What’s Going On Here? The coronavirus lockdown has meant that councils haven’t mowed roadside verges and mini-meadows have been left to bloom all across the UK! What Does This Mean? One in five of wildflowers in the UK are now endangered and 97% of meadows have disappeared since the 1930s. Roadside verges are a stretch of hope for Britain’s increasingly depleting wildlife habitats. They form…
What’s Going On Here? So we need to plant more trees, and Wales have gone and done it – commissioning a National Forest that will run the full length of the country! What Does This Mean? The Welsh First Minister announced an initial £15m fund for the woodland, which is designed to protect nature whilst also boosting tourism by creating a ‘connected ecological network’…
What’s Going On Here? A former chief scientific adviser to the UK government has said that half the nation’s farmland needs to be transformed into natural habitat to restore wildlife and help fight the climate crisis. What Does This Mean? This idea might seem radical to some but Prof Sir Ian Boyd—who worked at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs…
What’s Going On Here? A new study has revealed that outdoor light pollution could be a key driver of an ‘Insect Apocalypse’. Uh oh! What Does This Mean? It’s not often we think about the impacts of streetlights or vehicle headlights on the organisms we live among. We’ve all seen a fried fly or two by a lightbulb or moths swarming around…
What’s Going On Here? UK wildlife continues to be in decline, according to the State of Nature Report published this week. Since 1970, we have continuously lost nature, with 41% of species (plants and animals) decreasing in number. What Does This Mean? The report is an update from the 2016 report, but was a much larger undertaking than previous years. For the 2019 report, over…
What’s Going On Here? Thousands of forests in Brazil are on fire. As a result, a lot of smoke is being pumped into the skies across the country and releasing alarming amounts of carbon into the Earth’s atmosphere. What Does This Mean? You’ve heard about it. You’ve seen the pictures. But what is actually happening and why? There are so many threads…
What’s Going On Here? A global ban on the zoo trade of baby elephants has just been approved after a heated debate at a conference in Geneva. Whoop whoop! Great news for baby Elmer. What Does This Mean? From the 17th – 28th August the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) met for their 18th conference in Geneva, with the…
What’s Going On Here? Ethiopia has broken a tree planting record previously held by India by planting more than 350 million trees in less than a day – in fact it was actually a tree-mendous 353,633,660 in 12 hours! This comes just as The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recommends that the UK needs to plant 1.5 billion or 30,000 hectares worth of trees…
What’s Going On Here? Believe it or not, the UK’s capital city, although a bit smoggy and polluted, has officially been crowned as the world’s first National Park City! What Does This Mean? London has become the first city to sign up to the International Charter for National Park Cities (NPC), an initiative set up by the National Park City Foundation (NPCF – so…
