William became largest private landholder in the national park when he inherited Duchy of Cornwall
Campaigners are urging Prince William to invest in significant rewilding across swathes of Dartmoor’s predominantly farmed land.
The land became William’s after he inherited the Duchy of Cornwall, an extensive landholding including the largest privately owned area of Dartmoor national park, from his father, King Charles, when he succeeded to the throne.
Continue reading...Animals make first return to the county in 400 years as National Trust introduces family of four to Wallington estate
It was a genuinely tense tale of the riverbank as a family of four beavers were released into the Northumberland countryside on Wednesday, the first time in more than 400 years that the animals are making the county their home.
Would they even come out of their cages? Would they be as feisty coming out as they apparently were going in? Would they be happy with their new surroundings?
Continue reading...Exclusive: Ecologists say there are early signs that the population is recovering in remote forests
It is a discotheque for Britain’s biggest type of grouse. Before dawn, male capercaillie will begin their courtship rituals, their black tail feathers erect and fanning out, chests puffed out, their heads thrust high into the cold spring air.
Their dancefloors are forest clearings in the Highlands which echo the males’ wheezing, popping and clattering mating calls. Often perched in surrounding pine trees, hens will carefully watch as their potential mates compete to win their affection.
Continue reading...Better management of existing apex predators and compensation schemes for farmers and gamekeepers needed, broadcaster says
Lynx and wolves are likely to become feared and hated if they are reintroduced into Britain’s forests, the adventurer and broadcaster Ray Mears has warned.
Speaking at Cheltenham science festival, he said Britain was not ready for such rewilding schemes, despite the potential ecological benefits.
Continue reading...Scheme that began to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee in 2012 has thrived, project audit finds
Wildflower meadows planted a decade ago to celebrate 60 years of the late queen’s reign have thrived, with 101 new fields of flowers created since the scheme was launched.
King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, worked with Plantlife and the Wildlife Trusts to launch ”coronation meadows”, identifying 60 species-rich meadows from which to take donor seeds – one meadow for each year of the queen’s reign at the time.
Continue reading...Sixty of the keystone species released near Bordeaux to feast on waste from wild cattle and help restore a vital habitat on the Atlantic coast
In a forest clearing filled with cowpats, French history is being made: the country’s first translocation of dung beetles in a nature reserve near Bordeaux.
With the same pomp and ceremony afforded to the release of an Iberian lynx or a European bison, about 60 “ball rolling” insects were brought to the marshy forests of Étang de Cousseau in south-west France on Wednesday to restore a vital ecosystem function on the Atlantic coast.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Decision to make episode about natural destruction available only on iPlayer angers programme-makers
The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.
The decision has angered the programme-makers and some insiders at the BBC, who fear the corporation has bowed to pressure from lobbying groups with “dinosaurian ways”.
Continue reading...Opposition to unveil plan to reverse biodiversity loss rather than simply halting it, which is government’s current target
The government will not be able to achieve its nature targets by 2030, even though they are “embarrassingly poor”, the shadow environment minister and leading wildlife groups have said.
Next week at the Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Alex Sobel will be discussing Labour’s “science-led, joined-up plan to tackle the climate and ecological emergency”. The plan will aim to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, rather than simply halting it, which is the government’s current target.
Continue reading...Project promises to create jobs and restore biodiversity, but locals say it is taking food-growing land out of production
The rolling fields south of Grantham are scenic, but these huge expanses of wheat and beans are almost bereft of insects in summer. In autumn, a few skylarks sing and the occasional buzzard soars, but there is precious little life in the landscape.
But soon a 1,525-acre swath of this productive Lincolnshire farmland will be brimming with wildlife, according to a new company that aims to restore biodiversity and make money by rewilding farmland.
Continue reading...Rumours rife as farmers fear PM plans U-turn on financial subsidy measures to improve environment
The chaos in the English countryside began with the click of a civil servant’s mouse. At the end of last week, farmers who had been working with the government on environmental subsidy schemes saw that their regular meetings about it had been removed from their online diaries without warning.
This appeared to hint at what had been feared – that the new post-Brexit farming subsidy scheme was in danger of being scrapped.
Continue reading...Bee bus stops first appeared in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Now the UK is planning for more than 1,000 and there is growing interest across Europe and in Canada and Australia
Butterflies and bees are getting their own transport network as “bee bus stops” start to pop up around UK cities and across Europe. Humble bus shelter roofs are being turned into riots of colour, with the number of miniature gardens – full of pollinator-friendly flora such as wild strawberries, poppies and pansies – set to increase by 50% in the UK by the end of this year.
Leicester is leading the charge with 30 bee bus stops installed since 2021. Derby has 18, and there are others in Southhampton, Newcastle, Sunderland, Derby, Oxford, Cardiff and Glasgow. Brighton council installed one last year after a petition was signed by almost 50,000 people.
Continue reading...Results of 10-year project reveal that rewilding areas can boost biodiversity and crop yields
Putting farmland aside for nature does not have a negative effect on food security, a study has found.
A 10-year project by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology revealed that nature-friendly farming methods boost biodiversity without reducing average yields.
Continue reading...Native wildlife will be reintroduced across Europe in a bid to reduce atmospheric carbon and promote tourism
A European environmental organisation is looking to expand its number of rewilding landscapes – areas where endangered wildlife is reintroduced and protected – after being awarded a grant of £4.1m.
The grant has been pledged to Rewilding Europe in the hope of scaling up rewilding efforts throughout several parts of the European continent.
Continue reading...The gentle giants released in Kent should transform a commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland
Early on Monday morning, three gentle giants wandered out of a corral in the Kent countryside to become the first wild bison to roam in Britain for thousands of years.
The aim is for the animals’ natural behaviour to transform a dense commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland. Their taste for bark will kill some trees and their bulk will open up trails, letting light spill on to the forest floor, while their love of rolling around in dust baths will create more open ground. All this should allow new plants, insects, lizards, birds and bats to thrive.
Continue reading...Rewilding has become a mantra in one Cairngorms glen – but some see initiatives to restore its forestland as a threat
Glen Feshie is one of the magnificent valleys on the north-west side of the Cairngorm massif where the forest has been released from the tyranny of grouse and deer. During the deer-stalking centuries of the 1800s and 1900s, there were 50 deer per square kilometre. Now there are one or two, and the critically endangered capercaillie are coming back. This is the place, I’ve heard, to look for the natural treeline in Scotland.
I arrive in the evening, the day before midsummer, and pitch my tent by the river. Scotland’s right to roam allows wild camping to an extent those south of the border can only dream of. The brown water is dark in the depths under the bridge, and cold. In the still-bright sunlight I walk up the valley and come to a spot where the path widens and a vista of sheer grey hills opens out. This was the setting for The Monarch of the Glen, a famous painting by Landseer of a princely 12-point stag framed by the crags above the valley.
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