Water Vole

Naturally Native Monthly Blog

Habitat Fragmentation In last month’s blog we wrote about the power of slowing down and observing nature in your local green space, and the benefit that this can have on your emotional connection with the world around you. We hope you’ve managed to find a minute to stand still in your local park; to...

Get Yours Now! Advert showing a youn woman wearing a grey Tees Valley Wildlife Trust t-shirt with a bullfinch illustration and logo on it.

Get Yours Now!

Get your Tees Valley Wildlife Trust t-shirts now from our NEW Teemill shop. Follow the link or visit www.teeswildlife.org. Teemill t-shirts are made from organic cotton, processed using renewable energy and packaged using plastic-free recycled materials. You can be confident that buying your Teemill t-shirt will support Tees Valley Wildlife Trust. It will also...

House Sparrow decline

The humble house sparrow

Tom Hibbert, birdwatcher and content officer for The Wildlife Trusts, takes a closer look at one of the UK’s most familiar birds. House sparrows may not be the most colourful bird in the UK, or the most impressive singer, but they’ve long been one of our favourites, because they live in such close proximity...

Say no to Peat compost

We need an immediate end to peat sales Peat used in our compost is dug out of wild places, damaging some of the last remaining peatlands in the UK and overseas. This process also releases carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. Ten years ago, the Government set a voluntary target for the horticulture sector...

Gardeners urged to help beetles

Beetles are the unsung heroes of the garden and need our support urge the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and The Wildlife Trusts, as they launch 2021’s Wild About Gardens campaign. The two charities are calling on gardeners to create habitats for these important but often overlooked insects which are a vital part of every...

Water vole feeding on grass

Naturally Native: saving the north east’s water voles

Introducing Mark Slaughter – Naturally Native Project Officer at Tees Valley Wildlife Trust Thinking back to my childhood, our family holidays invariably involved tents, rain, and queues for lukewarm showers. To my school friends, these sounded like key ingredients for a week of misery. “We’ve been on the beach in Spain for a week”, they’d announce proudly. “Boring”, I’d murmur. Because whilst our family trips did entail tents and rain,...

Honey bee

Stay of execution for bees in 2021

Today’s announcement that a banned neonicotinoid will not be used on sugar beet is good news – but does not halt the risk to wildlife in future years Bees and other wildlife may have won a temporary reprieve and could now avoid being poisoned by a toxic pesticide due to the recent snap of...

Government inertia on peatlands risks international embarrassment

Two-year delay to England peat strategy as damage continues to vital carbon stores   This year, as the UK hosts the global climate conference, COP26, all eyes will be on the UK’s own action to tackle climate change. The Wildlife Trusts believe that the Government’s failure to address a key issue – how to end the damage to carbon-storing peatlands and restore a significant proportion of those that are already harmed – will be a major embarrassment.  Peatlands are the UK’s largest on-land store of...