England is a step closer to restoring native oyster reefs across its coastal and estuarine waters, following the publication of a new report identifying where large-scale restoration could be most feasible and beneficial.

Once widespread around our coasts, native oyster reefs have suffered dramatic declines over the last two centuries. Restoring these remarkable ecosystems could play a vital role in marine nature recovery, boosting biodiversity, improving water quality and helping to create healthier, more resilient coast.

The report commissioned by the Environment Agency through the Restoring Meadows, Marsh and Reef (ReMeMaRe) Initiative, has been delivered through a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth, ZSL (Zoological Society of London) (founding partners of the Native Oyster Network UK and Ireland), The University of Edinburgh and Herriot-Watt University.

Children in East Sussex have described their outdoor rewilding sessions as helping them to feel calmer.

Project Rewild, which receives support from BBC Children in Need, is based in Hastings and offers children the opportunity to connect with the natural world, whatever the weather, during half-term.

George, one of the youngsters taking part, told BBC South East: "It's about being outside, making friends and enjoying the nature.

A 370-acre (150-hectare) area of land on the edge of Cambridge has been returned to the care of the National Trust - for the first time in 60 years.

The area - known as Northfield - runs alongside the opposite side of Quy Road towards Bottisham, seven miles (11km) from the city and close to Anglesey Abbey.

The National Trust hopes to restore the natural site to create new wildlife habitats and improve community access to green space.

More than 76,000 sewage spills were recorded after new monitoring equipment was installed at waste overflow sites in Scotland, BBC analysis suggests.

The addition of 1,009 sewer monitors in 2024 increased the proportion of the Scottish Water network being monitored from 6% to 30%.

Now the latest figures have revealed tens of thousands of spills which would previously have been unrecorded, including hundreds at beauty spots like Loch Lomond.

Outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) can cause large population losses across a wide range of bird species. By combining data from 40 different mass mortality events across the world, new research shows that some bird groups, such as gulls, terns and other seabirds, appear more likely to suffer significant population losses, than others, such as waterfowl.

HPAI is a contagious, and potentially deadly, viral infection which spreads between birds through saliva, nasal secretions, droppings, predation and scavenging. Where outbreaks occur, thousands of birds can die, causing an initial drop in population size.

Researchers at the RSPB collated datasets from across the world where bird populations were monitored before, during and after HPAI outbreaks which occurred pre-2020.

Millions of children across the UK say climate change is impacting their wellbeing after relentless heatwaves, wildfires and flooding.

Teenagers have said this year's extreme heat has left them feeling "powerless" and "hopeless" for the future, with experts explaining that climate anxiety is a sense of fear and worry linked to the changing climate.

Rebecca Fulford, 21, from Gloucestershire, said: "Often it feels like young people have the most expectation on them to take action. However they also have the least power."

A wildlife charity says numbers of a rare butterfly in a wood have "boomed", exploding by 922% after it was reintroduced.

Butterfly Conservation (BC) said it had recorded 746 Wood Whites at Fineshade Wood in Rockingham Forest, near Corby, Northamptonshire, compared to just 73 in 2025.

Twenty adult Wood Whites, a butterfly classified as endangered in Great Britain, external, had been taken to the Forestry England site in 2024 from Hazelborough Forest and Bucknell Wood, close to Silverstone.

The concentration of two of the most well-studied PFAS forever chemicals are showing a strong downward trend in English rivers. The finding adds to a mixed story for the power of global restrictions.

The levels of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in English rivers have fallen by 30 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively, over the past decade, according to a new report by scientists at the Environment Agency (EA), a UK government green regulator.

Both of these human-made chemicals take a long time to break down in the environment. The International Agency for Research on Cancer recently designated PFOA as carcinogenic to humans, and both forever chemicals have been linked to reproductive health and developmental impacts as well as other serious health issues.

Annual bird counts on the Farne Islands have revealed mixed fortunes for the internationally important seabird colonies, with declines recorded among puffins and several other species following an exceptionally difficult winter in the north Atlantic.

Annual bird counts on the Farne Islands have revealed mixed fortunes for the internationally important seabird colonies, with declines recorded among puffins and several other species following an exceptionally difficult winter in the north Atlantic.

This year's count by National Trust rangers recorded declines in several species. European shags recorded one of the steepest declines, falling 42% from 96 to 56 breeding pairs. Arctic terns fell 27%, from 519 to 377 breeding pairs, northern fulmars declined 21%, from 235 to 186 breeding pairs, and common guillemots fell 11%, from 44,059 to 39,059 individuals.

Despite being one of Britain’s most biodiverse habitats, only around 30,000 hectares of Scotland’s rainforest remains.

A project to help restore Scotland’s “internationally significant” rainforest while supporting rural communities has received nearly £6 million in lottery funding.

Our Rainforest Futures will see “rainforest guardians” created across Scotland’s west coast, through hubs at Torridon and Morvern in the Highlands, and at mid-Argyll in Argyll and Bute.

Up to 900 artificial nest "cups" for threatened house martins are set to be installed in Hampshire as part of a conservation project.

The birds migrate from Africa each spring and are on the UK's Red List of endangered bird species. They are thought to have suffered from a lack of wet mud to build nests during the extreme heat in the summer.

Following a pilot project, The Hampshire House Martins Project is offering free cups which save the birds time and energy compared to building their own mud nests.

A stretch of the Cleddau River Special Area of Conservation (SAC), has been restored by Natural Resources Wales’s (NRW) Four Rivers for LIFE project.

500 tonnes of boulders were reintroduced into 650 metres of the Afon Wern - a key tributary of the protected Cleddau River SAC with the aim of improving the river habitat, supporting wildlife and restoring more natural river processes.

This stretch of the Afon Wern has suffered from dredging in the past, and surveys of the river by staff confirmed this, as the boulders that had been removed were found along the riverbank.

Scottish Woodlands is involved in an exciting nature recovery project at Glen Dye Moor in Aberdeenshire.

The scheme is designed to slow the flow of the Water of Dye, a tributary of the River Dee, and enhance biodiversity in the area.

Most people know rainforests are vital in the fight against climate change, but now scientists say wetlands could be even more important.

Saltmarshes, mangrove swamps and wetlands can absorb carbon "four times faster than trees", according to the charity the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT).

Celebrating 80 years since WWT's first wetland bird reserve was founded at Slimbridge, in Gloucestershire, the charity's leaders have called for one million hectares of wetlands to be restored across the world.

Conservationists say thousands of rare flowers have been saved from falling into the sea on the Moray coast.

In the UK, the one-flowered wintergreen can only be found in pine woodlands in north-east Scotland.

More than half the entire population of the star-shaped flower have been lost over the last 50 years.

Fylde’s coastline is now officially among the best in the country for nature, after the Fylde Saltmarsh Project won a national award at the CIRIA Biodiversity Challenge Awards 2026.

The win was announced at a ceremony on Thursday 5 November. It celebrates the work to restore the saltmarsh at Fairhaven after the new sea wall was built. The project used innovative nature-based techniques to strengthen this unique habitat, so it can help protect our coast from the sea while giving birds, plants and wildlife a richer place to live.

The project has explored installing sediment traps made from biodegradable potato starch and using plants grown in a nearby nursery. These measures are intended to repair damaged areas of saltmarsh, rather than extend the marsh into new areas.

The National Trust has voted overwhelmingly to seek a new banking partner in a significant victory for members who have long argued that its relationship with Barclays was at odds with its commitment to protecting the natural world.

The resolution, passed at the charity’s annual general meeting on Saturday with the backing of its board of trustees, instructs the organisation to begin a competitive tendering process for its banking arrangements.

That process will, for the first time, centre on the condition that the new bank demonstrates a positive commitment to protecting biodiversity and reducing the human-induced climate crisis.

Habitat work and a monitoring scheme have helped hazel dormice thrive at a National Trust site, despite declines elsewhere, experts have said.

Killerton National Trust has 100 nest boxes across its estate in Devon. Rangers weigh and record details of each mouse between April and October.

The trust said the animals "continue to thrive" in the area - a sign it was "doing something right" by creating a "healthy, diverse and well-connected habitat for wildlife".

Dormouse numbers may be recovering in England and Wales after years of decline, offering a rare piece of good news for one of our best-loved mammals.

The animal has disappeared from much of the countryside with conservationists warning of a long-term collapse in its population.

However, new data suggests dormouse numbers increased between 2020-2025, a period that coincided with warmer springs and summers.

A charity wants to raise £70,000 for a project aimed at boosting wildlife populations on farmland in the Thames Valley.

The Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) said the money would form part of its Nature Recovery Fund and would be used to tackle falling numbers of birds, bees and butterflies.

The trust said farmland bird populations had fallen by 63% since 1970, while half of the UK's 27 bumblebee species were in decline.

A UK wildlife group says it’s recorded the highest number of pine marten sightings since it began surveying an ancient forest in Wales. The small, furry mammals are rarely seen; they’re elusive, coming out at dusk or night to hunt their prey and the Vincent Wildlife Trust says more of them indicates the health of the forest is improving.

White-tailed eagles reintroduced into England and Wales imperil endangered seabird populations and risk wiping out some colonies, ecologists and conservationists are warning.

Puffins, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and kittiwakes are among the birds for which breeding populations could collapse if large numbers of white-tailed eagles are released, according to some academics and conservationists.

“Amidst all the excitement and enthusiasm for reintroducing white-tailed eagles, the fact that these birds will probably destroy our seabird colonies seems to have been completely overlooked,” said Tim Birkhead, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Sheffield.

As the clouds begin to break over the horizon on the Southern Pennines and a ray of sunlight peeks out, the slosh of rain boots can be heard trekking up the hill on this chilly morning in Yorkshire.

With wind gusts reaching up to 30mph and the rain looming in the distance, 25 local volunteers gather near the unique rock formations at Bridestones Moor for a first-of-a-kind peatland restoration project.

“This is special,” says Anthony Arak, one of the founders of Bridestones Rewilded, of the project. The not-for-profit community interest company bought the 114-acre moorland from a private landowner two years ago to restore and protect it from overfarming.

Restoration work has begun at the site of a devastating wildfire in a national park.

More than 1 sq km (247 acres) of the New Forest was destroyed after a fire spread from a blazing van on 9 August.

The fire caused damage to rare heathland and an ancient woodland, as well as burning through a surface layer of peat in some of the boggy areas, reducing their ability to store carbon.

Climate change readiness and helping people access the countryside are among priorities in a five-year plan for a national landscape.

The North Pennines National Landscape Management Plan 2026-31 has been adopted by the Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness, County Durham and Northumberland councils.

Work to ensure the North Pennines was "as prepared as possible for future climate challenges" included restoring peatland to help reduce flooding and equipping farmers with wildfire fighting equipment such as drones.