UK Nature and Environment

New research by Cardiff University's Otter Project has found that PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals," present in English otters, raising concerns about potential health impacts in the future.

The Cardiff scientists tested otters from across the UK to monitor levels of PFAS in the environment, to gain an understanding of the concentration of these chemicals in the UK's freshwaters, their persistence in the environment and any ecological and health risks. The researchers were particularly interested in the levels of forever chemicals in otters living near factories that use PFAS in their production.

Beavers reintroduced to a Scottish rainforest 15 years ago may have created the right habitat for the area’s endangered water voles to flourish.

The voles, once abundant in Scotland but now one of the country’s most threatened native animals, could thrive in the “complex boundary between water and land” that beavers have created in Knapdale in Argyll and Bute since their reintroduction there in 2009.

The beavers’ dam-building in the forest has led to the creation of a new habitat along the banks of watercourses, where water voles can dig burrows hidden from predatory mink.

A farm left to nature years before “rewilding” rose to prominence has become a unique and important site for wildlife, say conservationists launching a bid to save it.

The owner of Strawberry Hill, near Bedford, stopped farming his land 37 years ago, with once-arable fields reverting to scrubland that is now a haven for a host of wildlife including threatened nightingales, cuckoos and turtle doves.

But the 150-hectare (377-acre) site has no official designations or protections, and following the owner’s death, there were fears the land could be sold and returned to agriculture.

After gaining a temporary stay of execution for the site, the Wildlife Trust for Beds, Cambs and Northants (BCN) has raised enough money to buy half the land.

Experts will come together to "make space for nature" at a conference on environmental recovery.

Delegates will be asked to consider "all features great and small" at the event, which is being hosted by Tees Valley Nature Partnership and Your Tees Catchment Partnership.

The annual Tees Nature Conference has been held every year since 2017 and will be staged on June 21 at Teesside University’s Centuria Building, in Victoria Road, Middlesbrough.

Called "Tees Nature Conference 2024: Uniting for Nature’s Recovery", it aims to inspire, connect and celebrate local nature recovery efforts.

The public schools are on to something when they usher their students out of the classroom and into fresh air.

Exposure to green space reduces behavioural problems, gives children a cognitive boost and may even lead to improved academic achievement, according to recent studies.

Supporters of the UK’s burgeoning forest school movement, inherited from Scandinavian outdoor kindergarten lessons, have long made claims about the benefits of children playing outdoors and connecting with nature.

Public anger over sewage is set to influence voters in many seats that the Liberal Democrats are seeking to win from the Conservatives — including chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Surrey constituency.

Sensing an electoral opportunity, the Lib Dems have seized on growing fury over the continued contamination of national coastlines, placing the issue at the heart of their campaign to win over disaffected Tory voters.

It is “an incredibly potent example of how the government has failed, how the people at the wheel are crashing the car”, said Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester.

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We’ve released an open letter to political party leaders urging them to prioritise the recovery and enhancement of our ocean during this year's election period.

The letter is written by our CEO Sandy Luk and says that the ocean is our “heart and lungs”. We call for immediate investment in the ocean alongside action to combat pollution, and urge political leaders to help save one of the world’s most precious resources by publicly backing our Manifesto for our Seas.

Will you help us remind political leaders why our ocean is so important and what needs to be done to protect it?

Freshwater ecosystems are the lifeblood of the natural world, yet they are facing a silent crisis. A 2022 report by the World Wildlife Fund revealed a staggering 83% decline in global freshwater vertebrate populations since 1970, a rate far exceeding that of any other habitat.

The level of degradation to nature is alarming, but ecosystems are complicated, as are the effects of human activity. So, the story is often more nuanced.

Our research shows how analysing environmental DNA (eDNA) – the DNA left behind by organisms in life and death – could unlock the secrets hidden within freshwater streams, rivers and lakes. This offers hope for a more efficient monitoring of these vital ecosystems.

Ministers are being faced with complaints over a 13-year failure to stop breaches of the law that protects Scotland's precious landscape, environment and wildlife.

Scots environmental justice charity Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) has presented new concerns to the Scottish Government over the nation's 'unaffordable' court system as it emerged campaigners had been forced to find a loophole to ensure that legitimate complaints that should be dealt with in front of a judge are paid for by the taxpayer.

And former co-convener of the Scottish Greens, Maggie Chapman has lodged a motion with the Scottish Parliament seeking cross-party support for action that ensure the nation stops breaching international law.

Scientists have found the reintroduction of beavers to Devon is helping to reduce the impacts of flooding and drought.

The University of Exeter and Devon Wildlife Trust have worked with land owners to monitor four wild beaver territories over the past ten years.

Dams built by the beavers are now storing more than 24 million litres of water, that is the equivalent to around 10 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water.

Having been hunted to extinction 400 years ago, beavers returned to the River Otter in 2014.

No one knows how or by whom the animals were reintroduced, but in 2020 the beavers were given the legal right to stay. There are now 20 separate family territories along the river and its tributaries.

Schemes are being highlighted to encourage tree planting in the North York Moors National Park.

There are several schemes to encourage landowners to consider tree planting in the North York Moors, some of which look to create whole new woodlands and others, such as the Landscape Tree Scheme, which looks to plant between ten and 20 trees per project in sturdy, stock-proof shelters.

They can be planted in fields and open spaces, where they provide shade for grazing animals, but also along existing hedgerows, therefore having minimal impact on land use.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16523007

Campaigners say next government must reduce use and toxicity of pesticides before it is too late

The UK’s insect populations are declining at alarming rates and the next government must put in place plans to monitor and reduce the use and toxicity of pesticides before it is too late, wildlife experts say.

In recent years, concerns have been raised over earthworm populations, which have fallen by a third in the past 25 years. A citizen science project that monitors flying insects in the UK, meanwhile, found a 60% decline between 2004 and 2021. The overall trajectory, as government monitoring figures show, has been downwards since the 1970s.

Yet despite the evidence of the harmful effect of pesticides on our insect population, governmental action has been slow, and experts are concerned that the UK is failing to monitor pesticide use correctly.

“There is an almost complete lack of effective monitoring of pesticide use in UK agriculture,” said Nick Mole, the policy officer at Pesticide Action Network UK. “What little we do have is incomplete, out of date and on such a broad scale as to be virtually meaningless.

Testing Jersey's seawater all year round is being considered after a recent pollution outbreak, a minister has revealed.

Environment Minister Steve Luce said he decided to take a look at the water testing situation after high levels of E. coli were found in Grève de Lecq in May, leading to a warning not to swim there.

He said water at 16 bays in Jersey were tested regularly between May and September, but he was asked by people why testing was not done every month.

Mr Luce said this had prompted him to consider doing year-round testing, but added it could cost "several thousands pounds" to conduct monthly tests.

The invention of the contraceptive pill heralded the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and now scientists are looking to revolutionise wildlife control by getting animals in on the action. Trials are under way in the UK and elsewhere in Europe of how to get contraceptives into pigeons, wild boar and grey squirrels, with scientists also proposingother rodents, invasive parakeets and deer as other target species.

As destruction from invasive and pest species grows, researchers are looking to fill special feeders and bait boxes with hazelnut spreads and grains laced with contraceptives. They believe this could be a more humane and effective way of controlling populations that have previously been poisoned, shot or trapped.

The aim is to find “creative solutions”, says Dr Giovanna Massei from York University: “The main message is that the economic and the environmental impact of wildlife are increasing worldwide, and we are running out of options.

The next UK Government will be responsible for determining the future of our ocean. We’ve designed a General Election conversation pack to equip you with the knowledge to be an ocean advocate during the election season.

A healthy ocean is our strongest ally in combating the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. It plays a crucial role in our health, the economy and food security, and of course supports diverse marine wildlife. That's why political leaders need to be ready to restore our seas: turn the tide on pollution, invest in the ocean and revive marine life.

Be part of the change by using the pack when speaking to political candidates over the coming weeks.

THE Cockney sparrow was once a much-loved Londoner who lived feather-by-jowl with humans and was a daily sight in the skies above Camden.

But in just 10 years the number of the small brown birds darting through our gardens has declined by 50 per cent – and they are under threat of disappearing altogether.

This shocking fact is partly the motivation for conservationists to plaster the borough this week in blue plaques – based on the Historic England markers which denote a house where someone notable lived.

These nature versions, however, highlight just how decimated Camden’s wildlife has become in recent years.

Ecologist Dr Jeff Waage is one of the people behind the scheme, which culminates in a March for Nature, taking place on Saturday, June 22.

Over one-quarter of harmful bottom-trawling activities recorded in U.K. marine protected areas (MPAs) in 2023 were conducted by just 10 vessels, none of which were flagged to the U.K.

A new analysis conducted by nonprofit Oceana UK, utilizing data from the Global Fishing Watch (GFW), uncovered approximately 100,000 hours of apparent industrial fishing within U.K. MPAs in 2023, 33,000 hours of which were carried out by vessels employing bottom-towing gear such as bottom trawls and dredges.

The 10 non-U.K. flagged vessels, each over 20 meters long, were responsible for 27 percent of the suspected bottom trawling, whereas U.K. vessels conducted around 6 percent of the total 33,000 hours of suspected trawling.

In response to the findings, Oceana UK has called for all political parties ahead of the U.K. general election in early July to commit to banning bottom trawling across all MPAs.

A conservation charity said it was excited after a "rare" blonde badger was filmed in the countryside.

Essex Wildlife Trust shared footage of the unusually coloured animal on social media, but would not reveal where it was spotted to avoid members of the public potentially disturbing it.

The trust's protected species manager, Darren Tansley, said: "They're so rare. I see badgers from time-to-time, but they're always the normal colour - this is a one in 10,000 thing that you're going to spot.

This funds 5 large strategic projects, including projects led by teams at the University of Essex (ARISE) and the COAST-R Network Plus headed by Professor Briony McDonagh at the University of Hull, which will work to generate and share learning across sectors and disciplines to build UK coastal and marine resilience. The primary focus of the RACC project will be to assess the combined risks of climate change, coastal flooding and erosion, and the presence of thousands of historic landfills and contaminated sites across the UK’s coast.

The research conducted by RACC will assess the impacts of pollution release from historic coastal landfills, which can include heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, medical waste, plastics, and asbestos, on coastal habitats and communities. The study will focus on three UK geographic areas, assessing the environmental and social challenges posed and developing a suite of sustainable management options in collaboration with stakeholders and communities.

Tennis-court sized areas of woodland, known as "tiny forests" could be coming to Surrey.

Two borough councils are considering planting the green spaces, designed to fast track to the stable ecosystem of a mature woodland in a shorter time.

The mini forests are based on the work of pioneering Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, whose work regenerating forests on degraded land started in the 1970s.

Spelthorne Borough Council said the plans would mean a denser habitat for wildlife than the tree planting already done in the borough.

A new scheme aimed at restoring the marine environment in Sussex has been launched.

Sussex Bay, external brings together organisations, groups and individuals from along the Sussex coastline who want to help care for coastal habitats.

The campaign aims to protect 100 miles of coastline from Selsey to Camber Sands.

A spokesperson said it wants to "bring communities closer to their local marine environment" and "increase access to coastal nature and wildlife", including jobs in marine conservation.

Sussex Bay aims to generate a £50m fund for marine and fresh-water restoration projects by 2050, driven by a "shared a vision of a healthy ecosystem for our ocean and coastline".

Politicians are notoriously wary of talking about food.

Nervous that anything they say publicly about changing the system will be construed as hiking prices of, or affecting access to, the basic human right that is food.

The main party manifestos are not promising enough. This means the vital questions on how policies must help farmers in climate adaptation and protecting nature - crucial for food production, wildlife, and our well-being - too often get weak responses or receive too poor a debate.

Yet there is no greater challenge. Over the next decade, as climate extremes multiply resulting in increased droughts and floods, governments must ensure a transformation to resilient farming everywhere. We need to be sure our future politicians and government get this.

Every major English water company has reported data suggesting they’ve discharged raw sewage when the weather is dry – a practice which is potentially illegal.

BBC News has analysed spills data from nine firms, which suggests sewage may have been discharged nearly 6,000 times when it had not been raining in 2022 - including during the country’s record heatwave.

Water companies can release untreated sewage into rivers and seas when it rains to prevent it flooding homes, but such spills are illegal when it’s dry.

The firms say they understand public concerns around dry spilling, but they disagree with the BBC’s findings.

They have said the spill data shared with the Environment Agency was “preliminary” and “unverified”, and also disagree with how the BBC defined a dry spill, which they say differs from the Environment Agency’s approach.