UK Nature and Environment

Plans to boost the biodiversity value of wetland at RSPB Lochwinnoch nature reserve have been given the go ahead by Renfrewshire Council.

The conservation charity has been granted planning permission, subject to conditions, for the project at an area known as Calder Marshes.

It aims to make the habitats as "good as they can be for wildlife", according to a supporting statement, and create suitable conditions for a wider range of species.

The long-anticipated first British records of Southern Small White have occurred this summer, with recent sightings from Cleveland and Suffolk.

Yesterday [2 August 2025], news broke of a female found earlier that afternoon by Will Brame at Landguard NR, Suffolk. On paper, this is the first record for Britain, though it later transpired that one, a male, was photographed in Hartlepool, Cleveland, on 1 July – and it may yet emerge that others have been documented this summer. The Hartlepool individual came on a day of a huge arrival of white species along the English east coast, with a six-figure count of Small Whites made in Norfolk.

Until quite recently, and as its name implies, Southern Small White was restricted to southern – particularly south-eastern – Europe. However, it is expanding rapidly in a north-westerly direction and was first recorded north of the Alps in France and Germany in 2008, and has since steadily extended its range, with the first confirmed sighting in the southern Netherlands occurring in 2015. By 2019, it had been reliably observed near Calais in northern France.

Surrey County Council has launched a public consultation on its draft Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS), a new plan to protect and restore nature across the county.

From ancient woodlands and chalk grasslands to the historic parklands and the Surrey Hills, our county is home to some of the most valued landscapes in the country. But nature is under pressure – and we need a joined-up plan to help it recover.

The strategy sets out priorities for nature’s recovery, maps Surrey’s most valuable areas for wildlife, and identifies opportunities to improve habitats and deliver wider environmental benefits such as cleaner air, flood resilience and access to green spaces.

Community groups, charities, town and community councils, schools, and businesses across Pembrokeshire are invited to apply to the popular Force for Nature grant scheme, which has now reopened for applications for 2025.

Established by the Pembrokeshire Coast Charitable Trust, the scheme offers grants of up to £4,000 to support projects that deliver positive conservation and environmental outcomes within or around the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Eligible projects may include initiatives that enhance biodiversity, create or improve green spaces, take action on climate change, or protect and restore natural habitats.

Since its launch in 2021, the Force for Nature scheme has supported 41 projects across Pembrokeshire, from community gardens and habitat creation to wellbeing gardens and green spaces that benefit both people and wildlife.

A number of rare animals have returned to a nature reserve after a restoration project aimed at improving its biodiversity.

Natural England leased the fields neighbouring Wybunbury Moss, near Crewe, Cheshire, from the Church Commissioners for England in September 2023.

As part of its work to restore them, the organisation stopped the use of fertiliser on the fields, reintroduced grazing by livestock and restored hedgerows.

An urban rewilding group is seeking the public’s views on the potential return of white storks to London as part of a project to see if the birds could make a home in the capital.

White storks could once be seen flying in Britain’s skies and building their huge nests on roofs and in trees, but they disappeared centuries ago as a breeding bird as a result of hunting and habitat loss.

Citizen Zoo, an organisation that specialises in community-led urban rewilding, is conducting an appraisal on making London a “white stork-friendly city”. It will include habitat mapping, contacting boroughs across the capital to gauge their interest and surveying the public about the birds.

Plans to create an International School of Rewilding (ISR) featuring elk on the Isle of Wight have been backed by councillors.

Sandown Town Council is supporting the proposal from Wildheart Trust for a 140 hectare (345 acre) site with elk-rewilded wetlands and visitor facilities.

Chief executive of the trust, Lawrence Bates, told councillors the school would create the "most amazing wildlife spectacle" and "drive people into the area".

The public is being encouraged to look out for the exotic-looking species of Jersey Tiger moths that have been surging in numbers.

Wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation said the day-flying moths appear to be doing well as people record butterflies they see for its annual butterfly count.

The initiative, which takes place over three weeks in summer and is currently under way until August 10, gets members of the public to spend 15 minutes recording those they see in their garden, parks or countryside.

Two Razorbill chicks have fledged for the first time on an island off the Northumberland Coast, conservationists have said.

Although a small number of Razorbills have been seen attempting to breed on Coquet Island since 2021, July marked the first successful fledging of chicks, the RSPB said.

The charity said the island was not an obvious choice for the birds as they usually nested on cliffs, but up to 12 had been spotted this year.

A nature recovery project near Hadrian's Wall aims to transform thousands of acres of farmland and forest to boost biodiversity and help farmers adapt to climate change.

Following a £750,000 grant from Defra, the Hadrian's Wall Landscape Recovery Project will reconnect habitats, supporting species like curlews, otters and water voles.

The project stretches along the wall from Greenlee Lough to Bell Crag Flow and will include more than 11,000 acres (4451 hectares) of land, an area four times the size of Kielder Water.

Nature lovers and conservationists were treated to a rare and exhilarating sight as a marsh harrier, one of the UK’s rarest and most striking birds of prey, was spotted.

With its wings held in a distinctive V-shape, the Harrier wheeled and soared over the industrial skyline at Seal Sands in Teesside over the last month.

The marsh harrier is the largest of the UK’s harrier species and is best known for its broad wingspan (up to 1.2 metres) and graceful, floating flight over reedbeds and marshlands.

A number of bioluminescent plankton have been spotted off the coast of Cornwall.

Bioluminescent plankton are small creatures floating in the sea that have the ability to emit light when disturbed by a predator or motion.

Visitors to Kynance Cove managed to catch a glimpse of the rare sight last weekend.

Thomas Winstone was visiting the area from Wales with a friend, attempting to photograph a milkyway through the "clear Cornish skies", but then stumbled across the Plankton on Sunday night.

The first farmer-led programme to vaccinate badgers against tuberculosis is beginning in Cornwall with an aim to prevent transmission of the disease to cattle.

The programme is significant because farmers and scientists have long been at loggerheads over the culling of badgers as a way to control TB. The three-year trial will start with 70 farms and involve farmers trapping, testing and vaccinating badgers, with training provided by scientists. An earlier pilot study of the approach showed TB rates in badgers fell from 16% to zero in four years.

TB can devastate cattle herds and more than 20,000 infected cattle were slaughtered in the last year in England. The badger cull started in 2013 and has killed about 250,000 badgers but has been highly controversial.

Experts are warning of an unusually high number of jellyfish in UK seas this summer. These are the ones out there

A project is underway to investigate what whales are eating off Scotland’s west coast by examining the make-up of their poop! We are delighted to be part of the team - led by Dr Conor Ryan - collecting samples, armed and ready to scoop from the deck of our research vessel, Silurian. Read more about the project below…

Spirits have been high among whale enthusiasts around The Minch in recent years, as larger whale species like fin and humpback whales have been settling in the region. While the smaller minke whale has been commonly seen for many years, the arrival of their larger cousins raises questions about what is sustaining their enormous appetites.

Yorkshire Water has been ordered to pay more than £900,000 after polluting a watercourse with millions of litres of chlorinated water, causing the death of hundreds of fish.

Sheffield Magistrates' Court heard how the firm's Ingbirchworth Water Treatment Works, near Barnsley, discharged intermittently into the freshwater watercourse linking Ingbirchworth and Scout Dike reservoirs for almost a month.

District Judge Tim Spruce said Yorkshire Water had shown a high degree of negligence, resulting in "a prolonged and catastrophic loss of aquatic life".

Technology that monitors birdsong as part of conservation efforts is to be rolled out across Shropshire.

The Green Box Project involves recordings via wireless boxes operated by solar panel. Recordings are uploaded to the cloud, where birds are then identified by AI.

It is hoped the collected data could support conservation planning and contribute to national biodiversity databases.

When the first pair of beavers to be legally released in England crawled sleepily from their crates into the ponds of Purbeck Heath in Dorset, it seemed like a watershed moment for wildlife in the UK.

Wildlife charities rejoiced as ministers finally agreed for the nature-boosting rodents to be released, subject to licence, into the wild. Nature-friendly farmers kept an eager eye out for the application forms, hoping they could host the fascinating creatures on their land.

But nature experts say the scheme has stalled, with not a single licence granted since those beavers were let loose on the National Trust reserve in March. The Guardian understands 40 expressions of interest have been sent to the government since then, 20 of which are from the Wildlife Trusts, but none have yet been granted a release licence.

A colony of 50 water voles has been released into the wild in Surrey, where the species has been locally extinct for 20 years.

The voles, an endangered species, were bred in captivity at the Wildwood Trust in Kent, which specialises in breeding the mammals.

They were released into the Chamber Mead wetlands in Epsom, created over the past two years to filter sewage pollution and other run-off out of a local stream before it enters the Hogsmill River.

Tourist discovers ‘extinct’ jellyfish while rock-pooling in Outer Hebrides Thistle-shaped Depastrum cyathiforme was last seen in France in 1976, but has now been found on South Uist

The distinctive jellyfish was feared globally extinct after being last spotted in Roscoff, northern France, in 1976.

But a holidaymaker who was rock-pooling on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides found four of the creatures, which attach themselves to rocks rather like anemones, and took what turned out to be the first ever photographs of the species, previously only known from historic drawings and paintings.

A 10,000-acre estate in the Highlands has been awarded special European status recognising its genetic diversity of tree species.

Parts of the juniper and silver birch woodland at Trees for Life's Dundreggan rewilding centre in Glenmoriston have been classed as Gene Conservation Units.

A spokesperson for the conservation charity said the "unusually wet location" of juniper and the "extreme westerly location" of silver birch have helped make the tree populations unique.

After 40 years, intertidal seagrass has grown in the Helford River, marking a breakthrough in Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Seasalt’s restoration efforts.

The Helford River has seen a glimmer of green hope. For the first time in over 40 years, native intertidal seagrass has successfully regrown in its waters—thanks to the collaborative efforts of Seasalt and Cornwall Wildlife Trust, now in their fourth year of the Seeding Change Together project.

This pioneering initiative is exploring low-carbon, low-cost methods to restore seagrass habitats in Cornwall’s estuaries – ecosystems vital to ocean health.

A nature reserve has recorded its largest number of fledglings of a threatened bird species in half a century.

RSPB Minsmere, on the Suffolk coast, counted at least 205 sandwich terns chicks this summer - the most at the site since 1974.

Senior site manager Nick Forster said that during the breeding season the birds had a "striking head plumage" which he felt made "them look like they've got Beatle haircuts".

People always ask me: isn’t it too cold to snorkel in Scotland? And I reply that while it’s obviously much cooler than it would be in Spain, the sea does warm up from May, when the temperature rises from about 9C to as high as 12-15C by August and September.

I go snorkelling in Scotland all year round. I work for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, developing snorkel trails on the Scottish coast and creating guides to the places you can go to enjoy snorkelling in a particular area. But even so, the Wildlife Trust always recommends wearing a wetsuit.

In the UK, we sometimes think that to connect with nature you have to go to really exotic, faraway places and spend a lot of money. But actually, it can be more effective to connect with the local marine life on your doorstep.