You do know what day it is, don’t you?
What has been in the news recently?
There was ‘Buzzardgate’ (see here, here, here and here for example) back in May, but if Fighting for Birds had been published by then you would have known that it was coming. I wrote as follows on page 210: The next species to be tarred and feathered may well be the buzzard. Buzzards are, I hope you will allow me to say, slightly dull birds. They are perfect for demonising because they are big (and therefore must be vicious killers), obvious (and therefore people notice them), increasing in numbers back to their previous geographical range (and therefore can be portrayed as undergoing a population explosion of phenomenal and unnatural extent), and eat a wide variety of prey species (being generalist predators) and so can be photographed sitting on top of a pheasant or rare bird to make whatever point you wish to make.
There are new plans to build some sort of barrage across the Severn estuary (see here) , but Fighting for Birds told you this was coming. I wrote as follows on page 97: The Severn Barrage will undoubtedly come back on the agenda some time – there is an awful lot of renewable energy out there and there is a lot of money for someone to make too. I would like to see us tapping into all that energy in a modern way. I’m sure that there are future battles to be fought to ensure that nature isn’t sacrificed for money and on the altar of a headline-grabbing announcement for a future politician.
Prince Harry is in the news again and I didn’t predict that he would be photographed playing nude billiards but Chapter 11 does contain an account of a former period of media interest in the young Prince.
GM crops are making a come-back and they are discussed in Chapter 14 of Fighting for Birds, pages 243-248, including my two brief court appearances.
What’s coming next? Buy Fighting for Birds and maybe you will find out.
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I thought it was a disaster, too, when after the last episode of the Barrage everyone just walked away – apparently the Government closed its unit the day the decision was made. It was crucial to follow through the alternatives because it looks right to harness this energy – but not at the expense of a total biodiversity wipeout.
Theres a much bigger problem here – a real first order issue for conservation – and that is that so many measures to save the planet seem to end up destroying the nevironment they claim to protect – windfarms, HS2, cofiring, biofuels etc etc. For once everyone is losing – the clumping, insensitive approach to onshore wind has massively curtailed the industry without any real discussion taking place on the rights and wrongs and how to do it with least damage. There is an urgent need for a coming together between the bullish engineers who seem totally ignorant of other issues than their narrow construction constraints & public opinion and the environmental sector because in the meantime everyone is losing.