UK Nature and Environment

Two beavers who were moved from Scotland to Norfolk four years ago have improved the water quality where they are living, experts have said.

Eeyore and Winnie have made an area of the River Glaven, near Holt, their home after the landowner gave permission for them to live there.

Norfolk Rivers Trust said they could "possibly" now be released from their enclosure under licence after the government recently approved the reintroduction of the animals into the wild.

A Kent landscape of ancient woodlands, wildflower meadows and chalk grasslands that inspired novelist Charles Dickens has been made a national nature reserve.

Natural England, which advises the government on the environment, has announced the creation of the North Kent Woods and Downs national nature reserve.

As a result, the 800-acre site in Gravesend has been marked out as an area of focus for conservation and nature restoration efforts.

Rivers carry more than just water through Britain’s landscapes. A hidden cocktail of chemicals seeps out of farmland, passes undetected through sewage treatment works, and drains off the roads into the country’s rivers. Normally these chemicals flow through unreported, silently restructuring ecosystems as they go, but now, UK scientists are building a map of what lies within – and the damage it may be causing.

Trailing down the centre of Britain is one river whose chemical makeup scientists know better than any other. The Foss threads its way through North Yorkshire’s forestry plantations, patchworked arable land and small hamlets, before descending into the city of York, passing roads and car parks, gardens replacing farmland. Along the course of its 20-mile (32km) length, the chemical fingerprints of modern life accumulate.

Company directors who cause severe or reckless damage to nature could face jail terms or hefty fines under a bill that aims to criminalise environmental destruction in Scotland.

The proposed law, which would be the first of its kind in the UK, is designed to put a class of environment offences known as ecocide on a similar legal footing to other grave crimes such as murder.

Monica Lennon, the Scottish Labour MSP who has tabled the ecocide (Scotland) bill in the Scottish parliament, said it would introduce strict new legal duties on company executives and government agencies, with potential sanctions such as heavy fines or prison sentences.

The UK Government has announced a consultation proposing reduced Biodiversity Net Gain requirements for small and medium building developments in England. As the latter make up over 70% of all housing developments, the impacts on the natural world will be severe.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, says:

“It's deeply disappointing to see that the Labour Government is now thinking of scrapping the requirement for Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) for small sites after many companies have already invested £millions to enable it to happen, and just six months after this same Government published a paper in which they reinforced their "commitment to BNG".

“Nothing undermines private sector investment more than governments that chop and change their policy positions on the basis of whichever narrow vested-interest met them last. Worse still, this sort of backsliding rewards those laggard developers that have been dragging their feet about implementation of Biodiversity Net Gain and penalises those leading developers that embraced it early on and are showing how well it can be done. This is policy making on the hoof, and it's a shoddy way to go about it.”

The nature-friendly farming budget is set to be slashed in the UK spending review, with only small farms allowed to apply, it can be revealed.

Sources at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed the post-Brexit farming fund will be severely cut in the review on 11 June. It will be part of a swathe of cuts to departments, with police, social housing and nature funding expected to face the brunt.

Labour promised a fund of £5bn over two years, from 2024 to 2026, at the budget, which is being honoured, but in the years following that it will be slashed for all but a few farms.

The new initiative – a partnership between the RSPB and ‘Shorewatch’ founders, Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), will see 28 trained volunteers carry out structured ‘watches’ for Minke Whales, dolphins, Grey and Harbour Seals as well as Harbour Porpoises as part of a national effort to monitor and protect these marine mammals.

Whale and Dolphin Conservation is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection of whales and dolphins.

While seabirds have long been the stars of Bempton Cliffs – with over half a million nesting here each year – ‘Shorewatch’ focuses on what lies beyond the cliffs. Cetacean sightings in the North Sea and the data gathered will help conservationists understand more about the species that live in and pass through these waters.

Scientists are asking visitors to the Lake District to keep an eye out for England’s only mountain butterfly.

The mountain ringlet, a small brown butterfly distinguished by orange spots on its wings, lives exclusively on mountains and is more commonly found in Scotland than in England.

Conservationists say the butterfly is so hard to find in England that it is not known whether its numbers are increasing or decreasing.

New research to understand the existing provision of public access to woodlands in England, as well as opportunities for increasing access, has been published by Forest Research. Funded through Defra’s Nature for Climate Fund, the study updates 10-year-old data on public access to trees and woodlands and provides maps showing the distribution of accessible woodlands.

Access to woodlands can provide a wide range of health and wellbeing benefits. A recent study found that the annual mental health benefits associated with visits to woodlands in Britain was estimated at £185 million. With inflation, this has been updated to £213 million of which £162 million is the value for England. Physical health benefits of visits to woodlands have also been identified, along with a wide range of other benefits highly valued by the public.

Darren Moseley, Head of Land Use and Ecosystem Services at Forest Research said, “The research was conducted to help understand the existing quantity of public access to woodlands in England, the proportion of people who have access to woodland in walking distance and how this varies geographically.

More than 24 acres of grassland – the equivalent of more than 13 football pitches – have been planted with wildflowers to help boost insect numbers in the New Forest.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust has been working with six private landowners in the west of the Forest as part of a Species Survival Fund (SSF) project to increase the number of species as well as their habitats.

The Trust is creating stepping stones of habitat across the landscape, helping species expand from the inner core of the Forest to its outer edges.

A young ornithologist has warned a mosquito-born disease linked to a sharp decline in blackbird populations "is a taste of things to come".

Mya-Rose Craig, from the Chew Valley in Somerset, says the spread of the Usutu virus is more proof British wildlife is struggling "in a way people don't realise".

Ms Craig, 23, known as BirdGirlUK on social media, has been campaigning for the environment since the age of 13 and launched the Black2Nature initiative to encourage children from minority backgrounds to engage in conservation.

A record number of puffins have been recorded on a small island off the Pembrokeshire coast, despite global populations declining rapidly.

According to the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales (WTSWW), 43,626 puffins were counted on Skomer Island this year - a record high.

The WTSWW said the increased number of puffins on the nature reserve was a "conservation success story", but warned that the birds were still a species under threat which should continue to be protected.

Volunteers are being urged to take part in efforts to restore Yorkshire's largest freshwater lake.

Hornsea Mere is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, but environmentalists say pollution and invasive species have taken a toll on the beauty spot, which is one of the region's most important wildlife habitats.

Now, the Groundwork Yorkshire charity has been awarded money from the government's Water Restoration Fund to create a plan to deal with the problems.

A family of killer whales has been seen hunting seals near the Farne Islands.

The pod of orcas were spotted on Sunday by passengers onboard a tourist boat travelling around the islands off the Northumberland coast.

William Shiel, who runs the boat company, said he saw the orcas flip a seal out of the water and believes they were teaching their calves how to hunt.

A spate of recent sightings of Wild Boar at Dartmoor, including a suspected encounter with a dog, has prompted scrutiny over how and why the animals might be there.

The Mammal Society has responded to the reports with cautious concern, suggesting that these sightings could point to a fresh, illegal release of the species, rather than a slow population spread from historic reintroductions.

Approximately 150 boar were previously released by animal rights activists in North Devon in 2005 and 2006. Though authorities attempted to contain the population at the time, boar have been occasionally sighted in the region ever since.

The number of four species of butterfly in Devon were at their lowest for at least a decade in 2024, new figures show.

Butterfly Conservation said the number of silver-washed fritillary, dark green fritillary, wood white and small heath were lower than at any time in the past 10 years.

The numbers come from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) and Butterflies for the New Millennium (BNM).

Once the largest man-made wetland in any capital city of the world and described by Sir David Attenborough as an "extra lung for Londoners", the London Wetland Centre is now celebrating 25 years.

With its shallow pools home to birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and insects, the area remains a radical, transformative, oasis in the suburbs of Barnes in south-west London.

But it could have been very different.

Hidden cameras and peanut butter are helping conservationists track pine martens that have recently been introduced to a woodland.

Thirteen of the rare animals were brought from Scotland last autumn and released near Grizedale Forest in Cumbria, but they are already on the move across the county.

Despite once being common in the area, hunting drove pine martens to the brink of extinction.

The Howgill Fells are a smooth, treeless cluster of hills in the Yorkshire Dales national park, so bald and lumpy that they are sometimes described as a herd of sleeping elephants. Their bare appearance – stark even by UK standards – has been shaped by centuries of sheep grazing. Yet beneath the soil lie ancient tree roots: the silent traces of long-lost “ghost woodlands”.

Now, these woodlands are being encouraged to grow again. Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted across these hills in sheep-free enclosures. The results are beginning to be seen: birds and flowers are returning.

Birdsong ripples through the valley as first light spills over a ridge line and on to 26 hectares (64 acres) of fenced-off land near Tebay village. Meadow pipits, reed buntings and stonechats are among the choristers. A flush of cotton grass bobs in the morning breeze and a stonechat fledgling clings to a spindly branch, shrieking for a parent.

The UK is host to internationally important numbers of wintering waterbirds, and the long-standing WeBS and Goose and Swan Monitoring Programme (GSMP) provide essential data that inform decision makers when considering conservation measures for these birds.

With data provided by over 3,800 dedicated volunteers across the UK, the surveys deliver an annual assessment of ducks, geese, swans, waders, and other waterbirds residing on, or passing through, our coasts, estuaries, lakes, reservoirs, and rivers.

The 2023/24 WeBS report reveals yet more changes in the fortunes of many of our wildfowl and waders.

A road safety campaign has been launched to warn drivers to look out for roe deer on the roads.

Collisions between deer and vehicles typically increase at this time of year as young roe deer spread out to look for their own territories, with dusk the period of highest risk.

NatureScot’s spring road safety campaign gets underway today (Friday, May 23) with Transport Scotland and Traffic Scotland.

Cardiff City Council has announced they will not be mowing grassland in 144 sites across the city all summer, as an extension of their "No Mow May" campaign. The continuation of this initiative aims to help wildlife thrive, after it was discovered that approximately 97% of flower-rich meadows have been lost since the 1930s, and with them, vital food and habitat needed by wildlife.

Cardiff Council joined the campaign for the month of May this year, and has now announced it will be extending this practice until the end of the summer.

A spokesperson for Cardiff Council said: "To help support nature there will be no mow until September again this year at 144 different sites across the whole city, covering an area of grass the size of 272 football pitches."

A major new 100-page report provides the most detailed analysis yet of what a lynx reintroduction project in Scotland would need to do to ensure lynx and people could coexist.

It outlines conclusions and recommendations agreed by a nine-month national discussion involving a diverse, cross-sector range of 53 stakeholders including farmer and landowner organisations, gamekeepers, foresters, tourism operators and conservationists.

The National Lynx Discussion, held between May and November last year and organised by the Lynx to Scotland partnership, was independently facilitated by an expert from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Conservation Planning Specialist Group.

The nest of the only breeding pair of ospreys on England's south coast has a second new arrival.

The chick emerged from its egg shortly before 19:00 BST on Thursday. The first hatched earlier the same day shortly before 06:00.

The ospreys, female CJ7 and male 022, laid a clutch of four eggs in their nest near Poole Harbour in Dorset for the second year in a row in April.

Providing every new home with at least one “swift brick” to help endangered cavity-nesting birds has been rejected by Labour at the committee stage of its increasingly controversial planning bill.

The amendment to the bill to ask every developer to provide a £35 hollow brick for swifts, house martins, sparrows and starlings, which was tabled by Labour MP Barry Gardiner, has been rejected by the Labour-dominated committee.

Despite the Labour party having supported the swift brick amendment when it was tabled on Conservative government legislation in 2023, housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, told the House of Commons committee: “We are not convinced that legislating to mandate the use of specific wildlife features is the right approach, whether that is done through building regulations or a freestanding legal requirement.”