UK Nature and Environment

New research from Wildlife and Countryside Link, as part of its Wilder By Design nature-friendly planning reform campaign, has found that just 680 hectares of land offsite and 93 ha on-site has been reported by Local Authorities under the BNG scheme, since the policy's introduction[1]. This is just a fraction (less than 13%) of the 5,428 hectares of habitat Defra estimated was likely to be generated annually by BNG and is less than half the minimum amount of habitat expected to be delivered per year.

BNG was developed as part of the Environment Act and came into force on 12 February last year. The policy requires developers to create or enhance habitat to compensate for any harm to nature from new developments and deliver at least 10% “biodiversity net gain” (measured by the quality, extent, significance and type of habitats created). Developers are able to undertake nature recovery work on-site, or by purchasing credits for off-site habitat enhancements.

A council is proposing to remove the second-best place for nightingales in the UK from its local plan for 1,000 new homes, in a win for community campaigners and environmentalists.

Middlewick Ranges, a former Ministry of Defence firing range on the southern edge of Colchester, is set to be dropped from the city council’s allocated housing sites after councillors heeded a growing array of ecological evidence highlighting its national importance for nature.

According to experts, Middlewick meets or exceeds the criteria for a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) in six categories – for its endangered nightingales, rare barbastelle bats, range of invertebrates, rare acid grassland, waxcap fungi and veteran trees.

A FOUR-YEAR project has recorded more than 20,000 butterflies of 28 species in the heart of London.

The scheme also recorded more than 1,200 moths of 150 species in parks, allotments, graveyards and community gardens.

National charity Butterfly Conservation, which launched the Big City Butterflies initiative in 2021, says the results show that wildlife can thrive in towns and cities with the right management and the support of local communities.

Aiming to reverse a nationwide depletion of habitats, and seeking to achieve net zero by 2050, the UK government is using a range of policy initiatives and programmes to invest in our land and water-based environments. To make sure these actions are effective, it’s essential that decision-makers have accurate and up-to-date evidence.

The Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) is a Defra-led science and innovation programme, working across both land and water environments. It collects data on the extent, condition and change over time of England’s ecosystems and natural capital and quantifies the benefits to society they provide. Forest Research is at the heart of the programme, collecting data on trees, woodlands and forest habitats, building software solutions and delivering mapping products.

Evidence of the extent of the world’s plastic litter problem is washing up on Guernsey’s beaches with every tide.

But it does not go unnoticed. It is being removed and catalogued. A group of Guernsey beachcombers, united under the Facebook group Found on the Beach in Guernsey, “womble” across the island’s bays on a daily basis and share their evidence with the marine biologist Richard Lord.

He cleans, reinflates and collects plastic water bottles, along with other kinds of waste, in his garden shed at his St Peter Port home, less than half a mile from the sea.

It’s National Nest Box Week (NNBW) next week and Northumberland Wildlife Trust is encouraging everybody to install a nest box in their area and give the region’s precious birds a home.

National Nest Box Week, celebrated each year from 14 - 21 February, is an initiative designed to encourage people to help provide homes for birds by putting up nest boxes in gardens, on balconies, in parks, and in open spaces.

As the natural nest sites on which many of our birds depend, such as holes in trees and buildings, are fast disappearing and gardens and woods are ‘tidied’ and old houses are repaired, more and more birds are relying on humans for help.

In the green acres of a big country manor, a group of rangers and volunteers are searching for two rewilding beavers that have made their second "great escape".

It is believed Woody and Twiggy found their way out of the Mapperton Estate during bad weather that damaged their large enclosure.

The Eurasian pair were introduced to West Dorset from Scotland in 2022 under licence from Natural England, but have not been seen since January 2024.

The latest official statistic report of 66 Scottish terrestrial breeding bird species shows increases for 36 of them between 1994 and 2023, with 23 species indicator results showing decline and seven remaining stable. Woodland birds have seen the largest indicator increase of over 50%. Chiffchaff numbers have increased 1428% - most probably driven by increasing temperatures – as well as great spotted woodpeckers by 699% and blackcap by 593%.

Chaffinches are one of our commonest birds, and a regular species in gardens and woodland, but they have recently declined by 13% in part due to the suspected presence of the bird parasite Trichomonas gallinae, which is linked to unhygienic bird feeding areas. Climate change, evidenced by milder winters, is also contributing to these declines. A decline of 17% in Capercaillie has been linked to death from collisions with fences and potentially a negative effect of rising temperatures from climate change.

However, upland birds have shown the largest declines (-20%). Long-term changes in upland bird populations have been contributed to by several factors, including climate change, forest expansion, and changes in site-based management practices such as grazing and predator control. Curlew breeding numbers have declined over 60%, and changes to land management, climate and food availability are all having an impact. Targeted action is taking place in Scotland to help restore suitable breeding habitats and research is underway to help improve our understanding of the declines.

A badger appearing to admire a Banksy-style graffiti version of itself has won the Natural History Museum's 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award.

Captured on a quiet road in St Leonards-on-Sea, England by British photographer Ian Wood.

Ian had noticed badgers emerging from a nearby den to forage for food scraps left out for foxes.

"I spent the best part of two years photographing them, and this particular photo came about as an idea. I thought it'd be fun to put the graffiti there and see if I could get a badger walking underneath it," he told the BBC.

Ian sees a deeper message in his photo around the controversial subject of badger culling.

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The 25 nominated images for this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award received a record-breaking 76,000 votes from wildlife photography and nature fans worldwide.

In addition to the winning image, four other finalists were highly commended.

All five images will be displayed online and at London's Natural History Museum until 29 June.

Following the successful restoration of the River Leven, an ambitious new project is underway to breathe life back into one of Fife’s cherished waterways.

Partners Fife Council, SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency), and Fife Coast and Countryside Trust are joining forces to restore a 5.8-kilometre stretch of the Back Burn – also known locally as the Conland, Coul, and Balbirnie Burn – between Rhind Hill in the Lomond Hills and Newton, just north of Markinch.

The Restoring the Back Burn project, a vital part of the wider Leven Programme, aims to return this historically significant waterway to a more natural state.

Animal welfare campaigners are urging the Government to end the use of snares in England after polling suggests the public would support a ban.

Certain types of the hunting devices, which catch animals such as foxes and rabbits around the neck like a lasso, are legal in England but not Scotland or Wales.

Labour pledged to ban snares in England in its general election manifesto last year.

Hundreds of acres of wood pasture habitat are being created in a scheme to boost native songbirds and other wildlife alongside farming.

The National Trust is supporting some of its tenant farmers across Purbeck in Dorset to use funding from the Government’s nature-friendly farming programme to establish 380 hectares (940 acres) of wildlife-rich habitat.

The farmers are planting 60,000 trees and shrubs over the next six years to create wood pasture that provides important nesting, roosting and foraging sites for birds such as yellowhammer, linnet and goldfinches, as well as rare turtle doves and nightingales.

Nearly 40 rare species have been recorded in the New Forest during a project to restore areas for nature.

The species were identified during surveys undertaken by Wild New Forest last year as part of the Species Survival Fund, which is restoring and creating habitats to halt species decline.

The surveys were completed at 10 sites, mostly around the northern and southern fringes of the New Forest National Park.

‘In total, about 860 species were recorded during the surveys, including 370 animals, 265 plants, and 225 fungi,’ explained Prof Russell Wynn, Director of Wild New Forest.

Ripon City Wetlands is one of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s newest reserves, created at the side of Ripon Racecourse, where new islands have been created on both the canal and riverside lagoons.

As well as its famous starling murmurations, Ripon City Wetlands is renowned for sand martins, lapwings and little ringed plovers in the spring, and these new islands will create the perfect breeding grounds for these spring visitors.

At nearby Staveley, the existing islands in the West Lagoon had become overgrown with vegetation, making them unusable for many nesting waders.

Environmental organisations “are still very white, especially at the top”, the co-director of Greenpeace has said as research showed little to no improvement in the ethnic diversity of their workforces.

Areeba Hamid’s comments came as the third annual racial action on the climate emergency (Race) report into diversity among environmental charities found fewer than one in 20 of those working in the sector identified as people of colour or as other racial or ethnic minority groups.

The average among the UK workforce is 16%, or just more than one in eight.

The Tree Council and Network Rail are aiming to plant thousands of trees in hundreds of communities across the country as their award-winning partnership is renewed for an additional five-year period.

While the previous agreement resulted in the successful planting of more than 350,000 saplings in 180 communities, along with aftercare to secure the trees’ future, the new contract sees Network Rail pledging £1.2 million towards tree establishment and care across three Network Rail regions in England—Eastern, Northwest and Central, and Southern—along with the company’s national Route Services function. The renewed partnership supports Network Rail’s ambition to achieve biodiversity net gain across its land by 2035.

The Tree Council will support local authorities, community groups, and other conservation organisations to establish trees, hedgerows, and orchards, nationwide, from small “tree whips” to more mature specimens. These efforts will help tackle climate change and empower communities to improve their surroundings and benefit from improved green spaces, increased tree canopy cover, better air quality, richer wildlife, and biodiversity. The programme also aims to deliver positive social value, teaching new skills and inspiring young people to explore green careers.

Cat lovers have been left hissing at a proposal to restrict areas where their beloved pets are allowed to roam and hunt wildlife.

With some 27 million birds slain each year, a new report is advising the Scottish Government to take drastic measures that include keeping cats locked inside - and even banning ownership altogether.

The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) also suggested setting up ‘cat containment areas’ - designated parts of the country where compulsory restrictions could be put in place to prevent pet cats from roaming and hunting.

Ongoing work to restore and protect globally important habitats is being celebrated as part of World Wetlands Day this Sunday.

Through a combination of best practice and its own innovative techniques, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) is balancing commercial forestry with protecting and enhancing wetland habitat including landscape-scale peatland restoration, valuable river restoration and the creation of new ponds in suitable parts of its estate.

In the past year, FLS hit the milestone of setting 10,000 hectares of peatland on the road to recovery through ‘re-wetting’ sites across Scotland. This included playing a key role in the restoration work in The Flow Country, which recently became the world’s first peatland World Heritage Site.

Colin Edwards, Head of Environment with FLS said: “World Wetlands Day is a great way to help maintain everyone’s focus on the importance of restoring these habitats.

The dates and fundraising project for this year's Global Birdfair have been announced.

The event organisers have confirmed that Lyndon Top, on the shores of Rutland Water, will once again be the venue, with the 2025 event taking place from Friday 11-Sunday 13 July.

Furthermore, Global Birdfair revealed that this year's conservation project will be Safeguarding Ocean Species (SOS), a scheme that creates awareness in the South Pacific region about the damage that bycatch from the longline fishing industry causes to seabirds including Antipodean Albatross, the flagship bird of the programme.

At the head of beautiful Loch Long in Argyll sits one of Scotland's biggest plastic problems.

A combination of prevailing winds and the rotation of the earth drive litter up the loch to create what is known as the Arrochar litter sink.

About 62,000 items wash up on the beach each year, much of it from the waterways in and around Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city.

It is estimated that 11% of the rubbish which enters the River Clyde - which flows through the city - and its tributaries is eventually washed up at Arrochar.

A project to restore a large area of community woodland in east Kent which was badly damaged by fire is "showing signs of positive results", its organisers have said.

Dane Valley Woods in Margate, established on a former landfill site, is a wild space run by volunteers "for the benefit of both people and wildlife".

It was devastated by fire in August 2022 and the community has been working since to restore it to its former glory.

A three-year project to protect birds of prey in Sheffield has been launched.

The Owlthorpe Fields Conservation Group will focus on monitoring and supporting populations of diurnal raptors, such as Common Buzzard and Common Kestrel, and owls in the city's S20 area.

The project is supported by a £101,990 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and an additional £1,000 from Sheffield City Council. It will end with a detailed report for the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the city council’s ecology unit.

It covers more than 50 square kilometres of blanket bog, heath, meadows and woodland and rises from a valley floor to the 640m summit of Cold Fell in the north Pennines. This is RSPB Geltsdale, and it will now be the organisation’s largest English bird sanctuary when the society announces this week that it has bought land that expands the existing reserve by a third.

“This is going to be a reserve on a different scale from many of our other sites in England,” said Beccy Speight, the RSPB’s chief executive.

“We are going to achieve an abundance of species and a size that will be unmatched for bird reserves elsewhere. It is going to demonstrate what is possible when it comes to rewilding and protecting birds.”

An exciting £1.7m project to restore precious wetlands across the South Downs region and raise awareness about water is now under way.

Work on the “Downs to the Sea” initiative begins in time for World Wetlands Day (2 February), with a bumper action plan to restore and create a network of “blue spaces” in the landscape.

It comes after National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded a grant of £1.7m late last year.

It has been native to Britain for thousands of years and was heralded as the national fish on the BBC’s Springwatch, but a government report suggests the brown trout risks being wiped out in large parts of England within decades.

The first national temperature projections for English rivers by the Environment Agency forecasts that by 2080 the water will be too warm almost everywhere in England at the height of summer for the Salmo trutta species to feed and grow.

It is further suggested by the chief scientist’s group’s report that the important temperature threshold of 12C for the survival of brown trout eggs during the winter spawning season from November to February will be exceeded by 2080 at more than 70% of the sites where temperatures were modelled.