Northumberland National Park Authority and the National Trust reveal further details of the Sycamore Gap tree’s legacy, one year on.

• The National Trust and Northumberland National Park Authority reveal further details of the Sycamore Gap tree’s legacy, one year on from it being illegally felled

• Inspiring plans respond to people’s outpouring of emotion to the loss of the much-loved tree last autumn

• Northumberland National Park Authority unveil new exhibition at The Sill entitled, Sycamore Gap: One Year On. Developed by artist Charlie Whinney, it features a large section of the original tree’s wood and invites public participation

• Opening the exhibition, 240 children from 13 schools local to The Sill, will take part in a celebration of the tree’s life to mark the anniversary

• The National Trust launches ‘Trees of Hope’, an opportunity for people to request one of 49 Sycamore Gap saplings to be gifted to their communities around the UK

• As part of the Trees of Hope initiative, all 15 UK National Parks will also receive a sapling that will find new homes in some of the most beautiful landscapes in the UK

The Hawk and Owl Trust has announced it will conclude its involvement in the controversial Hen Harrier 'brood-management' trial as the current licence comes to an end.

The Hen Harrier Action Plan and Trial, initiated by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in 2016, included the brood-management trial to raise Hen Harrier chicks in captivity and release them back into the wild.

The Hawk and Owl Trust has been involved in the initiative since 2016, supporting efforts to balance wildlife conservation with land management needs in upland England. The decision to withdraw follows a review of the project's outcomes and the latest available scientific evidence.

A pair of white-tailed eagles in County Fermanagh have become the first to breed in Northern Ireland in more than 150 years.

The birds are four years old and were released on the shores of Lough Derg, County Tipperary in 2020.

White-tailed eagles were reintroduced to Ireland by the Golden Eagle Trust (GET) and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) between 2007 and 2011.

Northern Ireland’s first Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) has been approved , externalby the Northern Ireland Executive.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) had been reprimanded by the UK’s environmental watchdog for failing to meet a deadline to have the plan in place by July 2023.

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) had urged ministers to approve an environmental strategy that could be adopted as an EIP.

Nestled within the Peak District national park, the stream known as Brook Head Beck meanders between undulating green hills. It is mossy and dank by the river, surrounded by the gentle trickling sound of water, the smell of leaves starting to rot underfoot, and a weave of branches overhead with leaves turning golden in the autumn chill. This place is renowned for its quaint English beauty, and the government has designated it an ecological site of special scientific interest, meaning it holds some of the country’s most precious wildlife.

Yet within this pristine-looking stream flows a concoction of chemicals that could pose a threat to the freshwater organisms and humans who come into contact with it. Recent testing found it had the second highest levels of chemical pollution in the UK – after a site in Glasgow – with concentrations of pharmaceuticals higher than inner-city rivers in London, Belfast, Leeds and York.

New research, published in August in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, revealed that England’s most protected rivers – those that run through its national parks – were also heavily contaminated by pharmaceuticals. The findings demonstrated how drug pollution now flows into even the most apparently untouched waterways, with transformative, potentially dangerous results for ecosystems and people.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been watching one of the greatest natural spectacles on Earth, here in south Devon. At a certain station of the tide, within a few metres of the coast, the sea erupts with monsters. They can travel at 45mph. They grow to 2.5 metres (8ft 2in) in length and 600kg in weight. They herd smaller fish – saury and garfish in this case – against the surface, then accelerate into the shoal so fast that they overshoot sometimes 2 or 3 metres into the air. Bluefin tuna. They are here, on our southern coasts, right now.

When I’ve mentioned this on social media, some people refuse to believe me: you must be seeing dolphins, they say. Yes, I often see dolphins too, and it’s not hard to spot the difference. They don’t believe it because we have forgotten that our coastal waters were once among the richest on Earth. Bluefin and longfin tuna were common here. So were several species of whale, including sperm, fin, humpback and Atlantic grey, and a wide range of large sharks. Halibut the size of barn doors hunted the coastal shallows. Cod reached almost 2 metres in length, haddock nearly a metre, turbot were the size of tabletops, oysters as big as dinner plates, shoals of herring and mackerel were miles long.

A coalition of nature groups (including Wildlife and Countryside Link, Rivers Trust, The Wildlife Trusts and Angling Trust) has today released analysis of water company business plans for the next five years, recently given draft approval by Ofwat.

The scorecard recognises much needed commitments and funding increases in many vital areas, but also shows gaps in water protections and spending that need to be filled. Campaigners are calling for much stricter fines for companies for serious pollution incidents over the next 5 years, with all fine funds paid into a Water Restoration Fund, a new ‘green duty’ for Ofwat, and for more prioritisation of sustainable ‘green infrastructure instead of grey infrastructure’.

Ofwat has told water companies that over the next 5 years they can spend £35billion on ‘enhancements’ relating to pollution, water quality, climate change resilience and customer service. [1] This is triple the level of investment in the previous 5 years and includes £10 billion to reduce harm from storm overflows and £545 million on reducing leakage through smart technologies and better data. This is backed up by commitments from almost all companies to achieve zero serious pollution incidents by 2030.

Welsh Government supports the managed re-introduction of European beaver in Wales.

Today the Welsh government has announced that it supports moving towards the managed reintroduction of beavers in Wales.

Tim Birch, Senior Policy & Advocacy Manager for Wildlife Trusts Wales, says:

“This is great news from the Welsh Government – it can't happen fast enough. It's vital that we bring back beavers to Wales as a matter of urgency. The nature and climate crises grow more acute by the day with flood warnings regularly occurring across Wales. Beavers can help provide a natural solution to water pollution and to the flooding which is devastating homes and businesses. They are an amazing species that create wetlands, through their beaver dams, which store rainfall in the landscape and slowly release water when the rain has subsided. These wetlands are incredible places for a whole range of wildlife.

Conservation charities have successfully completed the second round of rewilding of a long-lost bird breed in Dover.

The red-billed chough disappeared from the Kent countryside more than 200 years ago due to habitat loss and persecution.

In 2023, the first cohort of eight birds were returned to the area by conservation charities Wildwood Trust, Kent Wildlife Trust and Cornwall's Paradise Park.

Now a further 11 birds have been raised in captivity and released near Dover.

Almost 3,600 seals have been counted in the Thames Estuary showing the habitat is still healthy, conservationists said.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) teamed up with military helicopter pilots based at RAF Shawbury this year for its annual grey and harbour seal survey across the Greater Thames Estuary.

The team counted the number of mammals laying out on sandbanks and estimated how many may be in the water, concluding a total of 599 harbour seals and 2,988 grey seals living in the Thames Estuary.

The migration routes and wintering grounds of Scottish Arctic Skuas have been revealed in a new study led by BTO Scotland.

Scientists fitted tracking devices to Arctic Skuas nesting on Fair Isle, Shetland, and Rousay, Orkney.

They found that the birds had surprisingly varied destinations outside the breeding season. Although Fair Isle and Rousay are only 90 km apart, birds from these islands wintered thousands of kilometres away from one another.

The true extent of oil pollution released into UK waters by the fossil fuel industry has been “significantly underestimated” and it is putting marine wildlife at risk, according to a report released today.

The conservation group Oceana said chronic oiling, defined as frequent, small scale releases, into the North Sea was much higher than estimated due to an “opaque” system of reporting oil discharges and spills.

Oil companies must report both accidental oil spills and intentional discharges of so-called produced water – a byproduct that can contain oil and other toxic chemicals. The companies are allowed to release a certain volume of produced water but breaches of permitted levels are reported separately so escape full scrutiny, according to Oceana’s report. This caused underreporting of the total amount of oil released into the sea, it claimed.

With its impressive size, striking plumage and rowdy displays, sighting a capercaillie is many birders’ dream. Only about 530 of the large woodland grouse survive in the wild, most in Scotland’s Cairngorms national park.

But in recent years, those tasked with saving the species from extinction have had to walk a line between calling attention to the birds’ plight and discouraging people from seeking them out.

Although it is illegal to disturb capercaillie during the breeding season from March to August, that hasn’t deterred birders and nature photographers, motivated by the possibility of a prestigious spot – or shot. Over the 2022 season, 17 people were found on or around the “lek”, where male birds gather to compete for the attention of females in spring, says Carolyn Robertson, the project manager of the Cairngorms Capercaillie Project.

The modern hedgelayer’s role is no longer that of a fencer, but instead a practical conservationist creating vibrant, thorny arteries of hedgerow habitat, says Richard Negus.

It is impossible to say precisely when the first hedge in Britain was laid, yet it is beyond doubt that our hedgerows are the oldest in Europe. This truth came to light in the early 1980s, when archaeologist Francis Pryor and a team from Cambridge unearthed the traces of a hedged-in sheep fold and livestock market in the stark peatlands of Flag Fen near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. A nondescript piece of blackened hedgerow brash was exposed, visibly clean cut and angled, indicative of trimming with, one supposes, a billhook.

When radiocarbon-dated, this barb helped to prove that some 4,500 years ago, people here were already well established in agricultural practices familiar to us today — mixed farming, draining land and managing hedgerows. It stands to reason, then, that if the hedge was integral to this proto-agricultural Bronze Age landscape, then so too were hedgelayers.

There are fears that “toxic sludge” being dumped close to the shoreline is smothering marine life.

Sussex Wildlife Trust, residents and a councillor want to put a stop to Brighton Marina disposing of dredged sediment in the Beachy Head West Marine Conservation Zone between the marina and Ovingdean.

Brighton Marina needs to dredge the entrance to the harbour to ensure boats can keep moving.

Wild Justice and Badger Trust are mounting a legal challenge against the decision of Natural England (NE) to issue licences for Badger culling, made after pressure from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) under the previous government.

NE has asked the Court to increase the normal adverse cost cap (what you pay if you lose the case) from £10,000 to £20,000 for Wild Justice and from £10,000 to £30,000 for Badger Trust. The Aarhus Convention (to which the UK is a party) exists to protect citizens’ access to information, access to decision-making and access to justice. Taking legal challenges supported by the public is clearly in the ‘access to justice’ category. The £10,000 normal Aarhus cap is a quid pro quo – if we, as claimants win, we can claim back far less than we could under a non-Aarhus case.

We believe we have a good chance of success, but nothing is certain and we see NE’s unusual and aggressive move as an attempt to scare off legal challenges. We believe NE will best avoid legal challenges by making sound and legal decisions – if they appear to stray from the straight and narrow then it is in the public interest for their actions to be challenged and for the courts to decide one way or another.

Rugged peatlands above Saddleworth, ravaged by centuries of industrial pollution, intensive drainage and overgrazing, are now home to the first-ever nursery for moorland plants set up by the National Trust.

Essential native species like sphagnum moss are being cultivated and next month the public are invited to join two harvesting sessions, helping turn trays of home-grown cuttings into plug plants, ready to be planted out on the moor.

“Sphagnum moss is a wonder plant that can hold 20 times its own weight in water, and it’s vital to our moorland conservation work,” says Francesca Bray, one of the rangers who have worked with the Calderdale Sphagnum Project (funded by the National Lottery) to build the polytunnel nursery.

Populations of basking sharks near Scotland have plummeted to their lowest on record, with just seven sightings, according to the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. However, there were record high sightings for minke whales off Scotland’s west coast with more than 160 spotted in our waters.

Published by Scotland’s wildlife agency NatureScot, the charity's new report presents findings based on their marine research expeditions onboard its research vessel, Silurian, over the past three years. That's combined with sighting rates and numbers for minke whales and basking sharks from the 20 years the programme has been running.

The latest findings suggest changes in spot rates for minke whales and basking sharks, with experts seeing a potential link in these two marine species. Data shows when sighting rates for basking sharks are high, they are low for minke whales, and vice versa.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust said it was forced to cancel an annual wildlife survey for the first time in 13 years due to sewage in the sea.

Volunteers turned up to carry out a survey at Trevaunance Cove but the trust said it was "shocked" by the state of the water.

Matt Slater, marine conservation officer at Cornwall Wildlife Trust and organiser of the Shoresearch survey at the weekend, said: "The conditions were just not safe enough to run the event."

People across Scotland are being asked to report sightings of squirrels next week as part of a national scheme to protect the native red species.

The “Great Scottish Squirrel Survey” is a nationwide citizen science campaign organised by the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) partnership. Now in its sixth year, organisers of the event - running this year from Monday September 30 to Sunday October 6 - say recorded sightings are “more important than ever” as they battle to halt red squirrel declines.

SSRS, a partnership project led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), has been working since 2009 to protect red squirrels in Scotland, the UK’s last remaining stronghold for the native species with around 75 per cent of the population. Once widespread throughout the country, in recent decades red squirrel populations have fallen significantly.

A wildlife trust is thanking supporters after bringing in nearly double its donation target for a project to protect meadows.

Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust launched a bid to fundraise £10,000 to look after the county's remaining wildflower meadows in July.

Across the UK an estimated 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost since the 1930s.

The trust said £19,104 has been donated in total to fund its scheme.

Chris Luffingham, acting Chief Executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, says the time for change is now, but asks if not now, then when?

“There’s a definite perception that Labour doesn’t get rural voters,” said Steve Reed in February this year, mere months before becoming the new environment secretary.

“We have incredible countryside. We have incredible green spaces. They need protecting,” he went on.

People living near a chemicals plant in Lancashire have been told to wash and peel vegetables from their gardens before eating them, while an investigation into potential contamination of soil in the area with a banned toxic chemical gets under way.

The chemical PFOA, one of the PFAS family of about 15,000 chemicals, does not break down in the environment and last year was categorised as a human carcinogen by the World Health Organization. It is also toxic to reproduction and has been linked to a range of health problems such as thyroid disease and increased cholesterol.

Last year the Guardian and Watershed Investigations revealed that the AGC Chemicals plant in Thornton Cleveleys, near Blackpool, was discharging hundreds of PFAS into the River Wyre, which flows into Morecambe Bay, including very high concentrations of the banned PFOA.

One mile off the Northumberland coast from the village of Amble lies an avian paradise.

Reserved exclusively for birds, Coquet Island is an internationally important habitat home to 40,000 breeding seabirds.

Among the population are many rare or endangered breeds such as Roseate Terns, Common Arctic Terns, Sandwich Terns, and Puffins.

Preserving a wobbly bog, described as "a real gem in Wales' natural crown" is being made slightly more tricky by the presence of unexploded World War Two bombs.

Crymlyn bog on the outskirts of Swansea is the largest of Wales' last remaining quaking bogs - earning its name as the peatland habitat literally shakes under your feet.

But these bogs are under threat due to damage caused by drainage, pollution and neglect and are part of a £5m restoration project.