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Cold, dark days, post-Christmas debt, abandoned resolutions… New Year can be a challenging time of year for many people. The temptation to hide under your duvet and hibernate until April can feel tempting, but nature has a remarkable way of healing – both itself and us. Read Next Lynx captured in Scotland may have come from black market for exotic pets square NEWS Lynx captured in Scotland may have come from black market for exotic pets Read More

Winter might appear barren, but it is a vital phase of renewal for the natural world and a perfect time to reconnect with it in a more mindful way. Bare-limbed trees and bushes make it easier to spot wildlife, while resident birds are joined by the Continent and beyond.

Shorter days and a cooler climate chase away the crowds from our gorgeous National Parks and tourist hot spots, setting the scene for a more tranquil experience. And the benefits of spending time in nature are widely recognised, with outdoor jaunts into the fresh air paying dividends for both mental and physical health.

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has published its third assessment of the Government’s progress on improving the natural environment. This report covers the period of April 2023 to March 2024. It should be noted that the Government has this week just published its response to the second assessment.

This third assessment report was launched today at an event in London with presentations from Natalie Prosser (CEO), Dame Glenys Stacey (Chair) and Dr Cathy Maguire (Head of Assessments). and hosted by Professor Robbie McDonald (Chief Insights Officer). As Dame Glenys noted, this is a “weighty tome” that provides an in-depth assessment of improving nature.

The OEP is now into its fourth year of operations and continues its robust approach to holding government to account, including current work on protected sites and inspection regimes.

Rivers in his constituency are “drowning under a barrage of pollution”, says David Chadwick.

The Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe MP said in a Westminster Hall debate that he is privileged to represent a constituency that is home to some of the UK’s most powerful rivers, including the Wye, Usk and Towy.

But he said “these national treasures” are heavily polluted, harming the environment and local wildlife and “jeopardising industries such as tourism, leisure and angling”.

Dolphins, otters, porpoises, fish and birds across the UK have been found to have toxic “forever chemicals” in their tissue and organs, analysis of official data has revealed.

Manmade chemicals called PFAS, known as forever chemicals because they do not degrade, are used in a wide range of consumer products and industrial processes and some have been linked to serious diseases in humans and animals, including cancers. PFAS have been found widely to pollute water and soils and are thought to be in the blood of every human on the planet.

Watershed Investigations, the Marine Conservation Society and the Guardian obtained official data on more than 1,000 animals to reveal widespread contamination by a range of PFAS, particularly PFOS and PFOA, which have been studied the longest and found to be toxic, and are now banned. However, there are more than 10,000 types of PFAS and little is known about the toxic effects of most of them.

Some of the schemes are relatively modest, such as orchards planted with heritage varieties of fruit and nut trees, while others are much grander, thousands of trees linking up existing patches of woodland to create nature-rich forests.

Almost half a million trees are being planted in England this winter in a partnership between the National Trust and a UK-government funded project, creating woodlands, wood pasture, hedgerows and orchards.

One of the most eye-catching schemes is at Buckland Abbey near Plymouth in Devon, where more than 30,000 trees are being planted.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded more than £3m to a programme working to restore nature and protect heritage on Dartmoor.

Dartmoor National Park Authority said the Dartmoor Dynamic Landscapes partnership was given £3,124,179 to help restore nature and protect and "enhance the cultural heritage" in the area.

It said the work would help deliver a wide range of projects covering rivers, habitat and species conservation, as well as creative events and engagement activities.

A marine biologist has recorded more types of plastic bottle washed up on Guernsey's beaches than the total variety of fish in UK waters.

In the last seven years Richard Lord said he had logged more than 330 types - the same number as the total of different fish species recorded by the UK government, external.

He said: "Plastic water bottles are a single use item that get discarded in unimaginable amounts and it litters the environment all over the world."

Experts are warning of the risks of spreading invasive and non-native species when moving large volumes of untreated lake, reservoir and river water.

Development of cities and the demands of agriculture mean that huge volumes of untreated water from lakes, reservoirs and rivers are now routinely moved large distances, across countries, up to hundreds of miles, using pipelines, tunnels and water supply canals. Known as raw water transfers schemes, these projects are essential for human uses but risk moving not just water but also wildlife, spreading invasive and non-native species, such as zander fish and zebra mussels.

In a series of new papers, researchers from Newcastle University and the University of Stirling are now warning that invasive species can be moved between often unlinked waterbodies by the intentional transfer of water and call for action.

Leading scientists have criticised the UK government for failing to take stronger action to tackle “forever chemical” pollution and refusing to match moves in the EU to ban non-essential uses of the substances.

Last year, 59 experts in per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) sent a letter to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) asking it to follow the science, which has established that PFAS do not biodegrade and that despite variations in toxicity, this persistence itself is sufficiently worrying that all PFAS should be regulated as one class.

PFAS pollution is so widespread that the chemicals are thought to be in the blood of almost every human on the planet. Of the more than 10,000 known to be in existence, two are widely banned after decades of scientific study that eventually proved them to be toxic and linked to cancers as well as a range of other serious diseases.

The window to stop the decline of England’s nature is swiftly closing, the environmental watchdog has said, as its latest report finds that the government is falling short on most of its targets to improve the environment.

Some of Labour’s actions, however, including setting up a water commission and writing a new environmental improvement plan, were praised by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) in its annual review of how the government was meeting the legally binding environment targets.

The OEP’s chair, Glenys Stacey, said: “With each passing month, the window of opportunity to redress environmental harms is closing, while the effort needed and cost to do so increases. This government must act urgently and decisively to catch up if it is to meet its legal obligations.

In the third round of the Carbon Innovation Fund, a partnership between Co-op and their charity, the Co-op Foundation, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust was selected amongst seven organisations across the UK to develop innovative ways to grow the food we need without damaging precious UK peatlands.

Peatlands are some of the most carbon-rich ecosystems on earth, storing twice as much carbon as the world’s forests, and play a role in cooling the planet, supporting biodiversity and reducing flood risk.

However, because peatland is also nutrient rich, it is sometimes drained to grow crops or broken up to put the peat into compost. This degradation of peatland causes greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and destroys some of the UK’s most important ecosystems.

A marshland nature reserve built with the help of more than three million tonnes of soil from the Crossrail scheme is to be expanded.

RSPB Wallasea Island, in Essex, includes vast amounts of material excavated during the construction of tunnels beneath London for the Elizabeth Line.

This was brought to Wallasea by ship and used to raise land levels and create a new 115-hectare intertidal area of salt marsh, islands and mudflats at the Crouch and Roach estuaries.