How wolves change rivers – a four minute video (although that is the wrong Badger species!).
Vote here for the project you would like to see get £25,000 – I voted for the World Land Trust project on leopards but it wasn’t an easy decision.
I keep forgetting to tell you that the sale of Christmas cards raised £25 for the Badger Trust – thank you.
Martin Harper’s blog on the New Environmental Land Management Scheme – worth a read.
Rumour has it that NE are in a bit of a tizzy about my latest FoI/EIR request – I expect they are wondering how to answer questions about how much of our money is being paid to the Walshaw Moor Estate and what, precisely, it is for.
Defra have not yet responded to John Armitage’s highly successful e-petition which raised 10, 423 signatures on the subject of licensing grouse moors. It can’t be that difficult to scrape together a few unconvincing words, can it?
After my talk at Oxford University a couple of weeks ago – which I very much enjoyed giving – I was sent this link about apathetic students (but I couldn’t be bothered to read it).
Next week is World Osprey week – has anyone told the Ospreys? There was one seen down the road from me a couple of days ago – must be spring.
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Ref Martin Harpers blog: are there any ‘farmland bird hotspots’ left? I’m shocked by the paucity of native farmland birds [or indeed most other native wildlife] on standard arable farmland. I just hope the criteria for hotspots do not include pheasants and red legged partridges. I wonder who is going to check out these hotspots – from what I read there is almost no ‘policing’ of environmental payments to farmers. I suspect like many who feel the government should be supporting them, they take the money and then do their own thing.
Thank you for raising money for the Badger Trust Mark – much appreciated.
& even worse Stella when a member of the public reports deliberate damage to a SSSI by a neighbouring farmer (agri-industrialist), neither Natural England nor the Rural Payments Agency investigate and enforce on breach of Cross Compliance to recover public funds. See Mark’s Guest blog of 17 January 2013.
Policing of public funds, now that would be a sensible policy and one I’d vote for, perhaps we could seek Dave Webster’s view on the environmental elements?
Discussion on Licensing Grouse Moors will go down as well with the ConDems as the recent debate on the effectiveness of the badger cull?