GreyShuck

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
 

Campaigners have said they have "little faith" in a water firm's commitment to cut pollution at a seafront.

Northumbrian Water has agreed to pay out £15.7m after failures in the maintenance and operations of its sewage and water network.

As part of this deal, the firm agreed to a "binding commitment" to work with the Environment Agency (EA) to ensure its system at Whitburn, South Tyneside, complied fully with environmental legislation.

 

A critically endangered fungus reintroduced to the UK, where it had been extinct, is still not growing but scientists say it is too early to suggest a project to save it has failed.

Parts of the fungus known as willow gloves were moved from the Scottish borders to woodlands in Cumbria in March last year.

Natural England fungi specialist Matt Wainhouse said this type of relocation had not been tried before and had not been straightforward.

Some specimens had since been eaten by rodents and others would not grow but Mr Wainhouse said this "doesn't mean the fungi is dead or that this has failed - it's just too early to tell".

 

Conservationists have abseiled down a 60-metre gorge in the Highlands to tackle invasive species such as Japanese knotweed in a bid to protect biodiversity in Scotland.

Rope access specialists from the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) dealt with invasive plants which had grown in crags in Corrieshalloch Gorge National Nature Reserve in Wester Ross.

The gravity-defying feat is part of efforts to tackle invasive non-native species (INNS), including Japanese knotweed and rhododendron ponticum, under NTS’s new Plan for Nature, which identified it as the main driver of nature loss in Scotland.

 

Over the past 50 years, global aquaculture including fish, mussel and seaweed farms has grown dramatically. Almost half of the world’s wild-caught fish is used to produce fishmeal and oils that feed farmed fish.

Mussel farming provides a more sustainable alternative protein source for human diets, because mussels filter feed on plankton and do not have to be fed wild-caught fish. Mussel farming also takes some pressure off the need for so much industrial agriculture and fish farming, and could therefore help reduce greenhouse gas emissions of food production – in line with the UK’s goal to reach net zero by 2050.

Most mussel farms are typically located in sheltered bays but as space to grow mussels inshore is limited, there isn’t always room to grow mussels at scale.

 

The Solway coastline in south west Scotland has secured a major funding boost to help with its conservation, restoration and development.

It is the first project to secure support through the National Lottery Heritage Fund's (NLHF) £150m Landscape Connections initiative.

The Solway Coast and Marine Landscape Connections Project, external - Scamp for short - will receive £1.4m to shape plans which will help unlock a further £6.4m.

 

Beneath the surface of the ocean is a world filled with a vast array of fauna and flora but scientists say "somewhat unusual" changes are taking place. Intensified by a marine heatwave in May, they say waters off the south coast of England are getting warmer and disrupting the food chain.

"I'm not a scientist or anything like that," said Cornish snorkeler and underwater photographer Heather Hamilton.

"But because I've been in the sea so much over the last 20-odd years, I have seen changes, especially in the last two years."

 

Academics from Liverpool John Moores University, along with rangers and volunteers from the National Trust, are working together to explore what factors make pied flycatchers, a fly eating bird slightly smaller than a house sparrow and on the amber list of conservation concern, decide where to nest on the Longshaw Estate in the Peak District. The study will also provide data to uncover how these birds are adapting in an ever-changing world.

The project which featured on last night’s Springwatch on BBC2 and iPlayer, named “Should I stay, or should I go?” will see researchers analyse bird poo and data about microhabitat differences around nest boxes to help ornithologists and conservationists understand more about what gives these fascinating birds, whose numbers are in decline in the UK but doing well at Longshaw, the best chance of breeding success.

The National Trust has been working on a pied flycatcher nesting conservation project at Longshaw since 2014 following population declines across the UK.

 

Conservationists have hailed the white stork as "an emblem for nature recovery" as they work to reintroduce the long-vanished breeding bird to the UK.

Once a common sight in Britain, with their large nests adorning rooftops, buildings, and trees, the birds disappeared centuries ago due to hunting and habitat loss. While migratory storks still visit from the continent, conservationists say that the lack of existing colonies prevents them from settling to breed.

Since 2016, a reintroduction project in southern England has been underway, aiming to establish new colonies using rehabilitated injured storks. These colonies are intended to act as a "magnet," attracting other wild birds to settle and breed.

 

The government’s leading environmental adviser has said ministers are wrong to suggest nature is blocking development.

Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, is to oversee a national nature restoration fund, paid into by developers, which will enable builders to sidestep environmental obligations at a particular site – even if it is a landscape protected for its wildlife.

Central to Labour’s growth plan, the controversial planning and infrastructure bill cuts environmental regulations to fast-track the construction of 1.5m homes by the end of this parliament, according to three legal opinions.

 

Labour is using post-Brexit freedoms to override EU nature laws and allow chalk streams and nightingale habitats to be destroyed, MPs have said.

The planning and infrastructure bill going through parliament will allow developers to circumvent EU-derived environmental protections and instead pay into a nature restoration fund.

This would override the habitats directive, which protects animals including otters, salmon and dormice. Under the new bill it will be possible to pay into the fund and build over their habitats.

 

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust has today launched Wilder Derbyshire 2030, a bold and hopeful strategy to reverse the decline in the county’s wildlife — powered by people and rooted in local action, equity, and green skills.

The launch comes alongside a stark new State of Nature in Derbyshire report, revealing that at least five much-loved bird species — the willow tit, marsh tit, hawfinch, spotted flycatcher, and lesser spotted woodpecker — have suffered steep declines in the county. The lesser spotted woodpecker is now on the brink of disappearing locally.

These declines are being driven by habitat loss, unsustainable land use, species persecution, and climate change. But Derbyshire Wildlife Trust says this crisis can still be turned around if people are empowered and supported to act.

 

Nightingales don’t sing much during the daytime. So when their clear, pure voices rang out from some brambles in Kent on a late spring morning, it felt as if they were campaigning for their home.

Their music has charmed writers from Keats to Oscar Wilde. But over the decades, the little brown bird has had its habitat gradually hacked away because the thick brambles it likes to nest in have little use for humans.

And now one of its most important strongholds is under threat from the Labour government’s planning and infrastructure bill. For the best part of a decade, developers have been eying up Lodge Hill in Kent, where more than 100 singing birds are known to live. The derelict army training camp, which is mostly off-limits to the public though there is a footpath through some of the woodland, is prime brownfield, a 10-minute drive from Strood, which is on the high-speed line to London.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 28 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

Yes. Why do you ask?

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 1 points 4 weeks ago

Ha, yes. They have now updated the photos. I imagine that there were quite a few people pointing this out to them.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (4 children)

The photos that the Independent are using at North American elk - Cervus canadensis. However, the species that they are actually looking to introduce are Aces alces - Eurasian elk, which are what North Americans know as moose.

The Guardian did get this right a few days back.

ETA: they have now corrected the photos.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I think that it does improve after ep1, but we still abandoned it after around 4 eps. There was still nothing compelling or that added to the overall Duniverse.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 5 points 1 month ago

Not specifically for the eyes or posture, but for overall approach and attitude to situations like this:

  • Marcus Aurelius' quote: Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. - and stoicism in general.
  • Imagine them sitting on the toilet. You can't take them too seriously like that.
  • Take a longer perspective: consider whether this interaction will be of any significance at all in 10 years time?
[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shroud, after a bit of delay in the middle. Some good world-building and interesting concepts, and an engaging tale - but not quite up with Children of Time, I'd say.

About a third of the way through Iain M Banks' Use of Weapons. It seems too focused on the flashbacks - which have not coalesced into a cohesive whole so far. There is still plenty of time, of course.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Comments like that say far more about the person saying it than about the person being described most of the time, I'd say.

I'd need to know how good the describer is like in that area before I could make any assessment about the describee.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes. This is one of his Culture novels. I've been enjoying them so far.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

The run up to a fortnight of holiday for me, so the days were simultaneously dragging and full of stuff that I was trying to get finished or progressed as much as possible.

However, now I am dozing in the sun with the requisite amounts of clotted cream and cider and a stack of books (Banks' Use of Weapons at the moment).

Once the BH crowds have thinned, I will probably get out for some coastal hikes too.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago

Very little is grabbing me right now. Probably only The Phoenician Scheme really.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

I had a nap yesterday afternoon, which is probably the first for several months. However, I am on holiday for a couple of weeks now, so will probably be having more over that time.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 4 points 1 month ago

Pizza, cheesecake, wife's puppy eyes,

view more: ‹ prev next ›