For the last 10 years I’ve been the planning ecologist for a local authority. The role of planning ecologist is little-understood by the wider public but that’s not the subject of this article. Instead, my point is about Biodiversity Net Gain and whether we have confidence the private market will deliver this public good. I…
Author: Mark
Born Bristol, UK
Educated: Cleeve House School Bristol, Bristol Grammar School and Downing College Cambridge
Ph.D. University of Aberdeen, Winter activity of pipistrelle bats.
NERC post-doctoral Research Fellow, Edward Grey Institute, Oxford University
Former Conservation Director of the RSPB, 1989-2011
Book reviews on this blog so far, this year
This weekend I’m reading and writing. Since 1 January 2022 these book reviews have appeared on this blog – one a week on average. The Trespasser’s Companion by Nick Hayes – review Thin Places by Kerri ni Dochartaigh – review The Role of Birds in World War Two by Nicholas Milton – review Saving Eden…
Three years in the garden – on this date
Three years, the first of which was the glorious spring of lockdown (best), then last year’s cold drear spring (worst) and now this year (middling).
Sunday book review – Saving Eden by Kevin Corcoran
I hadn’t heard of The Gearagh until I received this book. I can be forgiven for that, perhaps, because it is in Ireland and essentially this superb site for wildlife was destroyed a few years before I was born, in the 1950s. This book describes what we lost and how we lost it. The Gearagh…
Published today – The Trespasser’s Companion by Nick Hayes
This is a follow-up to the same author’s Book of Trespass from 2020 – see review here – and just as I loved the first book I love this one too. Perhaps even more so. It’s a book with attitude, and I like that. I also agree with a great deal of it, although even…