Latest News

Scottish Beaver Forum

Thursday, November 5, 2020

In Scotland, beavers became a European Protected Species in May 2019. Their numbers have expanded across Tayside and beyond in recent years, centuries after they became extinct. Beavers are amazing ecosystem engineers, playing a vital role in creating habitats such as ponds and wetlands where other species thrive, alleviating flooding and improving water quality. But beavers also detrimentally impact on some areas of prime farmland by causing flooding of fields.

Rewild to mitigate the climate crisis, urge leading scientists

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Restoring degraded natural lands highly effective for carbon storage and avoiding species extinctions

Restoring natural landscapes damaged by human exploitation can be one of the most effective and cheapest ways to combat the climate crisis while also boosting dwindling wildlife populations, a scientific study finds.

Partial removal of Long Preston weir

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Last week, the Ribble Rivers Trust completed a partial removal of the ‘Long Preston weir’, taking out 60% of the weir. The weir had a width of 21 metres across the river and a head of around 0.5m.

The weir is located on the river Ribble within the Long Preston Deeps floodplain, near the historic town of Settle in North Yorkshire. The weir only starts to appear on maps in the 1970s and was originally built to provide aeration to Settle sewage treatment works (adjacent to the site) but is no longer required due to advances in sewage treatment works.

Riparian Tree Planting Grant Programme

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

£1.4m of new funding for tree-planting projects with a focus on the water environment this financial year.

This programme is competitive and will be prioritised by the EA, first at an area level and secondly on a national level. We will be prioritising projects based on the following criteria: - Confidence in ability to deliver by March 2021 - Contribution to improving water environment including WFD status, NFM etc. - Value for money - Scale, we will be looking for larger projects in the region of £50 – 95k.

Environment Agency open to replacement of WFD

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

The Environment Agency has admitted that surface and groundwater quality in England has remained static from 2016 to 2019 and is "a long way from the government’s ambitions". 

It has also confirmed to Environment Analyst that it is considering advocating new UK legislation to replace the EU’s Water Framework Directive but denied that this will lead to a degradation of environmental standards.

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