Donmouth Nature Reserve and the Beach Esplanade.

Wildflower grassland enhancement work commenced in the Spring.

Video footage shows a rare white squirrel roaming the streets of a UK town.

In the footage, posted to Facebook by Maria Smith, the white squirrel is seen circling the pavement, perhaps looking for crumbs, before running off down the road.

The Conservative government did not carry out a legally required assessment of how greenlighting the use of a banned pesticide, described as a “death blow to wildlife”, would affect some of the most important nature sites, documents have revealed.

The previous government gave emergency approval this year for sugar beet farmers to use Cruiser SB for the fourth year in a row.

A single teaspoon of this pesticide is enough to deliver a lethal dose to 1.25 billion bees. In granting approval, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) went against the advice of the Health and Safety Executive and the UK expert committee on pesticides.

A councillor has branded sewage discharges "one of the biggest scandals of our generation" after a city beach had to be closed to swimmers earlier this month.

A temporary warning was issued for Thorpe Bay, Essex, on 5 July due to heavy rainfall but has since been lifted, the Environment Agency said.

Lydia Hyde, the Labour councillor responsible for climate, environment, and waste on Southend-on-Sea City Council, said: "It’s frustrating that we can’t take more action than we can to address it because the impact is on our coastline."

Newly published research explains a robust and tested measure to identify the social and cultural values people have for trees and woodland in England.

The approach has been developed to support local authorities, charities and other organisations making decisions about how to manage trees.

Developed by Forest Research and colleagues at University of York and at FERA, the method uses a composite measure to capture the social and cultural values of trees and woodlands. The measure includes a breadth and diversity of values relating to health and wellbeing, spiritual, aesthetic, historical, learning and social connections with trees.

A new peatland restoration project is to be launched to Caithness businesses in early September.

The ‘For Peat’s Sake’ project will commence with a series of classes taught by UHI North in conjunction with Peatland ACTION.

Titled, ‘An Introduction to Peatland Restoration’, this new course will consist of practical and classroom learning in an effort to revive interest in the peatland sector which is in desperate need of new recruits and environmental protection across the Highlands.

The course will offer lessons in local ecology, restoration techniques, and wildlife habits as well as hill working safety.

Scientists from The University of Manchester, The University of Aberdeen and Newcastle University have found that the restoration of upland peatlands is a highly effective strategy for reducing downstream flooding.

New modelling approaches combined with long-term data collection on the peatlands of Kinder Scout where restoration work has taken place have allowed the experts to demonstrate that meaningful flood protection can be delivered during large storms, and has the potential to offer significant protection to communities at risk of flooding in locations where traditional hard engineering may not be economically viable.

The model was built using data from a field experiment conducted with Moors for the Future Partnership looking at the impact of restoration on runoff on Kinder Scout in the south Pennines. In 2022, the Kinder Scout National Nature reserve managed by National Trust was extended – partly in recognition of the importance of the scientific research that was taking place there. The new findings further emphasise the value of controlled long-term landscape experiments in understanding the impact of peatland restoration work.

It's been a bumper breeding year for terns at a wildlife reserve as the species attempts to recover from avian flu that wiped out seabirds across the country.

More than 40 breeding pairs of common terns have nested at Montrose Basin Visitor Centre and Wildlife Reserve, with more than 100 chicks hatched.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust, which manages the site, said 87 of the chicks were ringed by volunteers from Tay Ringing Group.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is proud to announce the launch of its new Business Pledge, developed in collaboration with the charity’s key partner businesses.

Signed by 14 leading companies, corporate members and partners from across the South region, this initiative underscores the Trust’s collective commitment to supporting environmentally conscious business and sustainable growth, together with achieving national goals for nature recovery.

New economic analysis, published today, demonstrates that the current agricultural budget is significantly less than what is required for the UK farm and land management sector to help tackle the nature and climate crisis.

The independent analysis1 – A Scale of Need – commissioned by RSPB, National Trust and The Wildlife Trusts, finds that increasing investment in nature-friendly farming to £5.9 billion per annum across the UK is essential to meet legally binding nature and climate targets, and improve the resilience of the UK farming industry. The current annual agricultural budget is £3.5 billion – which remains unchanged since 2013 – and approximately 20-25% is currently spent on agri-environment schemes that benefit nature2.

Galloway has been selected by the Scottish government as the preferred site for Scotland’s third national park.

The region, which came out top from a shortlist of five, will now be the subject of a consultation and an investigation into its suitability before potentially being made official by 2026. The unsuccessful candidate areas were Lochaber, Loch Awe, Scottish Borders and Tay Forest.

If approved, Galloway will be the first national park to be established since the South Downs on the south-east coast of England in 2010.

Northumberland Wildlife Trust is taking part in a major conservation survey to find out where pine martens, one of the UK’s shyest animals, are living in the region.

A member of the weasel family, pine martens are mostly a chestnut-brown colour with a cream bib. Previously widespread, they declined dramatically due to persecution and habitat loss and by 1915 could only be found in a few isolated pockets, with their primary refuge in northwest Scotland.

However, the good news is they are making a comeback to various parts of the UK. Having extended their range in Scotland, they moved down to the Scottish borders and then into Kielder Forest in Northumberland.

Projects that aim to boost nature recovery and “back the people who make landscapes thrive” will receive a share of £150 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The organisation said the money will reach about 20 large-scale projects across the UK as part of a new decade-long initiative, called Landscape Connections.

The funding will focus on Britain’s protected landscapes, including national parks and national landscapes in England and Wales, areas of outstanding natural beauty in Northern Ireland, and national parks and other areas in Scotland.

National Marine week starts on the 27th July. It’s an initiative by the Wildlife Trust and this year’s theme is ‘sea connection’. The website has plenty of ideas on how you can get involved and what you can do to both protect and enjoy the seas and oceans that surround our little island and the globe.

Interestingly though, Love Parks week starts on the 26th July so the end of the month is all about loving the natural spaces we have around us and making the most of them and appreciating them.

Conservation charity Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust has launched a £280,000 fundraising campaign to protect the future of some of our best loved and familiar wildlife.

The trust is the leading voice for conservation in the area, with more than 23,500 members and over 1,100 active volunteers supporting its work.

As the charity launches its Wildlife in Crisis Appeal, Chloë Edwards, Director of Nature Recovery at Herts and Middlesex Trust, said: “We have the solutions and skills to reverse the devastating declines we are seeing and to restore nature.

ENVIRONMENTAL groups held a ‘funeral for nature’ in Purbeck over the weekend.

Extinction Rebellion, Sustainable Wareham, Surfers Against Sewage, Christian Climate Action and Zero Hour gathered in Swanage to mourn the loss of nature to global warming.

To a solemn drumbeat, formally dressed pall bearers carried a coffin high followed by a procession of mourners.

Fifty people marched along in silence along Shore Road, with the coffin was topped with a wreath of single use plastic and a papier-mâché bird.

Conservation groups across England are seeing more malnourished bats, as wildlife experts warn the washout summer is driving down the insects, butterflies and moths they feed on.

Groups across Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Worcestershire, Essex and South Lancashire said they are seeing an increase in the number of “starving” or “underweight” bats, often juveniles, who need to be rescued and cared for by volunteers. In some places, they are seeing fewer bats than they usually do in the summer.

There has been a decline in UK insect populations for decades, linked to the climate emergency and widespread use of pesticides. Some believe it has been exacerbated by this year’s record wet weather.

When new rules in the 1980s encouraged farmers to “set aside” some arable fields from crop-growing to reduce EU-wide overproduction, Hugh White rebelled.

“He said: ‘If you don’t want my corn, I’ll put the whole lot in set-aside,’” remembers the farmer’s son, Graham White. And so in 1988, cultivation ceased abruptly on all 153 hectares (377 acres) of Strawberry Hill farm in rural Bedfordshire.

Long before “rewilding” was invented, White’s wheatfields became rough grassland and a haven for barn owls.

PLANS to restore an area of raised bog ecosystem near Kirkbride have been approved by Cumberland Council's planning committee.

The planning application was submitted by Cumbria Wildlife Trust to the local authority for the project at Solway And Duddon Mosses, Anthorn to Whitrigg.

The work will create a network of cell bunding to retain water and 're-wet' the surface, blocking drainage ditches and clearing scrub that dries the peat.

Committee members considered the plans at a meeting at the Copeland Centre in Whitehaven on Wednesday (July 17).

Natural history courses will be available at one of Cornwall's most iconic attractions.

The Eden Project will offer courses across July and August aimed at people with an interest in British natural history, bosses said.

It would be done in collaboration with the Field Studies Council, an environmental education charity, they added.

Dr Jo Elworthy, chief science engagement officer at the Eden Project, said the aim would be "for everyone to learn about and reconnect with the natural world".

The FSC page is here.

Stormont’s plan to fix the toxic algal blooms in Lough Neagh are not radical enough to avoid an environmental catastrophe and the total collapse of our drinking water system, according to an expert in the bacteria causing the problems.

Stormont parties are agreed that there is no easy or quick solution – but an expert in the effect of slurry on the environment says the only solution is a radical and immediate cut in the amount of fertilisers ending up in the waterways and feeding the algae.