Energy & Environment

Progress in second year of the hen harrier southern reintroduction

The hen harrier southern reintroduction aims to establish a wild, farmland nesting population of hen harriers in the south of England. Supported by a conservation breeding programme, the project plans to introduce up to 100 juvenile hen harriers to a protected ...

Updated: Tue Sep 03 2024

Internal Marine Plan User Training Programme

In June and July, the marine planning team at the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) delivered a comprehensive training programme to enhance the understanding and use of marine plans in the organisation. This initiative aligns with the MMO's Corporate Plan and ...

Updated: Fri Aug 30 2024

Strategic Renewables Unit - Update

The Strategic Renewables Unit (SRU) aims to ensure the MMO's vision of a prosperous future for our seas, coasts and communities is supported through deployment of sustainable offshore wind and other marine renewables. To learn more about the SRU, please ...

Updated: Fri Aug 30 2024

The Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) Challenge Game goes Global

The Marine Planning Team works with the MMO's Marine Global Team to help aiming to better protect and sustainably manage their marine environments. Credit: Indonesia Nature Film Society, Rekam Nusantara Foundation Turkey Paul Gilliland, Head of Marine Planning, was recently ...

Updated: Fri Aug 30 2024

The Marine Spatial Planning Challenge Game

Used around the world by policy expert, decision makers and stakeholders to explore the challenges and opportunities of sustainably developing our oceans and seas. The interactive format of the game demonstrates the challenges and complexities of marine spatial planning. Credit: ...

Updated: Fri Aug 30 2024

A summary of the recent updates to SFI

Today, we published a summary of recent changes to the actions and scheme information for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) on GOV.UK. This post summarises the changes.

Updated: Thu Aug 29 2024

Capital grants in 2024: an overview

In this post, I'll provide an overview of capital grants for environmental land management, the current offer and recent updates.

Updated: Thu Aug 29 2024

Reflecting on the first six months of BNG

By Chris Kaighin - Deputy Director, Biodiversity Net Gain Services It has been six months since the world-leading initiative Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) became mandatory for most planning applications under the Town and Country Planning Act. BNG makes sure development ...

Updated: Thu Aug 29 2024

Surveying fish on the River Stour

My name is Dan Hayter and I work for the Environment Agency in East Anglia. Part of my job involves monitoring the number of fish we have in our rivers and one way I do this is through fish surveys. ...

Updated: Thu Aug 29 2024

What are dry day spills?

England's sewerage system has thousands of miles of combined sewers. This means that rainwater and wastewater from toilets, bathrooms and kitchens all go into the same pipe to sewage treatment works. During periods of rainfall and/or snowmelt, the capacity of ...

Updated: Wed Aug 28 2024

Agri-environment schemes work: Natural England's latest findings

This month, Natural England published its annual report summarising projects of the Agri-Environment Scheme Monitoring & Evaluation Programme. In this guest post, Natural England's Usha Waygood, Senior Officer in the Evidence Directorate, highlights some of the team's findings from the report.

Updated: Tue Aug 20 2024

Thriving Together: Nature and Community

Image: Natural England At the edge of Barrow-in-Furness, on the north-west coast of England, lies the island of Walney. A wild and windy landscape, it features some nationally rare and important habitats. It is linked to the much larger Morecambe ...

Updated: Tue Aug 20 2024

First endorsed SFI action now available

The endorsed action, GRH6: Manage priority habitat species-rich grassland, is now on GOV.UK and is available to include in your Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) application through the Rural Payments service. In this post, we'll give a brief recap on endorsed actions and summarise GRH6.

Updated: Mon Aug 19 2024

The impact of the Common User Charge

Today's blog outlines the government response to recent coverage of the Common User Charge introduced under the Border Target Operating Model.

Updated: Fri Aug 16 2024

We've enabled thousands of homes in the Tees area - and much more!

The Nutrient Mitigation Scheme (NMS) continues with our sixth nutrient credit round now open in the Tees. To date we have offered credits for over 6,000 new homes in the Tees catchment area and have mitigation ready to meet thousands ...

Updated: Fri Aug 16 2024

Going beneath the surface to reduce flood risk

Sam MacAllister and Tracy Hodsman from our asset performance teams explain how looking beneath the surface can be a key part of ensuring those on dry land have their flood risk reduced. The Environment Agency manages many different structures up ...

Updated: Thu Aug 15 2024

There's still time to get free business advice

The Farming Resilience Fund offers free, tailored business support to help farmers and land managers plan during the early years of the agricultural transition. With over 100 actions available through the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) a range of grants to explore and with the advice offer ending in early 2025, now is a good time to talk to an adviser and plan for the future.

Updated: Thu Aug 15 2024

Introducing Natural England's Science Advisory Committee

Prof Sallie Bailey, Chief Scientist I am excited to have started my role as Chief Scientist and recently attended my first meeting of Natural England's Science Advisory Committee (NESAC). NESAC is a formal committee of Natural England's Board, who are ...

Updated: Wed Aug 14 2024