this is bbc news. the headlines: more signs of growing pressure on uk hospitals from the new coronavirus variant. three ambulance services in the south—east of england are asking people not to call unless it's a genuine emergency. countries across the european union are officially beginning a co—ordinated roll—out of the covid vaccine, with all 27 member states offering jabs to the most vulnerable. the eu has secured contracts for more than two billion doses. the uk government is warning businesses and travellers prepare for substantial changes and possible disruption from new year's eve, when new brexit rules come into force. european ambassadors are due to discuss the post—brexit trade deal later. donald trump has signed a bipartisan coronavirus relief and government spending bill into law, after delaying for several days. the delay meant that millions temporarily lost unemployment benefits.

a quick update on the brexit trade deal, we are hearing that eu member states have agreed on that. the ambassadors of all 27 eu member states provisionally agreeing to the post—brexit trade deal between the uk and the eu. the governments of all member states had three days to analyse the details of the agreement, and the european parliament will vote on that as well early next year. with so many of us stuck at home, 2020 was the year that saw our relationship with the great outdoors change. now a report from the british conservation and heritage charity, the national trust, says that climate change remains the biggest threat to our environment. john maguire reports. at least 2020 has been good for some. the grey seal population here at blakeney point on the north norfolk coast is thriving. it's just a handful of pups that were born at the end

of the late 90s, early 2000s. we're now on roughly 3,500 to 4,000 pups born every year. so they've basically been increasing since then. so it's been a pretty phenomenal rise. and they don't really show any signs of slowing down at the moment. it's been a year of large scale trends driven by climate change, but also lockdowns and restrictions have meant that some of the conflicts between the human and the natural world have been diminished. it's been a kind of record breaking year, and we can expect that as the climate continues to change. and so the challenge for us really is, how do we respond to, not only the climate, but also the nature crisis? and so we're having to adjust our land management to make sure that we make are our landscapes as not only nature—rich, but resilient also to the change which is locked in now. by monitoring its sites across the uk, the trust can produce an audit of the year in nature. for example, beavers.

hunted to extinction in the uk centuries ago, they were returned to the honeycut estate on exmoor injanuary, and have thrived, building the first dams seen here for 400 years. severe storms, including ciara and dennis, caused widespread damage in february, such as here on the river dart in devon. but spring sprung sunny and dry, breaking records in may, as we came to terms with life locked down. always first thing in the morning, i used to live about half past five, quarter to six, to go on my walk. so, yes, i always got out. we were out quite a lot in our local area, doing it a lot more than we would normally. so we have been out and about quite a lot, haven't we? post—summer conditions produced spectacular autumn colours, an antidote to the second lockdown. however, we were allowed to spend more time outdoors than during the first. there was, though, an increasing

amount of grey, as another disease thrived in 2020. ash dieback caused widespread damage to woodlands. but, a great yearfor apples. the perfect combination of warm and dry in spring and summer, followed by autumn rain, meant a bumper crop. for many people, the chance to get out and about this year has been vitalfor physical and mental well—being. you know, it's really important for your mental health. it's made her a lot happier, a lot fitter. and, you know, if anything did happen, i think she's got a good fighting chance of getting rid of the bug. i get a lungful of fresh air here. what more could you say? it's true, isn't it? it'sjust lovely. very important for us, at our age anyway, especially, you know. speak for yourself! we need to get out. i mean, this is this is probably why we've got a dog. yeah. it sort of makes us get out. we've got a good garden. but we would just stay at home all the time.

but this gets us out, mixes with other people, you know. fresh air, you know — what better place could you come anyway then here? yeah. 2021 should see a return to normality, with all of the advantages and disadvantages that brings for our flora and fauna. but one legacy of this year will be the huge hole in the finances of the charities that work to better protect our surroundings. nature may well be resilient, but these days it appreciates a helping hand. john maguire, bbc news. now... a special programme in our 100 women series — life on thin ice follows three generations of inuit families. vocalizing

climate change came along and it changed everything. drumming and singing. due to the ice melting, we've seen all these changes. it's affecting us up here in the arctic circle. i am worried about the future. we have lagoon on one side, sound on the other. we don't have any room to give. we don't know what's going to happen. inupiaq have been here for thousands of years but now my children really have no idea what's ahead of them and it's scary.

kotzebue‘s population is about 3,000 people. it's a nice place, very isolated, no roads. the only way that we go to the village is either by one of the commuter planes. summertime, we go by boat. wintertime, we go by snow machine. very few people by dog team. i originated to kotzebue about 35 years ago. raised four sons and two daughters, i have 14 grandchildren and two great grandchildren. my inupiaq name putyuk. we like to be called inupiaq, not eskimo. inupiaq means real people. eskimo, that's a non—native‘s

definition of us. we as inupiaq people, we know our land, it's like our heartbeat. we know how to survive, how the moon controls the high waters and the low waters. we are oui’ own almanac. but then climate change came along and it changed everything. suddenly, we get a tropic warm—up, everything starts to melt. but we dealt with this for last 10—15 years. we learned to keep the frustration at bay. do we know we are in danger today? we know it's there. we just have to learn how to deal with it.

radio: you're listening to kotz 720am, i'm wesley early with this news update. summer temperatures were three degrees warmer on average this year, that's on top of a record spring that was 6 degrees warmer than the previous record. those high temperatures mean warmer waters in the kotzebue sound, and that can mean changes to winter's subsistence hunts. in the winter... i've always loved being outside with my dad and just hunting and trapping and fishing. once you're out there, you kind of feel super insignificant, which maybe a lot of people wouldn't like to feel. you're kind of at the lands mercy, the weather's mercy and the animals‘ mercy then. my dad, he was blessed with three girls at first! and typically it is the guys

who go out hunting. he had to kind of work with what he had. when i was younger, i didn't want to be, like, native, you know? i have some lighter skinned friends and i wanted to be lighter skinned, lighter skin toned. but now it's so celebrated. hunting and fishing and living a subsistence lifestyle, ifeel like it's a huge part of my identity, that's who i am. 0k, are you ready to pull up your traps? see if there's any beavers in there. worried is an understatement when my family is out on the ice, anything can happen. we live in a place where nature rules. things can turn quickly. the weather can turn quickly,

or the ice breaks up earlier than usual, or they can fall through the ice, and they have, you know, before. so it can be pretty nerve—racking for a mum at home waiting for her crew. it's kinda like christmas, you just never know what you're going to get... anything in it? no. no, nothing in that one either, huh? no. well, we're going to have to put new bait on them... it's important to store food for the winter and to make sure you can get as much as you can of a certain meat or a berry, when it's in season.

in the dead of winter, we only have a few hours of daylight per day. over the past few years, we've seen all of these changes. there'll be a little less of an animal, maybe they won't come at all. caribou is one of our main food sources. this year, we didn't get any caribou. usually they come pretty close in the fall. we're able to just go up there by boat and shoot some caribou, and stock our freezers full. but we weren't able to do that this year. due to the ice melting, there are a lot of new waterways opening up. this will be used for shipping vessels to make their routes easier. but the problem with this is that there's a lot of noise that the ships make and this can have a big effect on our animals, our marine wildlife. it's just if like we're trying

to have a conversation and then there's construction happening outside. we're going to want to move to a different room to have our conversation. so that's what the animals are doing. a lot of them are relocating. in a few years, i'm afraid that we won't have this subsistence lifestyle, we won't have the connection to the land like we used to and my children in the future won't be able to feel this connection. so that's what i'm talking about in terms of climate change, just earlier today when we left, it was all solid ice, all the way right across, and just in a couple of hours, a storm surge happens and it broke up all these pieces of ice and it's moving them back in. and what was once frozen this morning isjust, it's back open again, and that's the danger that we live in nowadays, you know, it can change just like that. 0k, we'll take the tarp off.

if you can't predict the weather, you just can't predict your safety, really. 0k. remember, mom doesn't want you guys to get all seal—y. you know, we noticed all of these changes because we're part of it, we see it and it's almost like having thousands and thousands of scientists out here every day watching things and making observations. it's not an ‘if‘, it's, it's a fact, it's right before you. you can't deny it, you know? it's important to use every part of the animal because it gave itself up to you to eat and for your family to eat, and for your community to eat. ok, you remember how to do this? yeah, so we're going to take

the flippers off first. in our culture, we're very communal, we make sure that we give the first or a good portion of our catch especially to elders, who taught us, they taught us how to do all of this and we want to make sure they are eating well. singing i talk to my daughters a lot, and i have 16 grandkids. when i'm around them, i try to share what i've learned, my life stories, and how we were brought up, and we have our, how we live as inupiaq people. if you want to live a good life, grasp some of that.

anything domestic, i never really learned as a kid. i'm taking the count to learn it nowjust because here, you kind of need to know all of these skills to survive, and i want to be able to pass down those domestic skills to my kids. do you do it from this way? or when you hold the fur. so make sure this fur is under. back in the day, they had that strive for perfection and those things, notjust to be perfect but because a lot of times the stitching was important because they have to go out in 40 below. and make sure that everything was just right. well, a lot of times you have to be watertight. when i was growing up, the environment was very different. cold. it was extremely cold, and lots of snow in the wintertime. some of the snow would cover,

go up as far as the roof over some homes. so it was very different. you know you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that lives in this area that doesn't believe in climate change, or global warming or anything, because we live it every day. we see the effects on the ice, from year to year. we see the difference in the migration of the animals. the ice underneath the tundra, the permafrost, it's supposed to be frozen 365 days a year. we have to even have our houses on stilts because the heat from your house will melt the permafrost underneath. the temperature is rising in our area, and with the glaciers melting, water is more than it used to be, and the storms are

different than they used to be. the erosion is happening and some of the villages are in danger of losing the entire village. kotzebue is projected to disappear at some point because of global warming, and the waters rising. we are right on the ocean, at sea level. there is a fear that at some point, our life is going to be moved, drastically changed or nonexistent. my children really have no idea what's ahead of them, and it's scary. radio: you are listening to this kotz 720am with this news update.

as climate change hits coastal communities in alaska, many tribes are being forced to consider moving from their ancestral lands... the house that we live in now, my family, is the house my parents built, my dad built this entire house. so it's the house that i grew up in. chickens! i like how they kind of look at you with one eyeball. we're here, you know, we are on the back side in our house. it's shallow here all the way over... it's like four feet deep out here. even when we go to camp, we have to go around the sand bar. it's only four feet. i am worried about the future because we are on a small spit. we have a lagoon on one side and the sound on the other. we don't have any

room to give... if the water was to come up i don't know how many feet, it would come over the road. my house is close to the lagoon. it looks cool. show daddy first. let me see! it's not easy living here. but the sense of community and the closeness that we have with people in our community is how i feel i want my children to be raised. this is my mum and me when i was a baby. she made everything that i'm wearing. the front sea wall was put up

to preserve that front street. from the time that i was a kid until the time it got put up, it narrowed a lot. there were spaces where it was only a one—way street. i don't know much about permafrost, you know. i'm not a scientist, but i can tell you what i have seen with my eyes. when i was in high school, we would take trips down the coast with our four—wheelers, we could go all the way down. but now, even in the summer, there were whole sides of the tundra falling, and you could see the melting. there was like a stream of melting permafrost, you know, going out to the ocean. so i know it's melting. i know it is. people make, like,

knife handles and stuff. you don't leave anything, even the head, we'll take the whole head and use it. this is an old puppy pen. john took this and made a drying rack. now we have deboned moose. in the summer we do strips because it is a four—day process. it is like extreme free range. 0ur food comes from out there, it's roaming all those thousands and thousands of untouched acres of tundra and mountains and, you know, no pollution. i believe that eskimos, inupiaq people need to eat the food that their ancestors ate. get out of the kitchen while i'm cooking!

we don't have anything that connects us to a road system. so the only way to get groceries and every item that you can physically see, it got here by air. that inflates the cost of your item, because you're having to pay for the freight to get here. it's crazy how expensive things are. milk is like $11 a gallon. money makes the world go around, i guess. spicy? no. 0k. 0ur predictable winters where we could say by october or whatever, 15, it's going to be frozen enough to where i can do this, it's not happening any more. it's different every year. it's like a weird sliding scale. we don't know what's going to happen. what if i don't get fish, what if i don't get something i was counting on getting?

i wanted to go fishing today. i actually called my aunt and she said, "we're not going to camp, let's go fishing," and then she called me, maybe 7:00, last night and said, "i don't know if we can go fishing, it's supposed to be high water." we had one of the roads blocked because the water was going up on it at six this morning. when it's like this, it means the water is high, it's all the way up here. you can see the water. i don't feel safe going out here because i can't see where the dark spots are because it snowed, it stormed over the ice and then we had that high water that came all the way up here, so i don't know if there is water in between the ice that was already established,

and the snow that snowed on top of it. you could lose your feet to frostbite if you step through this right here, it's dangerous. you have to have multiple ways of deciding what you're going to do. you can'tjust go, "oh, it's cold, i'm going to go on the ice." was there high water, was it warm, did it freeze? you know, just like this. did it snow? you can't see, there could be dark spots. it's kind of dangerous. i was born and raised here in the middle of winter. i can't imagine not knowing what snow and ice is.

mother nature is our mother. she cares for us, she supplies for us. why is there climate change? caused by human people, the very people that mother is nurturing. humans are abusive. man can be the culprit behind greed to ruin the first peoples, people that know and thrive with the heartbeat of mother earth. why? why can't they ask us? it's a hard pill to swallow.

we don't just want to survive, we want to thrive on this land. i can't imagine having to relocate your whole home just because the water is coming up over it. it's devastating as a community. my ancestors have been living off this land for a long time. they passed down their knowledge about the land. the inupiaq are connected as a community, so i think if we really stick together, we'll be able to adapt to the changes. i think the rest of the world needs to learn from indigenous people because they learn throughout their lifespan

to know how to survive. people have hearts. doesn't matter if you are a billionaire or if you live in a pitiful home, the magic is we are connected to the land. so there is time to rejuvenate hearts. this new generation, they can change their energy to fix mother earth. hello. we have a cold week ahead of us as we see out 2020. it will deliver snow at times, that is

already what some of us have seen today, this area of rain, sleet and snow affecting parts of the midlands, eastern england. further showers in the west, falling as snow on the hills, very gusty winds with any wet weather the further west you are, wintry showers around north sea coast, temperatures struggling at around 4 degrees, 6 degrees at the very best. tonight we continue with wintry showers, an area of sleet and snow starting to affect more north—easterly and eastern areas of england. another cold, frosty and icy night. we need to watch this area of rain, sleet and snow as it pushes further south, further wintry showers around some of the coasts, for many of us, an afternoon of dry weather tomorrow. we get to see some occasional sunshine. it won't make it feel any warmer.

this is bbc news. these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. eu ambassadors unanimously approve the provisional application of the post—brexit trade deal between the uk and the eu. more signs of growing pressure on uk hospitals from the new coronavirus variant. three ambulance services in the south—east of england are asking people not to call unless it's a genuine emergency. countries across the european union begin a co—ordinated roll—out of the covid vaccine, with all 27 member states offering jabs to the most vulnerable. president trump signs a coronavirus relief and spending package, after previously threatening to block the bill, saying parts of it were "wasteful".