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Headlines from week beginning 4 February 2019 |
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A round up of the top countryside, conservation, wildlife and forestry stories as chosen by the CJS Team.
New maps show more than a third of people can’t easily enjoy England’s
most beautiful countryside - CPRE Countryside charity CPRE calls for better access to our celebrated
landscapes England’s National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
(AONBs) are revered for their spectacular landscapes and contain the
country’s most iconic countryside, which can boost our physical health
and mental wellbeing. But today, the Campaign to Protect Rural England
(CPRE) launches detailed maps that show 36% of England’s population live
too far from the current network of 10 National Parks and 34 AONBs for
these areas to be classified as easily accessible. The maps show that the majority of people in many major towns and
cities, including Liverpool, Chester, Leicester, Cambridge, Northampton
and Peterborough, live outside of the accessible catchment area to these
beauty spots, and are more likely to miss out on benefits that easy and
regular access to these landscapes can bring. The maps also highlight a strong correlation between levels of social
deprivation and a lack of access to National Parks and AONBs, with
almost half of the most socially deprived areas of the country falling
outside of the accessible range. CPRE fears that the frequent lack of
affordable and sustainable transport options means that many people are
not able to access these places to enjoy the huge benefits they provide.
Scotland to increase carrier bag levy and place charge on disposable
drinks cups - Marine Conservation Society Scotland has taken the lead amongst the home nations to increase the
current 5p single-use carrier bag charge and put a levy on disposable
take-away drinks cups. Scottish National Party secured the support of the Greens to pass its
government’s budget last Thursday and among the environmental measures
announced by the Scottish finance secretary, Derek Mackay, was the
promise to increase the current single-use carrier bag charge to a
minimum of 10p ‘at the earliest opportunity’. There was also an
agreement to place a charge on disposable drinks cups from cafes and
restaurants – although no suggestion of the likely amount. Calum Duncan, MCS Head of Conservation Scotland, says the commitments
are pleasing: “The Scottish Government’s budget deal, including a
commitment to increase Scotland’s carrier bag charge to 10p, will, we
hope, encourage even more shoppers to bring their own reusable bags to
the shops. It is also encouraging that there is a commitment in
principle to introduce a charge on disposable drinks cups. Combined with
the Scottish Government’s UK-leading commitment to a deposit return
system, that we hope will be designed to include plastic, glass and
cans, these are welcome steps to help stop the plastic tide lapping our
shores.” The announcement puts Scotland ahead of the other home nations when
it comes to increased single-use charges.
Broads Authority takes steps to secure the future of rare bat species
- The Broads Authority The Broads Authority has invested in 30 Schwegler bat boxes which
will provide roosting places for the uncommon bat species, Nathusius’
pipistrelle.
The Nathusius’ pipistrelle has a strong hold in the Broads National
Park, with Whitlingham Country Park in Trowse being a hotspot for this
species. The bat boxes are woodpecker-proof and weather and
rot-resistant and have been erected in woodland around Whitlingham Broad
where it is hoped that they will be found by the bats and used for
roosting. The boxes will be inspected to search for individuals who have
been caught and ringed in the Country Park. Any recaptures will further
knowledge of the behaviour of the bat and help to continue conservation
efforts to secure its future. The numbers of this rare bat discovered in the Broads, and
particularly at Whitlingham, supports the staggering statistic that
although the Broads National Park only covers 0.1% of the country, it is
home to over a quarter of the UK’s rarest wildlife. Senior Ecologist for the Broads Authority, Andrea Kelly, said of the
project, “We’ve been so encouraged by the enthusiasm and community spirit that
these amazing bats have engendered. There has been a lot of
collaborative work between volunteers, landowners and charities to
monitor these bats and provide the correct habitat for them to thrive.
The Schwegler bat boxes will increase the chances of recapturing ringed
bats without the use of specialist equipment and will enable volunteers
to reveal more information about Nathusius’ pipistrelles in the Broads
National Park.”
Butterflies thrive in grasslands surrounded by forest
- Linköping University For pollinating butterflies, it is more important to be close to
forests than to agricultural fields, according to a study by researchers
at LiU and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in
Uppsala. The results provide important knowledge about how to plan and
manage the landscape to ensure the survival of butterflies. Semi-natural grasslands are one of Sweden’s most species-rich
habitats, with a multitude of plants and butterflies. However, the
amount of such areas has been reduced by 90% in the past 100 years.
Semi-natural grasslands are often preserved as just small fragments in
the landscape. Their loss has led to many species of butterfly being
decimated, and in some cases eliminated from parts of Sweden. The
researchers who carried out the new study, published in the scientific
journal Landscape Ecology, have investigated how the landscape around
these fragments influences different species of butterfly in southern
Sweden. A total of 32,000 butterflies from 77 species were found.
The species richness of butterflies was in general greater in
locations where large areas of semi-natural grasslands lay within 10-20
kilometres around the studied semi-natural grassland. Another important
landscape feature linked to a larger number of butterfly species was if
the grasslands were surrounded by forest. “Forests have habitats that butterfly can use, such as forest edges,
power lines, forestry tracks, glades and cleared areas. Together with
semi-natural grasslands, forests can be used to create landscapes that
butterflies thrive in. Agricultural fields, in contrast, seem to have
few resources that the butterflies can use, and the resources that are
available benefit only a few species”, says Karl-Olof Bergman, senior
lecturer in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM.
Report heralds major changes to NRW timber ops
- Natural Resources Wales Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is making major changes to its
commercial timber operations after publication of an independent report. NRW called in experts, Grant Thornton, to review its processes and
procedures after its accounts were “qualified” for three years running
by the Wales Audit Office. NRW says that it is already making improvements such as a
reorganisation at senior level and establishing new standards for timber
sales and training staff to achieve them. Access the: Governance of timber sales - The Grant Thornton Report
New Forestry Strategy sets out long term vision
- Forestry Commission Scotland Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy, Fergus Ewing, today launched
a new Strategy that will help to secure the long-term success and
sustainability of Scotland’s forestry sector. Scotland’s Forestry Strategy sets out the government’s approach over
the next 10 years to expand, protect and enhance Scotland’s forests and
woodlands. The strategy seeks to deliver greater economic, social and
environmental benefits for current and future generations. Developed in full consultation with a broad range of organisations,
it has three 10-year objectives for Scotland’s forests and woodlands:
The Strategy is a key element of the new, fully devolved arrangements
for forestry in Scotland underpinned by the 2018 Forestry and Land
Management (Scotland) Act, the first forestry Act passed by the Scottish
Parliament. Read the Scotland’s Forestry Strategy here
New research reveals the power of Blue Planet II - Keep Britain Tidy Environment wins as public back litter-picking More than 70% of people now view tackling litter as more important
than they used to and nearly three quarters (75%) feel more appreciative
of people who pick up litter according to a new survey carried for Keep
Britain Tidy by Ipsos MORI. The findings will be discussed at today’s Keep Britain Tidy Network
Conference, in Manchester, which aims to be the country’s first Tidy
City by 2020. In the survey, commissioned by the charity ahead of this year’s Great
British Spring Clean, the country’s biggest-ever mass-action
environmental campaign which aims to get half a million people out
litter-picking between March 22nd and April 23rd, 42% also said they
were more likely to pick up litter now, rather than walk past it. More than two-thirds (67%) also said they tried to purchase less
single-use plastic than they used to, and eight out of ten people said
they thought people who litter-pick are vital to protecting the
environment.
‘Eavesdropping’ technology used to protect one of New Zealand’s rarest
birds – ZSL ZSL scientists pioneer new method of monitoring hihi reintroductions
by listening in on bird ‘conversations’
Remote recording devices used to ‘eavesdrop’ on a reintroduced
population of one of New Zealand’s rarest birds have been heralded as a
breakthrough for conservation. Scientists from ZSL, Imperial College London and conservationists
from the Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust used acoustic monitoring devices
to listen in on the ‘conversations’ of New Zealand’s endemic hihi bird,
allowing them to assess the success of the reintroduction without
impacting the group. For the first time ZSL scientists were able to use the calls of a
species as a proxy for their movement. A happy hihi call sounds like two
marbles clanging together in what is known as the ‘stitch’ call.
Scientists saw the calls change from an initial random distribution to a
more settled home range – marking the hihi reintroduction and the new
method a success.
The study, published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, was
carried out in the Rotokare Scenic Reserve in the Taranaki region of
North Island, where 40 juvenile birds were released in April 2017. The
first time hihi have been seen in the region since their regional
extinction over 130 years ago.
New fund to increase walking, cycling and sustainable travel awards
£1million worth of grants – Paths for All A new fund to increase walking, cycling and sustainable travel across
Scotland has awarded over £1million of grants. Forty-five projects have received grants of between £5,000 and
£50,000 from the Smarter Choices, Smarter Places Open Fund since June
last year, all with the aim of changing people’s everyday travel
behaviour.
Rare dragonflies discovered at WWT reserve in Somerset WWT Steart is home to rare species of dragonflies, a study has found. Among the species identified is the Red Listed scarce chaser and
emerald, red-eyed, small red-eyed damselflies, brown hawker, scarce
chaser and ruddy darter, which have never been recorded onsite before. To date, a total of 19 species have been recorded at the marshes,
meriting the reserve with recognition as a Priority Site of Local
Importance. Site Manager Alys Laver said: The British Dragonfly Society survey was carried out to assess the
presence and activity of the colourful four-winged insects following
Steart’s transformation from low-lying fields into wetlands by WWT in
2014. The presence of the endangered scarce chaser has excited
conservationists hoping to find evidence that they are breeding on this
site this year allowing the area to be upgraded to Priority Site of
National Importance.
Who eats whom? DNA techniques uncover the secrets of food webs
- University of Helsinki Novel DNA-based techniques provide entirely new information on bats,
pollinators, fungi and other species that have been difficult to observe
previously. This is revolutionising our understanding of the world, as
most of the species on this planet are small and difficult to identify,
with previously unknown roles in the ecosystem. In recent years, research focused on interaction between species and
on entire biological communities has increasingly come to rely on
techniques based on DNA. Indeed, the advances in DNA techniques and the
details they reveal about biological communities are the focus of the
recently published special issue of the scientific journal Molecular
Ecology, including a significant contribution by Finnish researchers. New DNA techniques help determine the formation of complex food webs
through interaction between individual species: who eats whom, which
species decompose edible mushrooms and which pollinators visit what
plants. Many such interactions were undetectable using older techniques. Bats are a prime example of secretive species that are difficult to
study. For a long time, the diet of these nocturnal insectivores has
been guesswork. Now, prey species can be identified by investigating bat
faeces found in their daytime hideouts using DNA methods. Access all the articles. Drones in
Protected Areas: how can they help? -
Europarc Drones are taking the world by storm. Although at first, it might
seem like they are made solely for entertainment purposes, these
unmanned aerial vehicles are proving to be much more. Besides providing
astonishing images of your Park, they can be used to help technicians in
their daily work in monitoring protected areas. Many protected areas authorities are currently experiencing economic
difficulties which hamper the good undertaking of the many tasks they
have in order to ensure good management of the protected area. Drones
can therefore not only be of help, but also reduce costs and improve
effectiveness. This new technology has integrated the modern park management and is
used for multiple purposes (monitoring, mapping, remote sensing,
photography, technical interventions in inaccessible areas…), offering
numerous interesting possibilities. They allow scientists to reach places that were previously off limits
as they were either too remote, too dangerous or too time consuming to
explore. They can cover large areas of ground in great detail from a
completely different perspective – and as fast as ever. The list of the ways they can be used is really long – they are
getting very precise and lately, they have even been used to plant
trees!
Check also our article about the
different uses of drones for nature conservation.
Could theatre be a way forward in communicating conservation messages?
- University of York Theatre performances in zoos can be effective in increasing knowledge
of important conservation messages, a study at the University of York
has revealed. The study of puppet theatre performances watched by more than 14,000
children and 16,000 adults at Yorkshire’s Flamingo Land, showed a 22 per
cent increase in the accuracy of knowledge relating to animals and their
conservation in children and an 18 per cent increase in adults. Previous research has shown that conventional zoo education schemes
significantly increase learning in school children. Many visitors to zoos, particularly those with theme parks, however, are seeking entertainment, rather than to be educated, and therefore it is essential to conduct further study into the education experiences of zoo visitors.
Researchers found that both adults and children gave more correct
answers to the research questions following the theatre production. Dr Andrew Marshall, from the University of York’s Department of
Environment and Geography, said: "With hundreds of millions of people
visiting zoos across the world each year, global conservation
organisations emphasise the essential role that zoos play in inspiring
next generations of environmentalists. “Zoos have played a huge role in inspiring children to pursue careers
in conservation, including me. However, we all learn in different ways,
so if conservation educators use multiple approaches to get their
message across, we will all learn a lot more about animals and how to
help them survive." Access the paper: Sarah Louise Spooner,
Eric Allen Jensen, Louise Tracey & Andrew Robert Marshall (2019)
Evaluating the impacts of theatre-based wildlife and conservation
education at the zoo, Environmental Education Research, DOI:
10.1080/13504622.2019.1569201
Study explores new way to help increase conservation impact
- University of Southampton A study led by researchers at the University of Southampton reveals
huge variations in the similarity and breadth of animal roles in nature
across different parts of the world. The research, in partnership with Memorial University of
Newfoundland, goes beyond just counting the types of animals there are
and instead accounts for the differences between wildlife and their
roles in the environment. This information is important to conservation efforts, as it enables the identification of places where there are only a few species performing a role, as opposed to regions where many species carry out similar roles. The scientists combined multiple databases of information
concentrating on six biologically important attributes of the roles
animals play (traits). The selected traits included factors such as
diet, daily activity and body size for 15,485 bird and mammal species.
They were able to build a global picture of traits for different animals
– mapping which areas in the world had many overlapping roles and would
therefore benefit from habitat conservation, as well as for those which
had more unique, vulnerable ones and would benefit from species-focussed
conservation. Lead author Robert Cooke, from the University of Southampton,
comments: “This is a new way of looking at how we can maximise effective
conservation efforts and we hope that it will provide governments and
relevant charities worldwide with the big picture on which areas are
most at risk from losing the functionality of birds and mammals in the
environment – thus helping them to concentrate their efforts in the most
effective directions.” Read the paper (open access): Cooke
RSC, Bates AE, Eigenbrod F.
Global trade-offs of functional redundancy and functional dispersion for
birds and mammals. Global Ecol Biogeogr. 2019;00:1–12. doi:
10.1111/geb.12869
Scientific Publications Vlaschenko, A., Kovalov, V., Hukov, V. et al.
An
example of ecological traps for bats in the urban environment Eur J
Wildl Res (2019) 65: 20. doi: 10.1007/s10344-019-1252-z Cardador, L. and Blackburn, T. M. (2019),
Human-habitat associations in the native distributions of alien bird
species. J Appl Ecol. Accepted Author Manuscript.
doi:10.1111/1365-2664.13351 Oscar Blumetto, Andrés Castagna, Gerónimo Cardozo, Felipe García, Guadalupe Tiscornia, Andrea Ruggia, Santiago Scarlato, María Marta Albicette, Verónica Aguerre, Alfredo Albin, Ecosystem Integrity Index, an innovative environmental evaluation tool for agricultural production systems, Ecological Indicators, Volume 101, 2019, Pages 725-733, ISSN 1470-160X, doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.01.077. Rita Tóth, István Czeglédi, Bernadett Kern, Tibor Erős,
Land use effects in riverscapes: Diversity and environmental drivers of
stream fish communities in protected, agricultural and urban landscapes,
Ecological Indicators, Volume 101, 2019, Pages 742-748, ISSN 1470-160X,
doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.01.063.
Assandri G, Bogliani G, Pedrini P, Brambilla M.
Toward the next Common Agricultural Policy reform: Determinants of avian
communities in hay meadows reveal current policy's inadequacy for
biodiversity conservation in grassland ecosystems. J Appl Ecol.
2019;00:1–14. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.13332
Zhiguang Qiu, Melinda A. Coleman, Euan Provost,
Alexandra H. Campbell, Brendan P. Kelaher, Steven J. Dalton,
Torsten Thomas, Peter D. Steinberg and Ezequiel M. Marzinelli
Future climate change is predicted to affect the microbiome and
condition of habitat-forming kelp (open access) Proceedings of the
Royal Society B: Biological Sciences doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1887 Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Lindley, P.J., Johnstone, I.G. et al.
Site-based adaptation reduces the negative effects of weather upon a
southern range margin Welsh black grouse Tetrao tetrix population
that is vulnerable to climate change. Climatic Change (2019).
doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02372-2
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CJS is not responsible for content of external sites. Details believed correct but given without prejudice. Disclaimer: the views expressed in these news pages do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of CJS. |
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Nathusius'
pipistrelle © Bat Conservation Trust/Daniel Hargreaves
Northern
brown argus in Swedish landscape. (image: Karl-Olof Bergman-ZSL.jpg)
A
hihi or stichbird (Notiomystis cincta) © ZSL
Children
and adults watched the ‘Mia and Mylo' puppet show at Flamingo Land
(image: University of York)
