What went right this week: a wild camper’s delight, plus more

If cosying up by a campfire after a day of forest bathing and caterpillar counting sounds like an alluring holiday to you, you could be in luck. Tuesday saw the launch of the ReWild Spaces scheme, which enables campers to explore sites that previously restricted overnight stays. Visitors can also get involved in restoration and rewilding projects taking place on-site. A spot of invasive species removal after your morning stroll through untouched wilderness, perhaps?

Camping booking platform CampWild and the nature recovery charity Rewilding Britain have teamed up to provide access to 15 sites, which include the likes of Kinkell Farm near St Andrews, Scotland, and a 150-acre renaturing project in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. More locations within the Rewilding Britain network will eventually be opened up. 

Tom Backhouse, co-founder of CampWild, told Positive News that it’s about more than just getting to camp on previously inaccessible land. “This is not just about access to green space, it’s about how we experience these spaces. The natural world can feel remote, fragile, and even off-limits, but by designing experiences that encourage people to engage, observe and contribute, we hope to change that.

“The more people feel invested in these landscapes, the stronger our collective commitment to their future will be,” he added.

Image: CampWild

Every minute, the equivalent of 951 football shirts are sent to UK landfills, according to the charity Green Football. That’s an estimated 100,000 tonnes of sportswear. Not such a sporting look. 

Enter Green Football’s Great Save, an annual campaign that launched afresh this week. The initiative will see football greats such as Jamie Carragher and Roy Keane carry out secret drops of their preloved, signed kit to charity shops across the country. The idea is to highlight the importance of keeping sports kit in play for longer, by donating, selling, reusing or upcycling it.

Demi Stokes, of Newcastle United Women, is a supporter: “When I was younger, my mum paid for my football kit in monthly instalments, and we made sure it lasted for years,” she said. “That experience taught me two things: how valuable and important it is to have access to good kit and why it’s important to keep reusing it. That’s why I’ve donated some Newcastle kit and trainers. I love the idea that instead of sitting unused, it can now help someone else stay in the game, while also reducing waste.”

More than 100 clubs across the UK and Australia are taking part in the campaign, with some hosting on-site repair services and sewing lessons with players, all while encouraging fans to donate their own used kit. 

Keep your eyes peeled for Ethan Ampadu’s (pictured) – signed – first Leeds United captain shirt turning up in Ripon and Josie Green’s Crystal Palace kit making an appearance in Welwyn Garden City.

Image: Nick Porter

Taking a big old lungful of spring air in London might have felt more sullying than cleansing a few years ago. Today, thanks in part to the expansion of the city’s ultra low emission zone (Ulez), which came into effect in August 2023, air quality has improved remarkably, a new report has found. 

The study, published by the Greater London Authority, focuses on the year since the Ulez was expanded, and finds that air quality has improved “across the board”, and “at a faster rate than the rest of the country”. What’s more, deprived areas have seen some of the biggest improvements.  

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, told the Guardian: “When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London’s air pollution within legal limits if the current efforts continued. However, due to our transformative policies we are now close to achieving it this year.”

Nitrogen dioxide has reduced by 27% since Ulez was introduced in 2019 and small particle emissions known as PM2.5 are 31% lower in outer London than they would have been had the Ulez not expanded. How’s that for spring cleaning.

Image: Aaron Gilmore

It can mean frequent injections and visits to the hospital, plus severe pain, vision problems and cognitive issues. Those with certain types of multiple sclerosis (MS), a serious neurological condition, don’t have it easy. 

A drug called cladribine, which can be taken at home, may help to change things for the better. The treatment was previously only prescribed to those with ‘highly active’ relapsing remitting MS, according to the MS Society. Now, in a rollout that could benefit thousands, it will be available to those with active relapsing remitting MS, which about 85% of MS patients have. 

England is the first country in Europe to approve such widespread availability, a decision that was welcomed by medical professionals and health policy advocates. 

Laura Thomas, head of policy at the MS Society, told medical journal Advances in Clinical Neuroscience and Rehabilitation: “Cladribine is self-administered, so this decision could particularly benefit people who’d struggle to go into hospital regularly, like younger working-age adults. It will also benefit patients considering starting a family, as it’s safe to get pregnant six months after the final course of treatment.”

Image: Anna Shvets

It can easily be popped in the mouth of endometriosis patients, but it certainly is a mouthful to say. Relugolix-estradiol-norethisterone, a new self-administered daily medication for those with endometriosis, has now been approved by England’s medicine’s watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).

Endometriosis affects 10% of women worldwide and is the second most common gynaecological condition in the UK, according to Endometriosis UK. Patients can experience pain during periods, bowel movements, urination and sex.

The pill, which is being hailed as ‘first-of-its-kind’, will be available to those for whom medical or surgical intervention has failed – approximately 1,000 women and those who were assigned female at birth. 

Dr Sue Mann, the NHS’s national clinical director for women’s health, told the Guardian: “This first-of-a-kind treatment for endometriosis – a condition which can be extremely debilitating – will give women greater control of their own health by potentially allowing them to get the treatment they need in the comfort of their own homes, without the need to attend regular appointments.”

Image: RDNE stock project

Out of a scandal, a small boost for waterways. 

Millions of pounds of fines collected from water companies will be used to fund environmental projects in aid of the clean-up and restoration of rivers, it was revealed this week. 

Over the 19 months beginning April 2022, £11m was collected from polluting firms and put towards the government’s water restoration fund. Last month, however, it emerged that the Treasury was considering using this money for unrelated purposes. 

Now, the government has rowed back on that claim: the funds will indeed be awarded to river trusts to improve the health of their waterways. 

Although a modest sum compared to reported dividends paid to shareholders by water companies over the last three decades – an eye-watering £78bn – “any money for restoration was welcome,” said Charles Watson, chair of the charity River Action.

The announcement comes as river trusts celebrate a landmark high court ruling that classes chicken manure as industrial waste. About 23m chickens are being produced in the River Wye’s catchment area in Herefordshire, for instance. Now, chicken mega-farms will need to ensure that manure is disposed of safely, which could positively impact local waterways.

Image: River Kent, Kendal, UK. Credit: Jonny Gios

‘Girls just want to have fun-ding’ read one sign. ‘I look for neurotoxins, microplastic and PFAs in your seafood. Still think I don’t need funding?’ read another. These were among the messages displayed on placards by some of the thousands who recently marched in Washington, DC, and other cities across the US and worldwide, in the name of science. 

Funding cuts have been imposed by the Trump administration – $4bn (£3.2bn) to be slashed from biomedical research, for instance, and federally funded grants and scholarships frozen.

Grassroots operation Stand up for science aims to unite those who believe “science is for everyone and benefits everyone”. From South Dakota to Strasbourg, marchers braved sometimes frigid temperatures to show their support. 

According to Dr Theresa Desrochers, a professor of neuroscience who attended the DC rally and who spoke in a personal capacity, the feeling was very positive. “Many people only experience the benefits of fundamental publicly funded science research at the end stage – with medicines, therapies, computers and cellphones for example,” she told Positive News. “What perhaps people don’t realise is the decades of work that preceded it that was not necessarily translational, but foundational.”

Image: LivingBetterThroughChemistry

Ballerinas wearing stilts and punk couture, a hip-hop interpretation of JS Bach’s work, and 250 voices singing in five languages about Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. You guessed it, it’s none other than the Edinburgh International Festival lineup, and this year’s sounds like a corker. Its 2025 theme, as announced by the festival’s director, Nicola Benedetti this week, will be ‘the truth we seek’.

“We’re currently caught in a bewildering swirl of truth and alternative fact and manipulated language disguised as information,” she said, pointing towards the role of artists as beacons of truth. Benedetti was clear that she was referring to the myriad crises that have unfolded since Trump came into office, adding that the arts have the advantage of allegory.

“We can speak to both pertinent and timeless issues at once, [so] now is the time to double down on exactly that,” she said.

Image: Figures in Extinction, a dance production that will feature at the 2025 festival. Credit: Rahi Rezvani/Edinburgh International Festival

Words like ‘sustainability’, ‘climate crisis’ and ‘deforestation’ are common parlance these days – if you are not deaf that is. Until recently, these terms had no British Sign Language (BSL) representation, so people often had to resort to finger-spelling them.

Now, a total of 400 signs related to environmental science have been developed by scientists, educators and sign linguists. It comes out of a project at the University of Edinburgh’s Scottish Sensory Centre, in an effort to make the topic more accessible for the deaf community, particularly children.

The glossary is designed to be an open and dynamic resource, and has received positive feedback since it launched, say those behind it. In the last 12 months, the site had nearly 370,000 hits. Signs have been used by interpreters at the Scottish parliament, on television and in school classrooms, as well as in higher and further education.

Positive News signed up to find out more.

Image: Composite – Sujit Sahasrabudhe demonstrating the sign for ‘global warming’ on the Scottish Sensory Centre’s website

Main image: stock image, Mvltcelik/iStock