This blog has learned that the Chancellor, George Osborne, will announce in the autumn statement today that there will be a review of the Habitat’s Directive’s regulations. This, if true (and we will wait to hear the details today) is the latest sign that this government – including the hapless Liberal Democrats – is prepared…
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
Guest blog – Ian Coghill, Chair of GWCT
I’m Ian Coghill. Mark very kindly suggested I do a guest spot on his blog. I’m the Chairman of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT). Contrary to some possible expectations that this news may engender, I am not rich, I don’t own a grouse moor and the only estate I have regular contact with…
Various
Tomorrow’s blog is a guest blog by the Chair of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Ian Coghill. He is a character and it’s well worth a read. On Thursday this blog is part of a ‘blog tour’ by Simon Barnes’s new book – and there is a reader’s offer to be had. There is…
Wood for the trees?
Yesterday Plantlife published a report on the future of British woodland. Rather than focus primarily on who owns ‘our’ woods Plantlife put a spotlight on woodland management. ‘More trees do not equal more wildlife‘ says Andy Byfield, Plantlife’s Landscape Conservation Manager. ‘From the point of view of our woodland wildlife, it is what we do…
An open letter to Peter Kendall, President of the NFU
Dear Peter As the President of the National Farmers Union you claim to be the ‘voice of farming’ and last week you made a speech where you said that there is no ‘biodiversity crisis’ and government should ‘switch its focus from biodiversity’ to production. Speaking as one of the people who pays for your and…
Send a message to the Westminster government on raptor persecution please.
Please sign this e-petition and pass it on to others. It’s just over 1000 signatures as I post this.
The NFU and the animals (and plants)
Appropriately enough it was The Animals whose refrain, ‘I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood‘ has been taken up by NFU President Peter Kendall. Last week he said ‘Government should switch its focus from bio-diversity and concentrate on farm productivity‘ and ‘The point is we haven’t…
Not quite the same
I have an article in the current issue of The Field and one in the current issue of Birdwatch magazine and both are on hen harriers. Not surprisingly, given their readerships, the two articles are written from slightly different perspectives. I have both magazines in my hands right now and they are interestingly different. I…
Defra – dire, egregious, failing, risible and adrift.
It’s more than 18 months since the current ministers walked confidently into Defra’s headquarters at Nobel House after the May 2010 General Election (with one change of Lord in the interim). I’m glad that we have not seen too much chopping and changing of ministers under the Cameron (Clegg) coalition government, as that rarely leads…
A tonic for gin bush
As a kid in the mid 1960s, Sunday mornings would consist of going to church and then coming home to a roast lunch whose delicious smells filled the house while Desert Island Discs, with its originator Roy Plumley, played on the wireless before we sat down to eat. My father would have on his suit,…