The National Trust’s wetlands project officer has described the effect of four Eurasian beavers on the ecosystem as astonishing, a year after they were reintroduced into the wild in England for the first time in 400 years.
Beavers were hunted to extinction in England in the 16th century and remained absent until a year ago, when a landmark project announced by the National Trust, Defra and Natural England released two pairs relocated from Scotland into a freshwater lake in the Purbeck Heaths nature reserve in Dorset. Since their release, the beavers have constructed a 35-metre dam, improving local habitats for plants, insects, amphibians, birds and bats. Trail cameras even captured the beavers playing with an otter, while a barn owl, a protected species in the UK, was also seen flying nearby.
The project allows for the release of 10 to 25 adult beavers, with the next release expected to take place this autumn.
Beavers ‘breathe new life’ into Dorset as dams built and biodiversity returns
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/05/2026 - 06:00
The US has invoked national security to remove protections for the endangered cetacean, of which only about 50 are left
Since before modern humans existed Rice’s whales have been diving to the depths of the ocean to gorge on fat-rich fish while growing to leviathan proportions, their bodies spanning the length of a bus and weighing as much as as six elephants.
Unfortunately for these grand creatures, their only home became a patch of the Gulf of Mexico that the oil and gas industry, much later, became highly interested in for drilling. Only about 50 of these baleen whales still exist on Earth, surrounded by clanging aquatic highways of boats and shifting drilling infrastructure.
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04/05/2026 - 02:00
The Reform UK leader’s energy bill giveaway certainly grabs our attention – but it’s a distraction from the real winners and losers
You can already imagine the video.
A man stands in the middle of a suburban English street holding a wad of cash in his hands. Grinning at the camera he says: “I’m about to pay this entire street’s energy bills.” Cut to gliding drone footage of the neighbourhood. The man knocks on a front door and a bewildered looking woman answers in a fleecy dressing gown. “Congratulations, Carol. You’ve saved more than £1,000 this year!” High-energy electronic music swells to a climax as she gives him a hug. Then, a shot of the next neighbour receiving his prize, and another, and another, as a tally at the bottom right of the screen shows the total cash sum rising. Finally, the entire community is out on the street waving their hands with joy.
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04/05/2026 - 02:00
Under outgoing mayor Anne Hidalgo, the French capital added bike lanes, cut traffic and reclaimed public space, but not without resistance
When Corentin Roudaut moved to Paris 10 years ago, he was too scared to cycle. The IT developer had biked everywhere as a student in Rennes but felt overwhelmed by the bustling French capital. Cars were everywhere. Cyclists had almost no protection.
But once authorities carved out space for a segregated bike lane on Boulevard Voltaire near his home in the 11th arrondissement, Roudaut returned to the two-wheel commute and did not look back. He now volunteers with Paris en Selle, a cycling campaign group, and has watched with wonder as the city has shaken off its car-centric reputation.
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04/04/2026 - 15:00
Fifty ‘founder’ bilbies were released in fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing first wild population there in a century
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Efforts to reintroduce bilbies in the far south-west of New South Wales are showing signs of success, with numbers climbing to almost 2,000, seven years after the first breeding trial at Mallee Cliffs national park.
Fifty “founder” bilbies, including 30 from Thistle Island off the coast of South Australia, were released in a fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing a wild population in the Mallee Cliffs habitat for the first time in a century.
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04/04/2026 - 10:00
Researchers are weaving Native practices with western methods to revive ecosystems and reclaim food sovereignty
“I’m a glorified clam counter.”
So said Marco Hatch, a marine ecologist at Western Washington University and an enrolled member of the Samish Indian Nation. Hatch has been conducting surveys of mollusks growing in and around clam gardens in the Pacific north-west, as he collaborates with seven Indigenous communities to build or rebuild these rock-walled, terraced beaches once created and tended by their ancestors.
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04/04/2026 - 04:00
Exclusive: research finds Jackdaw field would provide only about 2% of current demand, and Rosebank only 1%
Opening major new fields in the North Sea would make almost no difference to the UK’s reliance on gas imports, research has shown.
The Jackdaw field, one of the largest unexploited gasfields in the North Sea, would displace only 2% of the UK’s current imports of gas, which would leave the UK still almost entirely dependent on supplies from Norway and a few other sources.
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04/04/2026 - 00:00
Citizen science data reveals early flowering, nesting and insect activity as global heating accelerate seasonal change
Bluebells are flowering, swallows are returning and orange-tip butterflies are flying in what could become Britain’s earliest recorded spring.
Records for early spring occurrences are being smashed as 2026 looks to be the earliest this century for frogspawn laying, blackbirds nesting, brimstone butterflies emerging and hazel flowering, according to Nature’s Calendar, which has logged citizen science records of seasonal change since 2000.
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04/03/2026 - 21:26
Datacentres ‘directly competing’ with possible residential builds near public transport, one council tells NSW inquiry, amid growing concerns
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Datacentre developments are crowding out opportunities for housing and job-rich industries across Sydney, a New South Wales inquiry has heard, with one local council reporting a rise in blackouts linked to the industry’s expansion.
Several Sydney councils, all facing an influx of datacentre developments, have raised concerns about the health, environmental and amenity impacts on their local communities in submissions to the state’s datacentre inquiry.
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04/03/2026 - 08:58
Proposal, a win for RFK Jr’s Maha movement, is a ‘first step’ toward tackling plastic pollution, advocates say
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed on Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities.
Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said the agency was responding to Americans who have worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to hand a win to health secretary Robert FKennedy Jr’s Maha movement, which for months has pressured Zeldin to further crack down on environmental contaminants.
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