UK Nature and Environment

Campaigners against the pollution in the River Severn have staged a peaceful protest in a town in Worcestershire.

About 100 people went to the banks of the river in Bewdley on Sunday, including rock legend Robert Plant, who is supporting local efforts to protect it.

People marched through the town and sailed coffins on the water to raise awareness of what they said was a dying eco-system because of sewage overflow and fertiliser run off.

One of the world's rarest plants - with just four known examples left in the wild - has flowered at a nursery set up to try to prevent the decline of Wales' Arctic alpine species.

Snowdonia hawkweed - nicknamed "the Welsh dodo" - was thought to be extinct until a plant was found in 2002 in Eryri National Park.

Ecologist Robbie Blackhall-Miles scaled a cliff face somewhere in the Ogwen Valley above Bethesda in 2023 to document the remaining plants and take a cutting to replant.

A Kent nature reserve is playing a crucial role in efforts to restore southern England's Eurasian Curlew population, which faces the threat of local extinction within two decades.

Elmley NNR, located on the Isle of Sheppey, is currently raising 39 curlew chicks hatched from eggs collected in northern England. The birds will be released into the wild later this summer as part of the South of England Curlew Project, led by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT).

The first headstarted birds were released at the site in 2023.

Eurasian Curlew numbers in southern England have declined sharply in recent decades, with as few as 200 breeding pairs remaining to the south of Birmingham. The collapse has been linked to habitat loss and high levels of predation.

A species of musical insect extinct in the UK has been reintroduced to the country from France, conservationists have said.

The Species Recovery Trust released 11 New Forest cicadas this week into a habitat at Paultons Park, near the Hampshire woods where they previously lived.

The New Forest cicada, or Cicadetta montana, used to be found across the New Forest, but the last confirmed sightings were in the 1990s.

There’s a tiger burning brightly in front of me – not in the forests of the night, but on a Derbyshire moor, among the heather and bilberry, and in warm sunshine. It isn’t orange and black, but an iridescent green, and I need to hunker down to reach its level.

The green tiger beetle is widespread in Britain, and at least to the ants and caterpillars that it predates, it is every bit as threatening as the big cat immortalised by William Blake. Magnified, its fearful symmetry becomes more apparent, its mouth parts ferocious, the dandyish purple of its elegant legs more richly obvious.

One other thing I appreciate about the green tiger beetle is how easily it’s identified. There are thousands of beetle species in Britain, and they’re not always this easy to tease apart. It makes the green tiger especially exciting to kids, a secure toehold in the shifting complexity of nature. And it’s that question, of inspiring the next generation to explore the marvels around them, that’s on my mind.

A wetland habitat which was "almost exclusively a birder reserve" until the Covid-19 pandemic is marking its 30th anniversary.

Kingfishers Bridge, a 300-acre (121-hectare) reserve between Wicken and Stretham, Cambridgeshire, went from having 2,000 visitors a year to 21,000 in 2023.

The dog-friendly reserve now has a car park, cafe, visitor centre and shop, as well as offering regular visitor tours of its rare habitats.

Badger TB vaccinations increased to a record high by 24% across the country last year, as part of a major drive to increase badger vaccination and end the badger cull. It’s part of significant progress made in a range of areas to deliver on its manifesto pledge to end badger culling by the end of the Parliament.

A total of 4,110 badgers were vaccinated against the devastating animal disease in England last year, an increase of over 1,000 from 2023.

The government is also accelerating the rollout of the badger vaccination further with the launch of a new Badger Vaccinator Field Force coming into force next year which will increase badger vaccination at pace to drive down TB rates and protect badgers. 

The new study, launched at the International Seascape Symposium II at ZSL (Zoological Society of London), and published to align with UN Ocean Decade Conference represents two years of work by an international team led by the University of Portsmouth, with support from ZSL and University of Edinburgh.

It delivers the most comprehensive report to date of how coastal habitats in temperate regions function not in isolation, but as interconnected systems - a concept known as ecological connectivity.

“Coastal habitats like oyster reefs, saltmarshes, kelp forests and seagrass meadows are often treated as separate entities in policy and restoration, but in reality, they are tightly bound together by the flows of water, life, and energy,” said lead author Professor Joanne Preston, Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Portsmouth. “To meet our global climate and biodiversity targets, we need to restore the entire seascape.”

Restoring nature and tackling global warming are key to keeping Dartmoor “special”, the Prince of Wales has said.

The Duchy of Cornwall and Central Dartmoor Landscape Recovery Project (CDLR) launched a new project to “create a resilient environment” and meet the changing needs of Dartmoor’s communities.

In a foreword to the Landscape Vision project, the Prince of Wales said: “Dartmoor is a magnificent and complex ecosystem – the balance between nature and people has evolved for thousands of years to shape the landscape we recognise today.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed champions private investment in nature recovery as the government launches a new call for evidence (12 June).

Speaking to leading figures from financial institutions, property, retail and sustainability sectors at a roundtable event in London, the Environment Secretary emphasised the importance of fostering partnerships between the public and private sectors to support economic growth while powering nature recovery.

Businesses across the UK, whether in food and agriculture, construction, finance, or retail, rely on a healthy natural environment to operate, grow and innovate.

This week, wildlife lovers were overjoyed to see two fluffy peregrine chicks hatch at St Albans Cathedral, marking a terrific comeback for the birds following the shocking destruction of their nest caught on camera just a few months prior.

One of only five breeding pairs in Hertfordshire, the webcam follows the lives of the peregrine pair each spring, attracting over half a million views last year alone. All eyes are now on the third egg nestled atop the cathedral in the hope it will complete the trio of these impressive birds of prey.

The Wildlife Trusts offer over 25 live, and much-loved, webcams seasonally. Right now is peak viewing season as the cameras allow an unrivalled view of courtship, nesting and hatching as well as a peep into the first few weeks of a chick's life. Webcams also follow the lives of mammals such as bats, badgers and red squirrels, as well as dolphins and scenic coastal views.

Regarding George Monbiot’s article (There’s an invader turning huge swathes of Britain into deserts – and these dead zones are spreading, 9 June), yes, molinia (purple moor-grass) is a serious scourge of many of the UK’s acidic upland landscapes. In 1999, while still residing in my home county of East Sussex, I began a conservation grazing initiative using Exmoor ponies to combat the growing threat to the South Downs’ chalk grasslands from a very similar grass, Brachypodium (tor grass), which back then I estimated was affecting well in excess of 200 hectares. This grass is of little use to farmers and also seriously depletes biodiversity.

A legal campaign group is planning a judicial review against the UK government’s new planning bill, arguing it will result in a weakening of environmental protections which were fought for and created over decades.

Wild Justice is calling on the housing minister, Angela Rayner, to correct a parliamentary statement in which she told MPs the bill, which applies mainly to England and Wales, would not reduce the level of protection. Her words were echoed in a letter to the Guardian from the nature minister, Mary Creagh, who stated it did not repeal habitat or species protections or give a licence to do harm.

The group sent Rayner a pre-action protocol letter on Monday calling on her to “correct the parliamentary record” to make clear that her statement about environmental protection in the bill was not correct. If this does not take place, they will apply for a judicial review.

You’ll likely have heard of No Mow May – conservation charity Plantlife’s campaign to get people to put their mower away throughout the month of May and let their lawns grow long to benefit wildlife. However, did you know that butterflies and moths need long grass throughout the spring and summer? This year, we are asking people to take No Mow May to the next level and join more than 3,000 people who have already pledged to grow their grass long from April to September.

Butterfly Conservation research shows that long grass can boost butterfly numbers by up to 93%. Long grass is important for butterflies and moths throughout their lifecycle, with adult butterflies and moths nectaring on wildflowers which pop up in long lawns and several species laying their eggs on grasses. Many caterpillars also rely on long grass throughout the spring and summer months for food. Because of this, it’s important to leave parts of your grass to grow long all the way from April to September. In fact, it’s even better if, when you do mow the lawn, you don't cut all your grass at once. Leaving 20% uncut all year long will also provide refuges for overwintering eggs and caterpillars, supporting the next generation of butterflies and moths.

With gardens making up more than 728,000 hectares in Great Britain – that’s the equivalent of over a million football pitches – the small step of leaving a patch of grass to grow long in each of these gardens could make a huge difference for butterflies and moths. Some grass-loving species to look out for in your new butterfly- and moth-friendly lawn:

The European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio, is a fish that has been around since the time of the dinosaurs and looks it. Specimens are armour plated and big, up to six metres in length. Once abundant in British waters, sturgeon became extinct as a breeding species in the 1950s but there is now a concerted effort to reintroduce it by “rewilding” rivers.

Hopes are high because sturgeon are increasingly being accidentally caught in nets around British coasts as bycatch by fishers. This shows that and French and German attempts to breed the fish in captivity and release them into rivers is working.