UK Nature and Environment

As you might expect, the Green Party’s manifesto for this year’s general election talks a lot about the environment, so there’s a lot for us to dig our teeth into here at EnvirotechOnline. One of these policies addresses a concern that is pretty niche by mainstream standards, but have been taken quite seriously by British politicians and ministers as well as by environmental organisations for quite some time: bee-killing pesticides.

Over 100 people gathered on the shores of Lough Neagh on Sunday afternoon to protest against the ongoing pollution in the local waterway.

The demonstration entitled ‘Loughshore Stands Up’ was organised by environmental activists from Save Lough Neagh.

The collaborative campaign is made up of volunteers from organisations such as Save Our Shores, Friends of the Earth, Surfers Against Sewage, Unison, the Green Party NI, and Queen’s University Belfast.

It’s been more than 170 years since eagles soared above Eryri, its mountains once synonymous with the majestic bird of prey. A video clip posted online has raised hopes that golden eagles may have now returned to their cultural home.

A photographer brewing a cup of tea by the Afon Glaslyn spotted a large bird flying high above Gelert’s Grave in the village of Beddgelert. His footage, taken at some distance, has divided opinion but some experts believe it shows a golden eagle. The spectacular bird has a wingspan of up to 2.3 metres.

Osprey and red kite were ruled out, with a buzzard the most likely alternative. Widespread across North Wales, they are commonly mistaken for eagles.

Thousands of amateur testers have checked on water quality in a huge campaign, and the results reveal pollution and struggling wildlife.

The birth of wildcat kittens in the Cairngorms national park has been hailed as a “major milestone” in efforts to rescue the secretive mammals from extinction in the UK.

In footage exclusively shared with the Guardian by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), two of the kittens can be seen playing in grassland with their mother and leaping on to a fallen tree branch.

These are potentially the first wildcats to be born outside captivity in Scotland for more than five years after 19 wildcats, which had been bred at the Highland wildlife park, near Kingussie, were released last summer in sites across the Cairngorms in a pilot project by the Saving Wildcats partnership, led by RZSS.

Chemical weedkiller will continue to be used in a city's parks and on footpaths after an effective alternative could not be found.

Sunderland City Council said it had hoped to stop using glyphosate herbicide over health concerns linking it to cancer.

However, after three years of trying other treatments, it said the chemical was the most "effective and less expensive" solution.

The authority also said it had halved the use of the herbicide on its land in the last three years, from 203 gallons (925 litres) to 106 gallons (480 litres).

A council report found that alternatives were "less effective, more expensive and had a greater detrimental environmental and ecological impact".

He captured some stunning images of the Northern Lights above the south Wales valleys last month.

But for his latest shots of amazing natural phenomenon, photographer Lee McGrath did not need to look up at the sky.

Instead he stared down at the waves lapping the shores of Dunraven Bay, Vale of Glamorgan, where bioluminescent plankton were lighting the water an incredible electric blue.

Captured in the early hours of Friday, it is thought to be the first sighting of this magical occurrence in Wales in 2024 and the kind of shot which features highly on every photographer's bucket list.

The Earl of Shaftesbury has said he would like to transfer his estate's ownership of Lough Neagh "into a charity or community trust model, with rights of nature included".

But Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, said the proposal “may take time”.

It comes as the Lough Neagh Report is due to come before the Stormont Executive again later next week.

Writing on the online platform Substack, the earl said he felt he was "an easy target and a useful excuse for failings in proper governance", external.

The Shaftesbury Estate owns the bed of Lough Neagh and the earl has previously said he was willing to explore options.

“When it comes to wolves,” says rewilding pioneer, Derek Gow, “what's required is courage; political courage. Even though the animals can be radio-satellite collared so we know the location of every wolf, I doubt that the powers that be in Scotland and Nature Scot will have any interest in this at all.

“They will do nothing until they are explicitly politically told to do something. Politically nothing will happen until there is a groundswell of public opinion for this animal.”

Gow lives on a 300-acre farm on the Devon-Cornwall border, which he has been rewilding with wild boar, white stork and beavers, as well as, within a large enclosure, lynx - having previously reared sheep and cattle. But the story of his passion for nature, and the wolf, begins in his Scottish childhood, near Biggar, at the edge of the Southern Uplands.

What sparked both Gow’s new book about the predator's history, Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain, and his young imagination was a story that his grandmother told him of a place near his childhood home, called Wolf Clyde, said to be the site where the last wolf was killed on the Clyde. In her tale, the wolf was killed by a woman with a griddle pan.

Swimmers and surfers have said they are scared to go in the sea due to fears about sewage.

Ahead of the general election, activists said they wanted to see change because "people are getting ill".

Surfers Against Sewage said it was hearing about "alleged illegal spillages" almost every day.

An increase in winter storms during the 2023-24 winter led to an increased in washed-up seabirds in Jersey, a report has found.

Between November 2023 and February 2024, a total of 124 beached birds were reported on the Channel Island, a figure higher than the average for this period.

The data comes from an annual study conducted by the Birds on the Edge partnership and the Ornithology Section of the Société Jersiaise.

Thousands of people marched through central London to urge political leaders to take more decisive action in tackling the UK’s wildlife crisis.

The protest on Saturday culminated in a rally outside Parliament Square with speeches from prominent figures including the naturalists Chris Packham and Steve Backshall, and poetry readings and performances from Billy Bragg and Feargal Sharkey.

The actor Dame Emma Thompson called on politicians to “act now” on the climate crisis as she led thousands on the march.

A range of projects working to restore Scotland’s threatened temperate rainforest are set to bring economic benefits to some of the country’s most rural communities.

The equivalent of 40 new full-time roles will be employed through projects linked to the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest (ASR), a voluntary partnership of organisations committed to collaborative action for the benefit of Scotland’s rainforest.

The new roles will tackle landscape-scale restoration work in what’s known as the rainforest zone, a climatic area in the west of Scotland where temperate rainforest can form.

Britain’s biggest conservation charity has signed up to i’s manifesto to Save Britain’s Rivers and called on all the main political parties to back it in full.

With 5.7 million members from across the political spectrum, the National Trust’s intervention adds to the pressure on Labour and the Conservatives to sign up to the pledges to protect Britain’s rivers from sewage and other forms of pollution.

As one of the UK’s largest charities, the National Trust has significant influence over nature policy and the conservation of Britain’s green spaces and heritage sites.

A FAIRLY rare summer visitor to the Isle of Wight — the Ocean Sunfish — has been spotted and snapped off Gurnard Bay.

In the UK, sunfish may be seen between June and September and are most often spotted off south-west England.

The fish species, known scientifically as Mola mola, was photographed in The Solent by County Press reader, Amy Ferrier, yesterday (Thursday, June 20).

Waterborne diseases have “put over 10,000 people in hospital” since 2019, Labour said, as both Sir Keir Starmer’s party and the Liberal Democrats ramped up attacks on the “Conservative sewage scandal”.

Labour reiterated its pledge to put water companies dumping sewage into UK rivers and seas under special measures to force them to “clean up their act”.

The party highlighted new analysis of NHS hospital admissions data showing the number of people diagnosed with diseases transmitted via waterborne infection nearly doubled over the last two years, rising to a record high of 3,261 cases last year.

Dolphin spotters were treated to a rare sight in Cardigan Bay this week, when a minke whale approached their boat.

The survey team at Sea Watch Foundation, a national charity working to protect marine wildlife, were treated to an amazing minke whale sighting on 20 June, 2024, exactly one year after the first reported minke whale sighting in the bay in a decade.

The team was conducting a line transect survey, scientifically measuring the abundance and distribution of marine species.

Visitors to the Cairngorms National Park can now learn about nature and how they can save wildlife following the completion of Scotland’s Wildlife Discovery Centre.

Based at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s (RZSS) Highland Wildlife Park, the £6.5 million project comprises three new buildings, an ambitious community outreach programme and a biodiversity action plan to help protect native species.

The Supreme Court has today ruled that emissions from burning fossil fuels, known as downstream emissions, should have been considered when approving new drilling sites in Surrey.

Judges ruled that Surrey County Council should have considered the full climate impact of burning oil from new wells. The Horse Hill oil well in Surrey was given planning permission to expand its operations in 2019, a decision that was challenged by local campaigners Weald Action Group.

Today’s landmark decision by the Supreme Court is a major win for the countryside, for the planet and for common sense. We hope it signals a major shift away from fossil fuels and towards clean, sustainable energy.

In the run up to the 2024 general election, our Outdoors Unlocked campaign is calling on all political parties to commit to a transformational new Access to Nature Bill. This bill will break down barriers to the outdoors so everyone in England can enjoy the benefits of walking in nature.

The main parties in England have now released their manifestos and we’re glad to see they have all written about improving and increasing access to nature. However, some have provided more details on their plans than others.

In what is believed to be a first in UK legal history, a landowner will have money confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act for offences under forestry legislation.

Jeff Lane illegally felled more than 8 hectares of native woodland within the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty near Swansea between April 2019 and September 2020, without the appropriate licence.

Having previously been found guilty of forestry offences at Swansea Magistrates court in April 2022, Mr Lane was handed a confiscation order by the Judge for £11,280 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA). He was also fined £1,500 for his offences.

The Environment Agency has been late to attend most serious pollution incidents over the past five years, according to an analysis by Greenpeace.

The environmental group’s investigation unit Unearthed obtained data on the agency’s attendance at pollution incidents between January 2017 and October 2023 under freedom of information (FOI) laws.

It found that the regulator has failed to meet its own response time targets for around three-quarters of England’s worst pollution incidents, which include major sewage, oil and slurry spills.

A section of the River Wye popular with wild-swimmers is to be granted official bathing water status in a Welsh government U-turn.

Campaigners said they were "delighted" by the move, which will lead to mandatory monitoring of water quality at The Warren near Hay-on-Wye.

Their application had initially been turned down, over concerns that "increased footfall" at the site might cause environmental damage.

But the Welsh government has now conceded that the stretch of river meets the criteria for bathing water status as it is used by large numbers of swimmers.