UK farmers will now earn money for sustaining wildlife habitat on their land, under Britian's Environmental Stewardship scheme. Farmers can earn up to £30 per hectare for measures including maintaining hedgerows, which provide vital habitat to wild birds and small mammals, protecting ponds and their resident frogs and newts from pesticides and fertilizers, and planting wildflower plots for bees and other insects. It's the latest piece in the government's future-forward Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food, to curb the environmental damage caused by farming.

(via the BBC)