A plan was hatched to create England’s biggest bird sanctuary, and publishers took a stand against censorship, plus more good news
This week’s good news roundup
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has hatched a plan to create England’s biggest bird sanctuary after snapping up a swathe of wetland, forest and moor in north-east Cumbria.
The move means the conservation charity has expanded its upland reserve, Geltsdale, by a third to create what it’s calling a ‘Pennines paradise for nature.’
The 50 sq km (19 square smile) sanctuary will benefit hen harriers – one of England’s most threatened birds of prey – as well as species including curlews and snipe. It’s also hoped that the restoration will entice new species such as golden eagles.
Conservation work on Geltsdale has been a 30-year labour of love, and reserve manager Ian Ryding said the work was “clearly paying off”, with a 2022 wildlife survey totting up almost 100 breeding bird species.
“Now is the time to take everything we’ve learned and go bigger,” he said. “We’re talking more trees, more wetlands, more birds and more homes for our threatened wildlife.
“We want to create a landscape that sings with life. Our plans are ambitious and, in a nutshell, mean bringing this north Pennines landscape fully back to life.”
Image: A hen harrier in flight. Credit: Peter Morris/RSPB
A British scientist was lauded this week for her work tackling the so-called ‘phosphogeddon’ blighting UK waterways.
Phosphorus is a finite natural resource that’s used in fertiliser, but runoff from farmland combined with phosphate-laden sewage discharges are feeding algal blooms, which smother aquatic life on rivers such as the Wye.
Now the brains behind Somerset-based Rookwood Operations say they’ve come up with a solution: a unique Phosphate Removal Material (PRM), which acts like a sponge and sucks up the chemical from lakes and rivers.
Made entirely from organic materials, the PRM can then be transferred to farmland to feed crops, they say.
Rookwood CEO Jane Pearce (pictured) this week bagged a £75,000 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award for her invention. “There are some incredible companies and women doing fantastic things on the winners’ list – to be recognised among them is amazing,” Pearce told Positive News. “We’re really excited for the next year and beyond.”
She added that preliminary, independent trials had shown early promise. Her invention will undergo more extensive testing with a local water company in the coming months, and she hopes to bring it to market in 2026.
Leading publishers, libraries and a writers’ organisation in the US have joined forces to sue the state of Idaho over a book ban dictating what minors are allowed to read.
Under 18s are forbidden from accessing ‘harmful’ content and ‘obscene materials’ in schools and libraries under HB710, which came into force last July.
The ban includes books with ‘sexual conduct’ and nudity, meaning modern classics such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (pictured) and bestsellers including Game of Thrones by George RR Martin have vanished from shelves entirely, or been moved to adult-only sections.
The ‘big five’ publishers – Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers and Simon & Schuster – filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the measure.
Parents, students, writers and a teacher have joined the campaign, alongside the Authors Guild (AG) and Idaho’s Donnelly Public Library District.
AG CEO Mary Rasenberger criticised the ban for ‘explicitly targeting’ LGBTQ+ content.
“This law doesn’t just chill free speech – it freezes it solid,” she said. “We will not stand by while Idaho effectively criminalises important works of literature and diminishes the fundamental right of young people to read and learn.”
Image: Umid Akbarov
High street restaurant chain Wahaca has raised the stakes when it comes to sustainability by switching to regenerative beef.
The Mexican eaterie removed steak dishes altogether in 2023 due to their weighty carbon footprint. Wahaca announced this week that its remaining beef dishes will now utilise the full beef carcass from British-reared stock sourced in partnership with regenerative farming collective, Grassroots.
The chain says its beef-related emissions have been reduced by almost 60% as a result.
Juliane Caillouette-Noble, managing director at The Sustainable Restaurant Association, said Wahaca had set a powerful example with its ‘less but better’ approach.
Wahaca founder Thomasina Miers (pictured) – a former MasterChef winner – added: “It’s a double win for us and our customers, and yet again we are showing how you can eat delicious food and feel amazing about it at the same time.”
Image: Wahaca
NHS England will trial a tech-driven overhaul of breast cancer screening – with a little help from EDITH.
It stands for Early Detection using Information Technology in Health and involves trialling artificial intelligence to help radiologists spot changes in breast tissue that might indicate cancer.
The £11m initiative is the world’s biggest to date and will involve two-thirds of around 700,000 mammograms being analysed by the AI model over the next few years.
If successful, it could ultimately mean each mammogram would be scrutinised by just one specialist – plus EDITH – instead of the current two, freeing up doctors for other work and cutting waiting lists.
The Department of Health Social Care (DHSC) chose World Cancer Day on Tuesday to make the announcement.
Professor Lucy Chappell, chief scientific adviser at the DHSC and also CEO of the National Institute for Health and Care Research, said: “This landmark trial could lead to a significant step forward in the early detection of breast cancer, offering women faster, more accurate diagnoses when it matters most.”
Image: National Cancer Institute
Last year marked the hottest year on record for UK heat pump sales, figures released this week reveal.
Analysis by the Heat Pump Association (HPA) shows sales surged by 63 per cent in 2024, alongside a 15 per cent increase in the number of individuals skilling up to fit or maintain them.
The HPA pointed to incentives such as the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) and Energy Company Obligation grants as being key to the growth.
Chief executive Charlotte Lee said 2024 was a “pivotal year”, adding: “This unprecedented, accelerated growth is a sign of progress and reflects the sector’s dedication and determination to scale up to support the decarbonisation of heat in UK homes and buildings.”
The government meanwhile pledged to back BUS by almost doubling its budget.
The minister for energy consumers, Miatta Fahnbulleh, said: “It’s fantastic to see huge progress on heat pump installations, with thousands of people now benefiting from clean heating in their homes.”
Image: Vitolda Klein
Scientists have bred a new strain of rice that could cut emissions from paddy fields by almost three-quarters.
The grain is a dietary staple for half the world’s population and its cultivation is responsible for 12 per cent of planet-warming methane.
With this challenge in mind, experts from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences teamed up with agronomists from China’s Hunan and Zhejiang provinces to cook up a solution. Interestingly, they used traditional breeding methods rather than genetic engineering.
Methane in rice cultivation is produced by microbes that feed on chemicals released by plant roots. The team found emissions were inhibited in varieties producing high levels of ethanol and low levels of a compound called fumarate.
They crossbred a novel strain that retained these traits while still producing high yields. Three years of trials at test sites in China revealed a 70 per cent reduction in methane emissions.
“This study shows that you can have low methane and still have a rice with high yields,” senior author Anna Schnürer told Sci Tech Daily. “And you can do it using traditional breeding methods, without GMO, if you know what you’re looking for.”
Image: Yang Louie
Potholes. They’re the scourge of motorists and a potentially lethal hazard to cyclists, but a new ‘self-healing’ road surface could consign them to the dustbin of history.
An international team of scientists from King’s College London (KCL) and Swansea University teamed up with colleagues in Chile to develop an asphalt that mends its own cracks.
The asphalt contains plant-based spores packed with recycled oils. When the road is compressed, the oils seep out, softening the bitumen to seal fractures.
As well as providing a salve for England and Wales’ £143-million pothole headache, the invention could pave the way for more sustainable road-building.
“We want to mimic the healing properties observed in nature,” said KCL’s Dr Franciso Martin-Martinez. “For example, when a tree or animal is cut, their wounds naturally heal over time, using their own biology.
“Creating asphalt that can heal itself will increase the durability of roads and reduce the need for people to fill in potholes.”
Image: Dr Jose Norambuena-Contreras, a researcher on the project at Swansea University, with some of the asphalt. Credit: Swansea University and King’s College London
Pet food has been given a sustainable overhaul with the launch of cultivated meat snacks for hungry pooches.
Meatly, the UK’s first regulatory-approved cultivated meat supplier, says cells from just a single chicken egg can produce lab-grown meat to feed pets ‘forever’.
The firm partnered with a cruelty-free dog food producer, The Pack, to devise ‘world-first’ Chick Bites.
They’re billed as a “nutritious, healthy and sustainable alternative to traditional dog treats,” made from plant-based ingredients blended with Meatly’s lab-grown chicken.
The Pack CEO Damien Clarkson said the launch was a ‘watershed moment’ for pet food. “Cultivated meat offers a tasty, low-carbon, and healthy protein source, which has the potential to eliminate farmed animals from the pet food industry,” he said.
Owen Ensor, founding CEO of Meatly, added: “Just two years ago this felt like a moon shot. Today we take off. It’s a giant leap forward – toward a significant market for meat which is healthy, sustainable and kind to our planet and other animals.”
Chick Bites were due to hit the shelves at Pets at Home in Brentford, London, today (7 February).
Image: Meatly
A curious badger captured hearts – and a photography prize
An immaculately timed snap of a wandering badger perusing a familiar-looking piece of graffiti has won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award for 2024.
Some 76,000 nature fans from across the planet voted for their favourite image from 25 shortlisted nominations. Highly commended photos included a stunning capture of a double lenticular cloud lit by lava flow, and a nocturnal shot of a barn owl framed in a hay loft window.
But it was photographer Ian Wood’s curious badger – caught on camera in St Leonards-on-Sea, England – (pictured) that took the top spot.
“The outpouring of badger love since my photo was nominated for the People’s Choice Award has been beautifully overwhelming,” Wood said. “Finding that it has won has been truly humbling.”
There is a darker side to his whimsical image, Wood added. He highlighted the slaughter of almost a quarter of a million badgers as part of efforts, which many believe are misguided, to control bovine tuberculosis.
“My hope is for this image to raise awareness of the damaging effect of the badger cull and help push for change,” Wood said.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
Image: The curious badger, caught on camera in St Leonards-on-Sea, England. Credit: Ian Wood / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Main image: A curlew in a wildflower meadow. Credit: Jake Stephen/RSPB
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