Tag Archives: habitats directive
Guest Blog – ‘Muzzled Watchdog’ to ‘Toothless Terrier’? by Helen Kirk
Helen Kirk has been described as ‘an indefatigable and tenacious environmental campaigner and amateur naturalist’. For more than 30 years she has championed and helped safeguard the Humberhead peatlands, and the special plants and creatures that depend on them. She is the executive secretary of the Thorne and Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum and has recently …
Wuthering Moors – 29 The bigger picture
The Walshaw Moor Estate case is important in itself, and we commend again the RSPB for taking a firm stand on it, but it is also indicative of a much wider and deeper Defra malaise. If Defra is not now acting merely as the Rural Jobs and Fieldsports Department then it needs to get its …
Wuthering Moors 28
In a move that will be highly embarrassing for the UK government, particularly for Defra and the Defra Minister Richard Benyon, the RSPB today launched a complaint to the European Commission over the Walshaw Moor affair. The RSPB is ‘Stepping up for Nature’ by suggesting that Natural England, the delivery agency of Defra, contravened European …
Wuthering Moors 23
Natural England spent over £1m of your money pursuing legal action against the Walshaw Moor Estate for alleged breaches (but a mere 43 of them) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and the Habitats Directive. The alleged offences related to the building of tracks, paths, car parks, grips, ponds, butts and other associated infrastructure for …
Wuthering Moors 22
This email exchange shows that the cost of the abandoned legal proceedings by Natural England against the Walshaw Moor Estate were over £1m of taxpayers’ money. This is your money and you have been given no satisfactory explanation for why the case was dropped when a few months earlier NE had been pursuing the Walshaw …
Wuthering Moors 21
This email between Natural England’s Andrew Wood and others (including some recipients whose names have been withheld) contains several matters of interest; Its title – this is the first time the the Secretary of State’s, Caroline Spelman’s, name has appeared to my knowledge in this case. It appears that back in December 2011 this case …
Wuthering moors 6
I am very grateful to Natural England (that’s @NaturalEngland for those of you on Twitter, where you can find me as @MarkAvery) for sending me details of the Walshaw Moor management agreement. They were clearly eager that I read it, so I have, and so can you here. What do you think of it? I’d …
Too nice?
You have one week to go before you can see the final results of the Nature of Harming ‘award’. Cast your vote now and ask your friends (you do have friends?) to cast their’s too, please. Nearly 1000 people have voted. Here, at this late stage – is some rationale to go behind it: We …
Wuthering moors 5
Further reading: Media House International acts for Walshaw Moor Estate Gordons solicitors act for Walshaw Moor Estate Company information on Walshaw Moor Estate Ancient history – in the old days, can you remember them?, one of NE’s predecessor organisations, English Nature, was active in protecting blanket bogs from destruction. Andy Clements, EN’s Director of Protected …
Wuthering moors 3
The Heather and Grass Burning Code of 2007 may have escaped your attention although it is a quite remarkable document carrying, as it does, the logos of Defra, Natural England, the Moorland Association, the CLA, the NFU, the Heather Trust and the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation. In paragraph 10 that document clearly states that: There should …