Tag Archives: Natural England
Conservatives in Defra – not doing too well really
I can’t find the Conservative manifesto from the 2010 General Election online but I have my copy to hand. Here are some quotes from pages 95-97 with my assessment of how Defra has performed in nearly three years of being in ‘power’. ‘The most pressing animal health problem in the UK today is bovine tuberculosis …
Our forests
The government published its response to the report of the report of the Independent Panel on Forestry last week. You will remember that 38 Degrees launched a campaign to Save our Forests and more than half a million people signed the petition worded as follows: The government is planning a massive sell off of our …
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 …
Food for thought
I expect you have eaten well over the break and are probably, like me, a bit podgier than a couple of weeks ago – or maybe not? If there is anything that might put you off your food it is the sound of the President of the NFU going on about the need for greater …
Lancashire’s ‘Bowland Betty’ bites the Yorkshire dust
A female hen harrier raised in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, last year, and fitted with a satellite tag, was found dead on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales in June this year. I hadn’t realised the trans-Pennine rivalry was so strong that the War of the Roses included shooting each other’s hen harriers. …
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 …
Naturally curious
Reading the minutes of other people’s meetings is not my natural habitat or habit. However, you never know what you might find. The trouble is, most minutes are written to hide rather than expose any interesting parts of the meetings they purport to summarise. What might we find out if we had the energy to …
Catfield
I have sent the following to PSC-WaterResources@environment-agency.gov.uk referring to applications Mr A W Alston NPS/WR/007223 & NPS/WR/007224. You could too and the closing date for receipt of such views is Wednesday. Catfield Fen is drying out, and has been for several years. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt about that. Catfield Fen is …
What would Douglas Adams think of this?
Douglas Adams, who wrote the five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, was a great environmentalist. Hitchhikers is a book about environmentalism – and the fact it is funny doesn’t make it any the less serious. At the beginning of the book, when Arthur Dent’s house is to be demolished, he is …