These are worth a read;
The Guardian: ‘My God it’s chaos’: LUSH’s founder on why he is so downcast (with a Hen Harrier mention).
The Guardian: the end of farming? A good account of rewilding.
New York Times: New Unexplained Cases (of coronavirus) found in Oregon and California.
The Guardian: Fir’s fair: UK must embrace conifers in climate fight, says forestry chief (and then have a look at Ian Parsons’s recent blogs on tree planting too – click here and scroll down to his name).
The Sunday Times: Rethink trespass law, Ramblers urge Priti Patel (and Wild Justice was a signatory to the published letter).
And, if you missed it, this too:
The Guardian: Defra challenged over ‘unlawful’ release of 57m game birds in UK.
Yes, I am a Guardian reader, and I think its coverage of wildlife issues has improved over the last couple of years.
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I’d only criticise Harry’s comments on one point – his reference to moorland. Do we need to plant trees for timber/carbon on unimproved land ? The right place is surely further down the hill – although ‘further down the hill’ has been rising onto land that was semi-natural in 1990 as improvement has crept higher and higher. he is absolutely right that we should be planting conifers – species is just one factor, location, structure, other habitats (eg open land within the forest) are equally important – location even more so, as the WT example very neatly illustrates the point that species is irrelevant to those orchids – just as it would be to a Golden Plover on moorland. The ‘end of agriculture’ article illustrates another key point – the common hugely damaging, assumption that you have to do the same thing everywhere – much promoted by farmers, and to an extent by conservationists. We could easily take 500,000 hectares out of food production without even noticing – but does that mean farming has to stop everywhere ? Of course not. The secret to new woodlands is that every one is unique and the techniques seen as gospel by some are tools, not outcomes. The vast majority of the English countryside is ‘improved’ and planting trees is likely to be an improvement environmentally, even if solely because it stops the use of insecticides. How many people know the BTO quote about Thetford Forest ‘the best for woodland birds in East Anglia and also for farmland birds’ ! And it wouldn’t be wonderful sandy heath if the forest hadn’t been planted – it would be carrots under plastic.
We need more native trees and shrubs on moorland. Conifers have a place, we do need the timber, and I agree their place is mostly lower ground. For one thing there’s no point growing commercial timber in places where its too difficult or expensive to extract it. However, I do think there should be more trees on the drier pieces of moorland. Huge areas of our moorland have been almost reduced to monocultures; either heather on grouse moors or a few types of grass on areas with heavy sheep grazing. Native woodland and scrub here would be great for wildlife, carbon, soils and for slowing water flows. More carbon is locked up in soils than in timber, so our best strategy will be whatever builds the best soils on our hills – and woodland is ideal for this.
Whilst I accept the need for more conifers I would hope that they are Scots Pine and Norway Spruce rather than completely alien North American species like Sitka Spruce or Lodgepole Pine. We also need a vastly increased area of native woodland as well and all of this woodland conifers and deciduous on land that is not current important wildlife habitats.