GreyShuck

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

More than half of the butterfly species in the UK are in long-term decline for the first time and experts say human actions are to blame.

The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, run by a coalition of conservation organisations, revealed that 2024 was the fifth worst year since records began for butterflies, with 51 of the UK’s 59 butterfly species declining last year compared with 2023, while just six increased.

Species including the small tortoiseshell, the chalk hill blue and small copper suffered their worst year ever.

Wildlife groups have expressed alarm after ministers promised a radically “streamlined” approach to UK environmental regulation intended to drive economic growth and speed up new housing, as well as major projects such as airports.

While officials said the plans should boost nature conservation overall, the removal of what one called “bat by bat” decisions, a reference to the £100m bat shelter constructed for part of HS2, could water down individual protections.

The new regime is based on a report commissioned in the autumn by Steve Reed, the environment secretary. Led by Dan Corry, a No 10 adviser under Gordon Brown, it sets out 29 recommendations, nine of which are being immediately adopted.

This week the Environment Agency released the annual summary of storm overflow (CSO) spill data, also known as EDM data, from water companies in England for 2024. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s far from good news for rivers.

With raw sewage spilled in England's rivers for an all-time high of over 3.6 billion hours, it’s clear that significant progress to address this form of pollution was not made in 2024.

If you're concerned about spills in your local area, you can check the Near real-time alerts tab of our Sewage Map to identify your nearby CSOs, and see whether a spill is currently occurring or when it most recently discharged and for how long.

Thirteen projects will restore and strengthen natural heritage across Wales thanks to Nature Networks Fund grants.

From building bat towers to providing training in countryside management, the funding will help people develop the skills needed to support nature’s recovery.

By connecting communities and habitats, the successful projects will improve the condition and resilience of Wales’ protected areas of land and sea, helping nature to thrive.

Ospreys have returned to one of their most important sites in England on the earliest ever recorded date after a "dismal" breeding season.

The first to arrive back from sub-Saharan Africa to Kielder Forest in Northumberland was spotted on the 21 March, three days ahead of the previous first arrivals to the area.

This has prompted hopes of a better breeding season in 2025 after 12 chicks failed to fledge last year.

Work to create a "mirror image" of one of Britain's last remaining ancient temperate rainforests has started in Devon.

Last week, volunteers from Moor Trees planted 450 saplings grown from acorns specially collected from Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor.

This work, which took place near the collection site, aims to support an expansion and regeneration plan by the Duchy of Cornwall to double the size of the woodland by the early 2040s.