The Environment Bill, currently at the committee stage in the House of Lords, is intended to replace much of the EU environmental legislation following Brexit. It will allow the government to set out long-term targets for the UK’s natural environment. During the latest debate in the House of Lords, Conservative former minister Lord Blencathra sought to amend the Bill. According to him the term “nature” commands greater understanding than “biodiversity”, and people can more readily relate to it. Such attitudes are not simply ignorant and wrong but, were they to be accepted and incorporated into the legislation then they could pose real risks to biodiversity in the UK.

There are more Local Wildlife Sites in England than any other kind of terrestrial wildlife designation. They exist equally in our most rural and urban areas and unlike Local Nature Reserves they are designated purely on their importance for biodiversity and exist on the basis that they protect what is most important in the local area as such they are vitally important to identifying and protecting our most important areas for biodiversity...

Midsummer is not the best time of year for fungi, especially when the weather has been so hot and dry. Fungi either dry up or do not fruit

There are still species to look out for in the shadier areas of woods and parks.

May 2021 was one of the wettest on record. Some parts of the country had more than twice their normal rainfall. Most insects like it warm, so May’s cool conditions should have meant fewer of them. This was not at all the case. Spring species are well-adapted to the cold and if it’s cool they spend more time basking in the sun to warm up, making them easier to find.