Restoring a kelp forest off the Sussex coast, creating new habitat for heat-sensitive butterflies and connecting fractured wetlands for the reintroduction of beavers are among 12 new projects receiving funding to help the UK tackle climate change, the Wildlife Trusts has announced. Planting new seagrass pastures in the Solent, expanding salt marshes on the Essex coast and restoring peatlands in Cumbria, Durham, Yorkshire, Northumberland and Somerset are some of the “high-impact” schemes that the nature charity said will help mitigate the impact of global heating on land and at sea. Alongside the projects, backed by nearly £2m of funding from players of the People’s Postcode Lottery, researchers will investigate how best to protect the UK’s ecosystems and biodiversity from rising temperatures, while also paving the way for the reintroduction of locally extinct species in some cases. The Great North Bog in the north of England, which the Wildlife Trusts is restoring. Peat bogs are able to store large amounts of CO2. Photograph: Yorkshire Peat Partnership/PA One project in East Anglia will work with Cambridge University researchers to understand how micro-habitats in chalk grassland can be created to protect temperature-sensitive butterflies like the small blue, the chalkhill blue and the […]
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