News

The new ground-breaking State of Nature Report launched today on the International Day for Biological Diversity. 25 wildlife organisations, including Buglife, have compiled a stock take of our native species that reveals that 2 out of 3 insects are declining.

Buglife is recruiting for a wildlife conservation intern with a background in conservation and ecology to start summer 2013.

Buglife launches a bug photography competition to encourage people to take a closer look at the bugs on their doorstep.

On the 21st April, Buglife will be featured on Countryfile, the BBC1 one programme looking at rural affairs in Britain. Countryfile will be investigating the issues surrounding neonicotinoid pesticides, a group of chemicals found to have harmful effects on wildlife.

Late last week the Corporate Europe Observatory, a research group which works to improve the transparency in European policy making, published private letters from Syngenta and Bayer. The contents of these showed the pesticide companies forceful lobbying against a proposed European ban on neonicotinoids, a group of pesticides shown to have harmful effects on wildlife.

Pupils from St Peter’s Primary School in Stonehouse have helped Buglife to plant a meadow of wildflowers in Plymouth. The meadow will boost the City’s populations of bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinating insects.

Today Waitrose announce that they will be asking their suppliers of fruit, vegetables and flowers to avoid the use of neonicotinoid pesticides because of the harmful effects on bees and other pollinating insects.

Buglife is extremely disappointed that the Government has approved the expansion of Lydd Airport in Kent.

Former industrial sites in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot will be improved for bugs such as the butterfly Dingy skipper and Brown-banded carder bee thanks to work by Buglife.

Today, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), comprised of MPs from all the main parties, released their findings from a four month inquiry into neonicotinoids, a group of insecticides linked to detrimental toxic effects on wildlife.

Buglife is today celebrating the news that it has received a funding boost from SITA Trust to restore and create wildflower-rich grasslands in Richmond which will help to create important links to the internationally important hay meadows of upper Swaledale.

Wildlife charity Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation Trust, are due to start work on a Living Roof project at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in central London this spring.

Join the Scottish oil beetle hunt in 2013!
Black oil beetles, Violet oil beetles and very rare Short-necked oil beetles can all be found in Scotland from March through to early July. Find out how to identify them with the new Scottish oil beetle ID guide.

Wildlife charities, Buglife, Badenoch & Strathspey Conservation Group (BSCG), The Cairngorms Campaign and The Scottish Campaign for National Parks (SCNP) have just three days left to secure £30,000 to cover the legal fees for their appeal to safeguard wildlife from housing developments on four sites in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park.

Buglife and ten other wildlife organisations have united together through Wildlife and Countryside Link to urge the public to apply pressure on their MEPs to vote for farming that supports nature.

Buglife is recruiting for wildlife conservation interns with a background in conservation and ecology to start summer 2013.

Wildlife charities, Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust, Badenoch & Strathspey Conservation Group (BSCG), The Cairngorms Campaign and The Scottish Campaign for National Parks (SCNP) are objecting to housing developments on four sites in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park.

Buglife begin wildlife surveys this month on a number of ex-industrial sites in Neath Port Talbot to find out what lives there so the sites can be better managed for wildlife.

A population of Roman snails is to be protected from an access road development in Westfield Recreation ground in Harpenden after wildlife charity Buglife opposed planning application.

For the fifth year running Buglife is sponsoring the Hidden Britain category of the British Wildlife Photogrphay Awards (BWPA) to encourage photographers to get up close and interested in identifying bugs.

Buglife is asking Defra Secretary of State Owen Paterson to support the European Commission’s proposed restrictions on three neonicotinoid insecticides in an EU vote on the 25th February, and, if this is not done, is prepared to reignite legal action.

Today, the European Commission proposed a substantial ban on three neonicotinoids - clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. They intend to ban use on crops that are ‘attractive to bees’, such as oilseed rape and maize. This follows a recent report by the European Food Safety Authority that confirmed that these toxins are a high risk to bees.

Today MSPs are being asked by Scottish Environment LINK to select a threatened species to champion. The species list includes a number of invertebrate species chosen by Buglife.

A beetle hotspot on the South Devon coast has re-written the record books for the second time in six years with the discovery of an oil beetle which was last seen in 1906 and thought to have been extinct for over one hundred years.

Buglife today announce a new partnership with Green Banana Marketing to build the charity's new website aimed to be a ‘one-stop shop' for bug related news and conservation.

Yesterday Buglife held an event at the B.U.G.S exhibit at ZSL London Zoo with a poetry reading from Buglife’s first poet in residence Carlos Reyes-Manzo.

Earlier today, a report published by the American Bird Conservancy called for a suspension on neonicotinoids, a group of toxic insecticides which have been shown to kill pollinators such as honeybees and bumblebees.

The Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health made up of representatives from Member States within the European Union met yesterday to discuss a substantial ban on neonicotinoid insecticides. Earlier today, Member States voted on the proposed ban but there was no consensus, and the ban has not been approved.

Earlier today Syngenta and Bayer Cropscience have published a proposed action plan to address the issues surrounding bee health in Europe. This action plan has been suggested as an alternative to the neonicotinoid insecticide ban, which failed to go through earlier this month and is currently going through the European Commissions appeal process.

Today Member States agreed on a new piece of legislation restricting the use of dangerous pesticides called neonicotinoids (neonics). The ban will start to come into effect later this year, and will restrict the use of the three most common neonics, imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam on crops which are ‘attractive to bees’ and on cereals planted in the summer which cause dust clouds of toxic chemicals to be released.

This Friday the 26th April, Buglife and other organisations are organising a demonstration in Westminster, London to pile pressure on Owen Paterson MP, Secretary of State for Environment and Rural Affairs, ahead of a vital EU vote banning neonicotinoid pesticides on Monday 29th April.

The seventh issue (volume 4, issue 1) of Scottish Invertebrate News is available now! This spring edition is packed full of new discoveries, articles and events.

Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust is questioning why Owen Paterson, the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) plans to delay the European Commission’s proposed restrictions on three neonicotinoid insecticides in an EU vote on the 15th March.