UK Nature and Environment

Work on a project to restore wetland habitat, open up 55km of river for fish and introduce natural flood management measures at Billingham Beck has completed.

Delivered in partnership between the Environment Agency, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, Tees Rivers Trust and National Highways, the project aimed to restore ecological connectivity between the beck and its floodplain after decades of modification.

As well as the removal of a historical weir to enhance fish passage and migration, the first phase of the project created scrapes, or dips in the ground that can fill with water.

The Lowland Raised Bog Recovery Programme will restore a signature site and develop plans for up to seven new ‘shovel-ready’ restoration sites, covering approximately 750 ha whilst creating six green jobs across Northern Ireland.

Funded in partnership by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) the Lowland Raised Bog Recovery Programme is part of RSPB NI’s ambitious peatland programme. The project will create a pipeline of fully costed restoration projects to attract further investment, whilst also demonstrating with landowners, communities, and contractors about how these projects can be done and the benefits of this restoration work.

Peatlands, including lowland raised bogs, blanket bogs and fen, cover about 12% of Northern Ireland’s land, and are crucial in combating the nature and climate emergency. The percentage cover of peatland on the island of Ireland is only exceeded by three countries; Finland, Canada and Indonesia, and as such, our peatlands are important on a local, national and global level.

Seeds of a rare UK wildflower have been planted out in Yorkshire after being collected from a "small but significant" cluster clinging to a cliff edge.

Spiked speedwell, a small, purple wildflower, was collected from the promontory, situated high up on the Ingleborough massif, as part of the Wild Ingleborough programme.

The programme has since successfully grown and planted out 75 wild spiked speedwell plants, nurtured from the seeds, in a bid to save the wildflower.

During 2024, 11,039 sightings of whales, dolphins, porpoises, and other marine life were reported to the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT) by members of the public, or citizen scientists. Over 65,000 animals have been sighted in Scottish waters, from 17 different species.

The data was collected during research expeditions run by the Trust and by people reporting what they’ve spotted through their community sightings network, Whale Track.

HWDT is a marine conservation charity which harnesses the power of citizen science to gather data. For thirty years people have been driving the Trust’s conservation efforts forward by getting involved with their citizen science initiatives. Over that time, a massive amount of data has been gathered which is used to better understand and protect species in Scotland’s seas.

Campaigners have reacted with fury to a deal for water companies which they claim will continue “profit for pollution” of rivers and seas.

Regulator Ofwat has announced household bills in England and Wales will rise by an average £31 a year over the next five years, before inflation, as firms are given the go-ahead for £104 billion upgrade of the water sector which it said would deliver improvements for customers and environment.

But environmentalists warned the bill hikes would not solve the sewage crisis or guarantee cleaner water.

The investment package includes £12 billion on 2,884 projects to reduce sewage spills from storm overflows by 45% on 2021 levels, such as greater storage and green schemes.

An old millpond in Pembrokeshire has been restored to improve water quality and boost biodiversity.

The restoration of Wallis Pond, created in 1836 as part of the tributary of the Western Cleddau River, was made possible by funding from Nestlé Waters UK.

The pond, once a key water supply for a mill, had become heavily silted, affecting its ability to retain water and restricting the diversity of habitats in and around the area.

A whale died after it became stranded along a stretch of the Lincolnshire coastline.

Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue (CWR) received a report that the pilot whale was stranded near Stallingborough and Immingham on Wednesday.

After volunteers were dispatched to the scene, the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) were called for extra support, but the whale sadly died.

BDMLR said it was "glad the whale didn't suffer for long in such awful conditions".

A webcam in landlocked Leicestershire has captured footage of a Little Auk being eaten by a Peregrine Falcon.

The alcid was seen in the clutches of the falcon at Leicester Cathedral at 3.10 pm on Monday 9 December, after a weekend that saw Storm Darragh batter Britain and Ireland with strong winds that produced a marked movement of Little Auks along the east coast.

Little Auk is a great rarity anywhere inland and the last record in Leicestershire was as long ago as 2007, according to the Leicester and Rutland Ornithological Society (LROS), who described the species as a 'rare vagrant to the county'. Prior to the 2007 bird, the previous occurrence was a decade previously in 1997.

Twenty black grouse have successfully been translocated from their stronghold in the North Pennines to the North York Moors by researchers from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) to help expand their range.

Ten hens and ten cocks were caught at night during November and early December, and immediately transported to the release site two hours’ drive away. This site had been specially selected for the birds as it provides the required mix of habitats for them.

The team used thermal binoculars, lamps and hand-held nets to capture the birds and 15 of them were fitted with radio transmitters to allow us to follow their settlement patterns, survival and lekking behaviour. The translocation was carried out under a licence from Natural England.

Innovation, research and a mammoth volunteering effort by people helped conservationists learn more about wildlife in UK seas, reveals The Wildlife Trusts’ 2024 marine review, published today.

Seaside volunteers clocked over 46,000 thousand hours surveying shorelines and recording wildlife. Discoveries include climate-indicator sea slugs and seaweeds, plus sightings of conger eels and humpback whales.

Groundbreaking research, pioneering nature recovery projects and a complete network of snorkel trails around Scotland also feature in the annual marine round-up.

A species of seabird hit by a devastating avian flu outbreak is making a "painfully slow recovery" at Shetland's national nature reserves.

NatureScot reported a slight increase in the number of great skua at Hermaness and Noss national nature reserves (NNRs), but said it could take "years, if not decades" to get back to pre-virus levels.

The full census of the species, for which Shetland is a global stronghold, was carried out as part of a probe into how populations are faring following the H5N1 influenza strain outbreak of 2022.

A conservation charity is making a final appeal for donations to fund its plan to plant a new forest.

Avon Needs Trees bought the 420-acre Wick Farm between Bristol and Bath in May and is preparing to plant 100,000 trees to transform it into Lower Chew Forest.

A crowdfunding campaign to pay for saplings and equipment broke its initial goal of £50,000, prompting the charity to raise it to £80,000.

It now has just over 24 hours to raise the final £12,000 needed to meet its new target.

• This marks the 75th anniversary of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, which created our National Parks and National Landscapes

• This move comes amid the Government’s push to promote access to nature, as part of the wider Plan for Change

New powers are to be granted to the country’s iconic National Parks and National Landscapes to boost nature’s recovery and access to the outdoors.

New legislation and guidance will give National Parks and National Landscapes a clear mandate to widen the public’s access to nature through strengthened purposes and make changes to improve their governance that will allow for greater innovation and collaboration to prepare them for the future.

The changes announced today will see more trees planted, more peat restored and more habitat created, supporting Protected Landscapes to play a leading role in meeting Net Zero, Environment Act targets and the commitment to protect 30% of land for nature by 2030 as part of our Plan for Change.

The Eden Project National Wildflower Centre (NWC) and volunteers who are known as the Wildflower Warriors – have been collecting seed by hand in a bid to bring colour and life to a major new link road being built in Cornwall.

The NWC is part of the Eden Project and has been coordinating the huge task of gathering, cleaning, sowing, growing and harvesting sufficient wildflower seed to plant the route of nearly four miles.

Construction of the link road between the A30 and St Austell is in the final phase. Seed sowing along approximately 45 acres of banks and verges began this autumn and will create a corridor of what organisers say is “vitally important” wildflower, woodland and heathland habitats. There will be new routes for cycling, walking and horse-riding on five and a half miles of newly built paths.

A "landmark" agreement will see green issues take centre stage in the planning of Gloucestershire's road networks.

National Highways and Natural England have signed a memorandum of understanding on the £460m A417 Missing Link project.

The Gloucestershire Way Crossing, a 37m (121ft) bridge over the A417, will be funded by a £402m investment into environmental schemes which "maximise biodiversity and ensure conservation".

The first river to be given bathing water status in England is in limbo waiting for the Environment Agency (EA) to approve crucial nature-based solutions that are part of £43m in improvements to cut sewage pollution.

In the West Yorkshire town of Ilkley, campaigners were the first to use the EU-derived bathing water regulations to drive a cleanup of their river. But since part of the River Wharfe was granted bathing water status in 2020, water quality has persistently been recorded as poor, most recently in the latest classifications last month. If it remains poor next year, when the status is up for renewal, it could lose its bathing water designation.

The race to clean up the river comes as water companies await Thursday’s decision from the regulator, Ofwat, on how much they can raise customer bills to the end of the decade. This will pay for investment of between £88bn and £100bn to tackle sewage pollution, replace creaking infrastructure and fix leaks.

The Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) has been awarded £512,182 to restore nature across the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire landscape, in partnership with 11 organisations.

BBOWT, as lead partner, has received initial support* from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for the Reconnecting Bernwood, Otmoor and the Ray (RBOR) project. Made possible by National Lottery players, the project aims to enable long-term landscape and species recovery in the BOR region for the benefit of nature, heritage and people.

The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with one in six British species at risk of extinction according to the State of Nature 2023 report. The region connecting Bernwood, Otmoor and the River Ray across Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire has immense potential for nature recovery, but the landscape is under intense pressure from inappropriate development, historic intensive agricultural practices and climate change.

The government, its water regulator and the Environment Agency could all be taken to court over their failure to tackle sewage dumping in England after a watchdog found failures to comply with the law.

An investigation by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) found Ofwat, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency (EA) all failed to stop water companies from discharging sewage into rivers and seas in England when it was not raining heavily. The OEP was set up in 2020 to replace the role the European Union had played in regulating and enforcing environmental law in the UK.

The law permits water companies to spill sewage only during exceptional circumstances such as extreme weather, but in reality human waste is routinely dumped in waterways even when it is not raining. Sewage is spilled into rivers and seas because in the UK there are combined sewage overflows (CSOs) into which water runoff from roads, sewage from homes and businesses, and “grey water” such as that from baths and washing machines all combine.

• 59% of Local Authorities (172 out of 294 surveyed) have failed to consider the actions they need to take for nature restoration and/or to deliver nature restoration policies and objectives - both of which are legal requirements under the Environment Act.
• Environment groups are calling on the Government to make crucial nature-friendly changes in an upcoming major overhaul of the planning system and give Local Authorities the resources needed to help meet key nature recovery targets by 2030.

New research, released today by Wildlife and Countryside Link, reveals that overstretched and under-resourced English Local Authorities have been struggling to meet legal deadlines to consider the nature recovery action they need to take and the policies to support this.

Coinciding with these findings, nature groups including RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth and the Woodland Trust are launching a new Wilder By Design campaign today. They are calling for the Government’s upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill to include a series of reforms to deliver a planning system that not only minimises harm to nature but actively supports the recovery of wildlife and wild places.

A policy to allow grass and plants in Weymouth's cemeteries to grow to support wildlife and biodiversity will continue - but only just.

Town councillors were split on the issue - and it came down to the vote from the chairman of a committee to give the move the green light.

It comes after the environment and services committee discussed the Living Cemeteries rewilding policy following the results of a public consultation.

No fines have been handed to water companies for illegal sewage overflows – despite the environment watchdog finding nearly 500 since 2020.

The Environment Agency has identified 465 illegal sewage spills since that year, data obtained via a Freedom of Information request shows. A further 154 are under investigation as potentially illegal spills.

But none has resulted in any enforcement action higher than a warning, despite government promises of a crackdown on water company pollution.

Original article

A conservationist has told how he felt "goosebumps" when he saw the first of a new colony of red kites arrive as part of a major reintroduction project 20 years ago.

The Northern Kites project released almost 100 of the birds of prey into the lower Derwent Valley in Gateshead, Tyneside, between 2004 and 2006.

The birds used to be a common sight in Britain but damage to their habitats meant they were all but extinct from the country by the 19th Century.

It is easy to get mired in a sense of hopelessness about the biodiversity crisis, but amid the doom and gloom, there are more than a few reasons to remain upbeat. For one thing, research this year underlined that conservation action works.

Thanks to the efforts of dedicated organisations, scientists, engaged private-sector partners and thousands of committed local people, there is an abundance of biodiversity success stories springing up in the UK. While beavers and eagles may hog the headlines, there is so much more out there, from striking butterflies to diminutive plants, reimagined rivers to revived mountain slopes.

Conservation is a complex business, but new methods are emerging to preserve, improve and generate new habitat and, in many cases, attract back or reintroduce species not seen for decades. After a nudge, ecosystems are often doing much of the heavy work themselves. Inspiring examples can be the root of a wholesale fightback. It’s time to fight inertia and look towards a brighter future for UK biodiversity, with a selection of site visits worth putting on your calendar for the coming year.

The Hedgerow Heroes project is now in its fourth year and we are as ambitious as ever, looking to plant more than 5km of new, native mixed species hedgerow into the Shropshire countryside.

Hedges, sensitively managed, are fantastic for farms and for nature too, being wildlife corridors linking up habitat across our beautiful county. Our planting sessions last from 10am to around 1pm and are usually in beautiful locations.

An experienced volunteer lead will show you the ropes. We provide spades. Suitable for families and people of all ages (children must be accompanied by an adult). Hedge planting is fun and very satisfying and gives you a chance to meet like-minded people doing something really practical and hands-on in our lovely county of Shropshire.

Thousands of trees are to be donated to charities, communities, and wildlife sites.

National Highways has teamed up with The Tree Council to support up to 40 community projects across the UK, aiming to benefit biodiversity.

The initiative is part of a broader goal to grow and plant three million trees throughout England by 2030.

The partnership will see the donation of up to 600,000 native trees annually, from a variety of species.