07 March

The United Nations Biodiversity Conference COP16, which reconvened in Rome last week, has concluded. Delegates reached an agreement to uphold the 30x30 agreement, a global initiative to protect 30% of the Earth's land and ocean by 2030. The UK has an opportunity to show leadership in nature restoration by committing to enhancing soil biodiversity and health across the country.

The Office for Environmental Protection has published a review of the implementation of the Environmental Principles Policy Statement in England – a legal obligation for policymakers to consider the environmental outcomes of policies – stating that more progress needs to be made to embed good environmental practice across government.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) have published their Climate Change Adaptation report, describing how climate change could impact agriculture across multiple temperature increase scenarios, and suggests changes farmers could make to protect their businesses, including actions to build soil resilience.

Over 10,000 farmers descended on central London on Tuesday for a ‘Pancake Day rally’, the latest and best-attended rally in a series of farmer protests over the changes to inheritance tax rules proposed in the government’s Autumn budget 2024.

New research from the Lyell Centre, a research institute at Heriot-Watt University, has revealed that healthy soils surrounding onshore oil and gas wells are effective at absorbing methane leakage, preventing the potent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere.

Researchers at Roam Agriculture, an Australian startup, have found a species of soil fungus which contains a compound that can be fed to cows to reduce their methane emissions. The company plans to isolate the methane-reducing compound, bromoform, from the soil fungus to add directly to cow feed.

Green councillors in Bristol have called for the legalisation of “human composting”, a process in which corpses would be turned into soil-friendly compost in a controlled environment. Human composting is legal in Sweden, where it has been used to reduce carbon emissions from cremations.