UK Nature and Environment

Adders are coming out of hibernation on Cannock Chase but facing "daily disturbance" by people attempting to photograph the UK's only venomous snake.

Nearly three million people a year visit the area of outstanding natural beauty in Staffordshire.

Adders cannot hear and are sensitive to vibrations so they usually move on before humans get close, rangers said, but they could get surprised by dogs and bite in self-defence.

Researchers have found more than 100 unique chemical pollutants in two UK harbours, raising concerns about their impact on wildlife.

An analysis of seawater, seaweed and shellfish from Langstone and Chichester harbours found chemical pollutants surged more than 100-fold after sewage discharges.

Scientists found 105 unique pharmaceuticals, pesticides and illegal drugs.

Farmers fear they will no longer be able to afford to restore nature in England and reduce their carbon footprint after government funding for doing this was frozen.

The environment secretary, Steve Reed, recently announced that the sustainable farming incentive (SFI), which pays farmers for making space for nature on their land, would be paused and overhauled before June’s spending review. The scope of the scheme – and its budget – are being reassessed.

He is considering blocking farmers who make a lot of money from agriculture from applying for the scheme, which is part of a package of payments that replaced the EU’s common agricultural policy and paid land managers for the amount of land in their care, with the aim of paying farmers to look after nature, soil and other public goods, rather than simply for farming and owning land.

The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust has secured a vital conservation milestone, thanks to the extraordinary support of local residents.

Nearly 1,000 individuals rallied behind an urgent appeal, helping the trust secure a vital wildlife haven in the heart of the New Forest.

The newly acquired 11.1 hectares (28 acres) site of special scientific interest (SSSI) in the Lymington Valley expands the trust’s existing Lymington Reedbeds Nature Reserve.

Firefighters are dealing with a wild blaze that has spread over a large area of forest in Scotland with police urging people to stay away from the area.

Emergency services were called to Glentrool in Galloway, southern Scotland, at about 11.50pm on Friday with fire crews still on the scene on Saturday afternoon.

Police Scotland said the wildfire was expected to reach the Loch Doon area of East Ayrshire at about midnight

The gluing of rare ‘scrambled egg’ lichen to the ground is my kind of conservation, says Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserves officer Robert Morgan

Lichen is a topic that’s not usually covered in the news. So, for those unversed in the subject, lichen are those weird crusty growths on churchyard headstones, old trees, roof tiles or, in the case of mine, the bodywork of a dilapidated car.

Lichens have fascinating biology and are important indicators of environmental health, particularly airborne pollution, so much so, the vulnerability of some species has driven them to national extinction.

England’s non-woodland trees have been mapped for the first time, using cutting-edge methods of laser detection and satellite imagery.

Tree scientists at the UK’s Forest Research agency have built a comprehensive picture of trees in urban and rural areas in a “groundbreaking” map that goes live on Saturday.

The tool will allow conservation groups and local authorities to target tree-planting efforts more accurately by pinpointing lone trees that could be connected to nearby wooded areas, bolstering habitats for wildlife, they said.

Poole BID and Dorset Wildlife Trust have joined forces with an initiative to transform green spaces in Poole.

This collaboration involves replacing the traditional seasonal flowers in the town's three-tier planters with perennials to support pollinators and urban biodiversity.

Specific clusters of three-tier planters near the Custom House Bistro, the Lord Nelson Pub and Guildhall Gardens have been designed to meet the requirements for the Wildlife Friendly Space Award from Dorset Wildlife Trust.

A wildfire that broke out on a protected area of lowland heath is likely to have killed bees, ground-nesting birds and other wildlife, rangers said.

Firefighters dealt with what they described as a "significantly large fire" on about three acres (1.2 hectares) of Gentleshaw Common Nature Reserve on Friday.

Staffordshire Wildlife Trust (SWT) said, external "much wildlife will have been impacted".

"When birds see a dog, they see a predator."

Naturalist Chris Packham is pleading with dog owners to keep their pets on a lead during bird breeding season.

The BBC Springwatch presenter told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that when a dog disturbs a bird on the nest it an abandon its eggs.

Loch Ard Forest is set to become home to an additional pair of beavers.

Working with the Beaver Trust, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) released the pair into a small lochan with good areas of wet woodland around the edge of the water and where there are currently no beavers present.

The FLS managed site – sitting within Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park – was assessed and surveyed by both the Beaver Trust and FLS and identified as providing ideal habitat for beavers. It follows on from several successful beaver releases at additional locations in Loch Ard Forest over the last year.

Launched in 2021, the five-year £4.5m the LIFE Raft project, which runs until the autumn, has been working to eradicate rats and ferrets from the island off the north coast.

Now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), who run the project, have said they are "optimistic" the ferret population on Rathlin has been eradicated.

"To date, there has been 98 ferrets caught, and from November 2023 there have been no confirmed ferret sightings," the project's fieldwork manager Michael Rafferty told Causeway Coast and Glens council earlier this week.

Urgent action must be taken to better protect and restore Northern Ireland’s most precious places for nature, a report released today [Thursday, April 3] has found.

In its latest report, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) examines how well laws designed to protect key areas for nature, such as the Antrim Hills, Upper Lough Erne, Lough Neagh and Rathlin Island, are working.

These areas and others represent the most important of Northern Ireland’s natural landscapes and biodiversity. They support rare or threatened plants, animals and habitats.

Sand lizard, smooth snake and adder are particularly vulnerable to threats such as climate change, recreational pressures and fires, which can severely damage their habitats.

The Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC) is creating and restoring heathlands in the Forest to enable the recovery of these species and improve the resilience of their habitats.

To date, much of the focus has been on creating a more open heathland by clearing overgrown gorse, creating ideal spaces for reptiles to forage, breed, and bask.

Groundwork has begun to create a new area of wetland at the Great Fen nature reserve, in Cambridgeshire, as part of The Great Fen project.

Work at New Decoy Farm, near Ramsey, will create channels that will eventually fill with water and help turn former arable fields into reedbeds, grassland and ponds.

Lorna Parker, Great Fen project manager, said: "A lot of planning and preparation work has led up to this moment, so it is fantastic to see the diggers breaking ground at New Decoy for the first time."

The migratory birds bred at Washington Wetland Centre for the first time in its history last summer after an artificial nesting bank was introduced in October 2023.

The centre said it was difficult to get an accurate number of successfully fledged sand martins due to their agility and speed, but it thought at least 60 to 100 young birds managed to leave the nests.

The team is now hoping for a second successful breeding season.

WILDLIFE has been suffocated and burned, with habitats destroyed, after two large heath fires broke out.

Around 80 firefighters were called to Upton Heath shortly before midnight on April 2, before being dispatched to Canford Heath at around 5.30am the following morning.

Following the two huge fires, around 51 hectares of heathland was damaged in Upton with an area of 500m x 50m affected in Canford Heath.

Chief executive of Dorset Wildlife Trust, Brian Bleese, said the “big issue” with these fires are the already fragmented heathlands.

There is hope puffins have built some immunity to bird flu as one of the Farne islands reopens to tourists, the National Trust has said.

The trust, which cares for the islands off the coast of Northumberland, said all seabirds remained free of bird flu in 2024.

In recent weeks there have been cases of the virus in Burnopfield, forcing the Animal and Plant Health Agency to set up surveillance zones in Tyne and Wear.

The National Trust has planted a staggering 375,000 trees across North Devon over the past five years, in a sweeping drive to combat climate change and boost biodiversity.

The project is part of the charity’s wider ambition to establish 20 million trees across the UK by 2030, aiming to create habitats for wildlife, lock up carbon, and offer green spaces for people to enjoy.

During the 2023/24 season alone, the North Devon team more than tripled their target, planting 101,000 trees and bringing their running total to 210,000 since 2020. Sites at Arlington Court, Woolacombe, West Exmoor and Hartland saw tens of thousands of trees planted, with species including oak, hazel, hawthorn, birch, rowan and crab apple carefully chosen to suit each location.

A group of anglers trying to restore the ecosystem of a river have seen off a challenge by the environment secretary, Steve Reed, who claimed that cleaning up the waterway was administratively unworkable.

Reed pursued an appeal against a group of anglers from North Yorkshire, who had won a legal case arguing that the government and the Environment Agency’s plans to clean up the Upper Costa Beck, a former trout stream devastated by sewage pollution and runoff, were so vague they were ineffectual.

The environment secretary decided, after Labour won the election last year, to continue the challenge, which had begun under the previous Conservative government.

Peat is formed over thousands of years from partially decayed plants in waterlogged conditions. Its ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide means peatlands are key to the UK's ambition of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

However, our peatlands are under a two-pronged attack - from the past and from the future.

Historic damage caused by human activities like farming, forestry and peat cutting has left 87% of England's peatlands degraded and dried out, emitting tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, according to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, external (Defra).

A shift away from the familiar sight of bare winter fields can help improve soils and boost wildlife, a study suggests.

An assessment of “regenerative agriculture” – which focuses on improving soils, producing food and increasing farmland wildlife – found good evidence that minimising bare soils, for example by growing cover crops on land over winter, had benefits for soil health and nature.

But there was less evidence from the UK-focused study around benefits from “no-till” or “minimum-till” practices which limit the disturbance of the soil from ploughing, despite their prominence in regenerative agriculture.

The Riverwoods Blueprint Project, led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, is excited to announce the launch of a £200,000 grant to kickstart a pipeline of new river woodland creation and restoration activities across Scotland.

The Riverwoods Development Grant will fund 10-20 environmental NGOs, charitable trusts, community groups, local public bodies, and others in Scotland to produce river woodland development plans – the essential first step in enhancing local river health, creating new homes for wildlife and improving access to nature.

Scotland has over 125,000km of rivers and streams. River woodlands – the trees and woods in, next to and near rivers, burns and lochs – are vital for creating and maintaining healthy rivers. These biologically rich areas provide a link between land and water and are the green arteries of an ecosystem, supporting many of our most iconic native species including ospreys, white-tailed eagles, otters, red squirrels and Atlantic salmon.

Floating islands have been installed in a dock to provide new habitats for wildlife.

The three artificial islands have been created in Middlehaven Dock in Middlesbrough, where few natural habitats exist.

The platforms have been pre-seeded with native plants and it is hoped they will provide a haven for insects, birds, molluscs and fish.

RHS develops ‘robust lawn’ that works for people, pollinators and pets

Full of clovers and dandelions, with a hard-wearing rye grass, the approach is environmentally friendly and usable Helena Horton Environment reporter Tue 1 Apr 2025 06.00 BST

Is there a perfect formula for a hard-wearing flower lawn that is good for pollinators, dogs and people?

The immaculately mowed green has fallen out of favour in recent years owing to its lack of support for biodiversity. But there have also been complaints about the tall wildflower meadows that grow during “no mow May” and are less usable for humans and pets.

Now celebrity gardener Monty Don has gone into laboratory mode with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), designing a hardy lawn that can be occasionally mown and trampled by dogs for the Chelsea flower show, which will take place from 20-24 May.