GreyShuck

Following the latest review from the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examination Board, Dom Higgins, The Wildlife Trusts' head of health and education reflects on its recommendations around making climate and sustainability more prominent in our teaching requirements.

“Climate change and sustainability topics must be made more explicit throughout the curriculum and within individual subjects and qualifications”.

This stand-out call to action features in Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examination Board’s latest review, Striking the Balance. Chaired by former Secretary of State for Education Charles Clark, the review highlights the critical need to update the school curriculum for 11-16 year-olds, making several recommendations relating to the role and use of assessment and examinations across secondary education.

We’re pleased that the Scottish Government have maintained their commitment to introducing a Natural Environment Bill in the coming parliamentary year. The Bill will include the introduction of statutory targets for nature restoration. These targets must be ‘SMART’, with lead and supporting agencies clearly stated, and a commitment that decision makers be held to account to attain them. The Natural Environment Bill and statutory targets will need widespread support and ownership across all government departments, local government and society. It must be costed and allocated the necessary funding for it to be successful.

We supported the Scottish Environment LINK (ScotLINK) ‘Scotland Loves Nature’ campaign calling for a Natural Environment Bill that establishes the framework for legally binding nature targets to be included in this year’s Programme for Government. A ScotLINK report, ‘Nature recovery targets: Statutory targets to drive the recovery of nature in Scotland’, which CIEEM contributed to, outlines many of the considerations surrounding Nature targets.

Volunteers have been asked to help restore a natural wetland in the hopes it can encourage more wildlife to venture into the space.

Ham Mere, which is part of Ferry Meadows in Nene Park, Peterborough, has become overgrown with willow and scrub which causes the wetland area to lose moisture.

By using community volunteer conservation sessions in September and early October, Nene Park hopes to restore the area and attract more people to engage with nature.

Migration-monitoring sites in Britain logged unusually high numbers of migrating Tree Pipits in August.

Tree Pipit breeds in Britain after arriving in April. Birds return south in August and September, bound for wintering grounds in central and southern Africa. As a diurnal migrant, birds in active migration are easily recorded by observers familiar with its 'buzzing' flight call.

Numbers of Tree Pipits logged on the migration recording website Trektellen reached 2,644 individuals across nearly 4,000 combined hours of observation at 36 sites this August. The hourly passage rate for autumn 2024 is already at 0.32 birds per hour, making it the best Trektellen season on record for the species, with some weeks of passage yet to come.

From the comfort of the riverbank you’d be forgiven for wandering beside the River Usk in ignorant bliss. At a glance it looks pleasant and inviting – but swim in it at your peril.

“It’s full of s***,” Phil Waggott says, pulling no punches. He began fishing for salmon in the Usk in the 1980s in Crickhowell when stocks were plentiful and demand was high but he has not seen, let alone caught, a salmon in the Usk for more than a year – and it’s depressingly easy to see why.

I’ve been beside the banks of the river at Usk Island in Monmouthshire for five minutes when one swimmer tells me they got out recently when they realised they were navigating their way through floating human faeces. “It’s slowly gone into decline and now it’s all but dead,” Phil sighs, recalling better times. “First the dace went, then the salmon, then trout, parr, and now very little is left at all. It’s really like chalk and cheese compared to what it was before in the Usk. It isn’t even recognisable to what it was 10 years ago.

Group of eight NGOs and business groups warn current rules are allowing large numbers of developers to avoid paying into Biodiversity Net Gain schemes

The government is facing fresh calls to reform the rules governing the recently launched Biodiversity Net Gain scheme, amidst warnings that wide-ranging loopholes are allowing many developers to avoid rules requiring them to fund nature protection schemes.

Launched earlier this year, the Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) scheme requires housing and infrastructure developers to deliver net improvements for nature of at least 10 per cent, either through on-site nature-friendly measures, the funding of off-site nature projects, or the purchase of official biodiversity credits.

Capercaillie could become extinct in Scotland once again after gamekeepers warned this year saw an almost ten per cent drop in male birds at lek sites - breeding grounds for the species.

The capercaillie is a ground-nesting bird that, with just over 500 left in the wild, is in danger of extinction in the UK. One contributor to its decline is the eating of eggs and chicks by predators including another protected species, the pine marten.

Only 153 male birds were recorded at leks in key forests this year, 15 less than this time last year, according to research from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA).

One in 10 neighbourhoods across the South West has pollution levels deemed unsafe for wildlife, Friends of the Earth (FoE) has said.

The Isles of Scilly is the only authority in the region where air, water, noise or light pollution does not present a risk to nature, new data from the charity claims.

Across the South West, one in 10 neighbourhoods "breached safe pollution levels" in the four categories scrutinised by FoE, which said the levels threatened the future survival of species, including pollinating bees and native bats.

Twice a year we run Big River Watch weeks. where we invite you to take part in a simple citizen science activity that helps build a picture of river health across the UK and Ireland.

• Download the free Big River Watch app on your smartphone before visiting your chosen river.

• Pick a riverside location, spend 15 minutes observing, and answer the questions in the survey. You can complete the Big River Watch at your favourite local spot, or get to know somewhere new.

• Upload your Big River Watch survey. It's that simple to get involved!

Councillors have accused water bosses of a “shocking disregard for environmental standards” over pollution in the Ouseburn.

Newcastle’s Liberal Democrats took aim at Northumbrian Water, as well as parks management charity Urban Green, on Wednesday over a “failure of corporate responsibility and environmental management” of the river. It comes after research published last year warned that pollution levels in the Ouseburn, which runs across the city and into the Tyne, posed a “significant risk” to people’s health and amid ongoing outrage over sewage spills into rivers and beauty spots across the country.

As the Labour Government introduced a new bill which could leave water company chiefs facing two years in jail for obstructing regulators, North Jesmond councillor James Coles told a Newcastle City Council meeting on Wednesday evening that the Ouseburn was facing an “environmental crisis” as a result of untreated human waste and other pollutants being dumped into it. According to data from The Rivers Trust, 2,276 hours worth of sewage spills from storm overflows into Newcastle’s waterways were counted in 2023 – totalling a duration of 9,607 hours, more than double the previous year.

Yorkshire Water said it is investing £3.4m to improve and upgrade storm overflows in two parts of East Yorkshire.

The projects, in Brough and North Ferriby, are part of the firm's £180m investment to reduce discharges and improve water quality in the region.

A spokesperson for the company said it would reduce discharges to the River Humber.

The firm is one of three facing sanctions from the industry regulator, alongside Thames Water and Northumbrian Water, over historic sewage spills.

A puffin population has been declared "stable" following fears that bird flu might have had a more devastating effect.

The first full count for five years on the Farne Islands off Northumberland has revealed the endangered species has in fact increased by 15% since 2019.

There are now thought to be 50,000 breeding pairs on the site, which is cared for by the National Trust.

Ranger Sophia Jackson said the birds' self-isolating behaviours meant they had "weathered this particular storm".