I am back from my holiday in Provence. It was the first time I had left the UK in four years, and I had forgotten what it felt like to be in another country. The first thing I noticed was the sound of the cicadas. Local folklore says that God sent them to wake peasants from their sleep. I could believe it.
It's astonishing how insects, even when invisible, can instantly create a sense of place. Similarly, I always associate the couple of years I spent living in Chicago with the peaceful glow of fireflies pulsing by the lake. The presence of bugs can evoke a much wider and sweeter array of emotions that we give them credit for. When we lose our insects, we lose an anchor to the land.
Which is why I was thrilled, this week, to read of two new initiatives to re-establish populations of both cicadas and glow-worms across parts of England. I may associate glowing and buzzing with other countries, but they are part of our heritage here in Britain, too.
Other features this week include:
- Northumberland Council rejects lynx reintroduction
- The damage caused by bottom trawling
- How to restore abandoned farmland to meadow
- How to make Bin Soup
- A long read on Boothby Wildland
National news
Species | Natural England has revealed 130 projects set to receive a share of £60m under the Species Recovery Programme. Billed as the ‘largest ever investment in recovering England’s wildlife’, the programme will target 364 threatened species, including some only found in England. Funded research includes using detection dogs to locate the elusive ghost orchid, and tracking dolphins’ and porpoises’ exposure to PFAS chemicals. Some projects will operate at a national scale – such as one to restore native white-clawed crayfish – while others will focus on species restricted to a handful of sites, including the heath lobelia in Devon and Cornwall. Other targeted species include the bird’s eye primrose, bittern, northern dune tiger beetle, water vole, freshwater pearl mussel, swallowtail butterfly, New Forest cicada, and glutinous snail. ITV and ENDS reported the news.
Heatwave | A marine heatwave could reach ‘extreme’ levels around parts of the UK this week, according to the Met Office. Scientists warn that the phenomenon, which has developed rapidly due to last month’s ‘heat dome’, poses a serious threat to marine ecosystems. The heatwave is currently strongest off the coast of southern and eastern England, with a network of buoys recording temperatures 5.3C warmer than usual at Hastings, and 4.3C above average east of the Thames Estuary. Zoe Jacobs at the National Oceanography Centre said that conditions are likely to worsen over the coming week of continued warm weather, and that Britain could experience mass marine mortality events similar to seagrass and fishery die-offs seen during heatwaves in Australia. The news was widely covered by national outlets.
Farming | Environmental organisations including the RSPB have written to the secretary of state Emma Reynolds, asking her to ensure that nature-friendly farming is not ‘left in limbo’ by expiring agri-environment agreements. Thousands of these long-standing agreements will end this year, representing around 300,000 hectares of protected habitat. The long-awaited Farming Roadmap, which was published in June, commits to supporting farmers with expiring agreements to transition into new schemes, but not that every existing agreement will be replicated. The letter outlines recommended solutions, including scaling up access to the Countryside Stewardship scheme so that more farmers can manage land in a nature-friendly way, and preventing ‘funding cliff edges’ by allowing farmers to apply for new agreements before their existing ones expire.
In other news:
- The Nature’s Rights Bill has passed its second reading in the House of Lords, with the government ‘open in principle’ to enshrining the right to a healthy environment. Its sponsor, Natalie Bennett, wrote about the Bill in the Ecologist.
- An investigation by the Ferret finds that £4m of Scottish government funding for the ‘nature emergency’ has been spent by local authorities on non-environmental issues.
- Defra broke the law when it granted emergency authorisation of bee-killing pesticides in 2023 and 2024, according to the OEP. The Guardian reported the news.
- Last week Defra announced a £47m funding boost for peatland restoration; Edie and Farmers Guardian covered the news. The Wildlife Trusts pointed out that much of the funding went to lowland peat projects, leaving upland peat with a critical funding gap.
- MPs have demanded full publication of the report by UK intelligence agencies that warned biodiversity collapse threatens national security, reports the Guardian.
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