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There’s universal acknowledgement that we need more trees to help prevent species extinction and to tackle climate change. But how should we achieve this expansion of tree cover? Tree planting has become a go-to option but natural regeneration has a key role to play. 

Our latest report pulls together evidence that shows:

A new £2.2 million project could enable more reliable assessments of how human activities cause global insect declines, as well as better predictions of future species trends.

Despite widespread reports of reduced insect populations, there is currently limited evidence to link species losses to specific threats says Dr Nick Isaac of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), who is leading the study.

The project will therefore bring together diverse sources of data including expert knowledge to assess the impact of...

Life on earth depends on healthy soil – and experts hope a new online community hub will inspire policymakers, researchers, farmers, planners and the public to take action to protect this precious but degrading resource.

Soils are essential for food production, biodiversity, clean water and also regulating climate due to their ability to store and capture carbon. However, a third of the world’s soils are degraded due to intensive agriculture, pollution and climate change - resulting in large amounts of carbon dioxide being...

Sophus zu Ermgassen and Dr Joseph Bull, researchers at the Durrell Institute for Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, discuss what the impacts of mandatory Net Gain are likely to be and what wildlife and environmental groups need to think about next.

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Sightings of kingfishers in the capital have increased by 450 per cent since 2000, thanks to significant river restoration projects

The fleeting sight of a kingfisher flitting across the water has become more common in London over the last two decades thanks to ongoing efforts to rewild the city’s waterways.

That’s according to a report by the Catchment Partnerships in London Group (CPiL), which manages the city’s rivers. It found that sightings of the blue and orange birds have increased by...

Ian Jelley, Director of Living Landscapes for Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, explains why helping nature recover is as essential for us as it is for wildlife.

In the modern times we live in, it’s easy to forget just how reliant we are on the natural world. Especially as technology advances, solving life’s challenges and sometimes providing solutions to problems we didn’t even know we had. But with that ‘progression’ comes further separation from our relationship with the natural world; and that can result in unintended...

Richard Wills has a record of breaking new ground with conservation on the Middleton, Portway and Wades estates. His team won a Laurent Perrier Award in 1990 for rewetting the water meadows for waders, and in 2016 they received a Purdey Award for grey partridge restoration. He is currently rewilding three miles of the Test as well as researching how to improve...

Check out this article on MICS (Measuring the impacts of citizen science) on page 15 of the ECRR Technical Newsletter.

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Thames21 has begun restoring part of the river Cray, a chalk stream, at Foots Cray Meadows near Sidcup, south London. We aim to restore 800m of the river between now and March 2021 by adding large wood into the channel.

Chalk streams are a rare habitat globally; only approximately 200 exist worldwide. Eighty-five per cent of these are in southern England. The river Cray is a healthy urban chalk stream along part of its stretches, but it suffers the same pressures as any other urban river: plastic and other pollution, artificial...