UK Nature and Environment

Montane scrub provides protection from flooding, avalanches, rockfalls and landslides and supports a range of rare insects and scarce birds.

Overgrazing by deer and sheep on Scotland’s peaks since the 18th century contributed to a rapid decline in high-altitude woodland. By the 1990s, native montane willows were nearly extinct, with the largest remaining patch equivalent to the size of a tennis court.

Since then, almost 400,000 montane willows have been planted within 2,659 hectares managed for the restoration of mountain woodlands across Scotland, bringing the trees back from the brink of extinction.

A conservation charity has called for cuts to nature and forestry services to be reversed when the Scottish Government gets an extra £3.4bn in funding following the Westminster Budget.

The Scottish Government will receive a £47.7bn provision in the next financial year, with Woodland Trust Scotland (WTS) saying a portion should be dedicated to restoring funding cut from the forestry sector.

In December 2023, the Scottish Government announced a £32m – or 41% – reduction in the money available to the Forestry Grant Scheme which is responsible for forestry activity across the commercial timber and nature conservation.

Sea eagles were last seen soaring over the shimmering mud flats and brackish tidal waters of the Severn estuary more than 150 years ago. Now wildlife charities have unveiled innovative plans to bring the raptor back to the estuary, which flows into the Bristol Channel between south-west England and south Wales, by 2026.

“Sea eagles used to be common in these regions. But they were wiped out through human persecution,” says Sophie-lee Williams, the founder of Eagle Reintroduction Wales, which is leading the project. “We strongly believe we have a moral duty to restore this lost native species to these landscapes.”

Britain’s sea eagles, which have a wing span of up to 2.4 metres, were shot and poisoned by landowners until the early 20th century, with the last known native eagle shot in Shetland in 1918. However, birds from Norway were brought to Scotland in the 1970s and 1980s and there are now estimated to be 152 pairs across the country. Some of the Scottish birds were released on the Isle of Wight in 2019, with three eaglets successfully reared by their parents so far.

Proposals to build a tidal barrage across the Mersey Estuary have sparked concerns for the myriad wildlife in the area.

The Mersey Barrage is a proposed tidal barrage across its namesake estuary, which is situated between Liverpool and the Wirral Peninsula. The River Mersey is considered to be a suitable source of marine renewable energy in the UK because of its strong current and tidal range of up to 10 m.

The idea of a barrage in the Mersey was first floated as long ago as 1984. This year, in March, the Mersey Tidal Power Project was launched by Liverpool City Region – and the plan was put to public consultation in September.

The Environment Agency has announced there will be 30 extra officers in the East of England who will focus on investigating pollution incidents by the water industry.

A Southend Water Summit held in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, was told the increase in officers would mean ten times the number of inspections.

Anglian Water has been prosecuted and fined last year for discharging sewage into waterways and sea. The summit heard the company had been prosecuted five times since 2022.

Anglian Water said it was investing £104m into improving the sewage system and reducing storm discharges in Southend.

In a year when a “butterfly emergency” has been declared, one species in Northern Ireland is bucking the trend.

The marsh fritillary made its presence felt in autumn, when the caterpillars spin striking webs in long grass.

A total of 679 webs were counted across 20 sites in 2024 – an increase of 423 compared to 2023.

But the species is still vulnerable, with the number of sites where it is found across the UK almost halving between 1985 and 2019.

As part of National Highways’ A30 Chiverton to Carland Cross upgrade, and among a number of environmental mitigation measures, the bespoke bat house was constructed close to the new dual carriageway early in 2022.

Following extensive survey work and planning with Cornwall Environmental Consultants Ltd, Costain constructed the insulated house incorporating specially designed crevices and open flying spaces to accommodate the needs of varying bat species.

Two years on and the teams have now discovered Lesser horseshoe bats roosting in their new home – constructed of locally sourced Cornish stone and slate – along with recorded activity of brown long-eared and common pipistrelle and myotis bat species.

A project set up to boost Scotland's rare population of medicinal leeches has got its first babies.

Twenty have hatched in a captive-breeding programme at the Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig, near Aviemore.

They are the offspring of leeches collected in Dumfries and Galloway, one of the few places in Scotland where the creatures are known to survive in the wild.

The leeches were once widespread but declined in numbers in the 18th and 19th centuries due to their use in medicine and loss of wetland habitats.

Thousands of people will march on London on Sunday at a family-friendly rally to highlight the importance of clean water in their lives. The BBC speaks to residents near one rural waterway, which scientists found had the second highest levels of active pharmaceutical pollution in the UK.

"You'd think as a country we would be able to look after our most pristine landscapes", says cold water swimmer Jo Broughton.

Jo Broughton has not dipped even a toe in Tideswell Brook, in the heart of the Peak District National Park, since August.

One of the reasons lies in the findings of a study that discovered the brook had the second highest levels of active pharmaceutical pollution in the UK - drugs such as antidepressants and antibiotics were detected in the water.

A commuter car park in Essex is to be one of the first test cases of whether the government will enforce new legislation aimed at protecting national parks and landscapes in England.

Dedham Vale is a designated “national landscape” on the border of Essex and Suffolk, home to increasingly rare species including hazel dormice and hedgehogs. Within it is Manningtree station, where the train operator Greater Anglia built an extension to the car park to cope with increased traffic.

Campaigners say the 200-metre long wall and a bike shed built as part of the extension inhibits public access to St Edmund Way, an ancient pilgrimage path, generates light pollution and threatens habitats. They are now locked in dispute with the planning inspectorate over whether the development should be allowed to stay and have applied for a judicial review, which is likely to be heard early next year.

A delicate heathland plant could return to one of the UK's ancient woodlands as part of a new conservation project.

Erica cinerea, otherwise known as bell heather, is believed to have disappeared from Epping Forest in the 1960s.

It has struggled to survive in Essex and its only known location in the county is Tiptree Heath near Colchester.

Conservationists from the Essex Wildlife Trust will transport root cuttings, from Tiptree, to Epping Forest.

The results for this year's Great British Beach Clean are in! Find out how much litter our brilliant volunteers collected over the 10-day event.

Thanks to the hard work of volunteers all across the UK and Channel Islands, this year's Great British Beach Clean was a smashing success!

We were delighted to see even more of you join us at the beach this year, with 5,845 volunteers taking part in 476 events to help clean up and survey our coastline.

A whopping 249,823 litter items were collected, weighing 6,048kg and filling 1,675 bags! By removing this litter, our volunteers helped prevent it from entering our ocean and harming our marine life.

Rare spiders are among 55 different species of athropods that have been found living at a nature reserve.

The British Arachnological Society, external, a charity dedicated exclusively to spiders and their relatives, conducted research at Orford Ness near Orford in Suffolk.

Of the 55 spider species, the National Trust site was found to be the home to 12 that are nationally rare or scarce.

Conservationists are calling on business and industry to help fund an ambitious project to restore the landscape of the Darent Valley in Kent.

They hope it will help protect current wildlife species, as well bring back others that have been virtually lost, such as wild brown trout.

Marc Crouch from Kent Wildlife Trust said: “A key aim of the project is habitat and river restoration - re-wetting and creation of wetland habitat, flood mitigation and addressing barriers to fish passage.”

Wildlife on Orkney has begun a remarkable recovery - after the systematic wipeout of more than 6000 predatory stoats.

The native Orkney Vole and red-listed birds like Hen Harriers and Lapwings have all recorded encouraging numbers boosts since a major conservation project was launched five years ago. Central to the mission was the eradication of invasive species the stoat, first recorded on the island in 2010.

More than 6500 stoats have been eradicated from Orkney using humane lethal traps, the biggest project of its kind in the world. Conservation scientists monitoring wildlife on Orkney report there are now significant increases in successful nesting attempts of ground-nesting birds such as the Hen Harrier and rare waders.

A tree in the Scottish Highlands thought to be at least 1,000 years old and known as the Skipinnish Oak has been named UK Tree of the Year.

Native woodland experts had no idea the tree existed until a gathering in 2009.

The band Skipinnish, which had played at the event, knew of the tree and led the conservationists to where it was hidden in a non-native Sitka spruce plantation on Achnacarry Estate.

It has won a public vote against 11 other contenders in the Woodland Trust competition.

The Wildlife Trusts have bought part of the Duke of Northumberland’s son’s estate in the largest land sale in England for 30 years.

Marketed by its estate agents as “a paradise for those with a penchant for sporting pursuits, from world-class fishing on the illustrious River Coquet to pheasant and grouse shooting”, Rothbury estate has now been bought by the federation of charities, which plans to restore it for nature.

The Wildlife Trusts are buying the land in an unusual two-phase deal: having already bought a “significant” chunk of the 3,850-hectare (9,500-acre) estate, they have been given two years to find the rest of the money, for which they are launching a fundraising appeal. The estate was previously used for intensive sheep farming and shooting.

With the details of the Labour Government’s long anticipated Budget now unveiled, The Wildlife Trusts’ Senior Land Use Policy Manager Barnaby Coupe looks at the implications for Defra’s flagship environment schemes and support for nature-friendly farming.

Rachel Reeves’ announcement today confirmed that Defra’s annual budget for nature-friendly farming would be maintained at £2.4 billion. Considering the rumours of significant spending cuts in the build-up to the budget, you would be forgiven for thinking that Defra has dodged a bullet by securing the same amount of money going forward. Whilst this outcome is better than many expected and retains a significant budget for nature-friendly farming, the picture is far from rosy.

Notwithstanding that the farming budget hasn’t increased since 2007, meaning a real terms funding cut after inflation, the fact remains there is not enough money in the pot for Defra to do everything it needs to do. Independent analysis on behalf of The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and National Trust conducted earlier this year found that £3.1 billion needs to be spent on nature-friendly farming and land management annually in England to meet the UK Government’s own legally binding targets. Calls for a budget increase were echoed by farming groups.

The Autumnwatch team may have observed "the highest population of badgers anywhere ever recorded", presenter Chris Packham has said.

The animals were tracked in the dark during last night's episode broadcast from Wytham Great Wood near Oxford.

The team relied on thermal cameras that see the creatures' body heat.

Mr Packham said there were about 250 adult animals in about 20 social groups, with 1,000 holes to emerge on the wood's grounds.

It may have been a fairly awful summer for butterflies but Scotland continues to enjoy some pleasant lepidopteran surprises, thanks to global heating.

Its list of resident species increased by one this year when the gatekeeper, never officially recorded north of the border in the past century, was spotted in several locations. Meanwhile, the elusive white-letter hairstreak, which was only recorded for the first time close to the River Tweed in 2017, has now been found in Dundee, more than 60 miles farther north.

The gatekeeper – so-called because of its habitat of rough grassland beside hedges and gates – is one of England’s commonest butterflies. This year it was found at the Crook of Baldoon RSPB reserve near Wigtown in Dumfries and Galloway, before George Thomson, the author of The Butterflies of Scotland, obtained the first photographic proof – a female in his garden.

Just 7% of England is currently protected for nature, the Government has said, as it set out rules to help meet a global goal to protect 30% of land by 2030.

Officials said protected landscapes such as national parks, will deliver the “backbone” of areas conserved for nature, though they currently do not count towards the total, and the target could also include areas of nature-friendly farming.

The UK has signed up to global commitments to protect 30% of its land and seas for nature by 2030, known as 30×30, as part of efforts to halt catastrophic declines in wildlife.

Planners have backed proposals to plant about 30,000 trees as part of the creation of a nature reserve on the Isle of Man.

Situated at Creg y Cowin Farm, in East Baldwin, the plans submitted by nature charity Manx Wildlife Trust are part of a wider £38m rainforest restoration scheme across the British Isles.

Some 25 different species of trees native to the island would be planted across the 105-acre site, formerly used for sheep grazing, for carbon sequestration.

Tonnes of carbon dioxide could be absorbed from the atmosphere after almost 300,000 trees were planted, an environmental group has said.

Over the last 12 months, an army of volunteers for the North East Community Forest also planted hedgerows in parts of Northumberland, Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and rural County Durham.

The group said it estimated the trees would capture about 51,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 30 years.

More than 2,000 people took part in the scheme.

Bats are traditionally linked to Halloween and at Longleat in Wiltshire, 14 different species of the flying mammal have been identified including several of the rarest in the UK.

Across the world, bats are heavily persecuted due to fictional associations with evil, yet they play an important part in ecosystems, for example in pollination and seed dispersal says Longleat’s conservation and research manager Dr Tom Lewis.

“Bechstein’s bat, which we believe is breeding on the estate, has become one of our rarest bats, largely due to the widespread destruction of ancient woodlands that once blanketed the country,” he said.

A free online skills development programme developed by the Scottish Wildlife Trust is now available to people and communities across Scotland.

Over the past two years, nearly 40 community leaders have taken part in the Nextdoor Nature Pioneers Programme, a training course which has equipped them with the knowledge, skills and confidence to organise positive action for nature and improve their neighbourhoods.

As of this week, the online modules from the programme are now freely accessible for anyone to sign up to. Subjects covered during the eight-week course range from basic wildlife ecology to how to secure funding for community projects, with a number of additional optional modules available once people have completed the course.