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Press release SCOTLAND The Big Picture – drone-seeding takes off

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Rewilding takes off: drone-seeding success offers hope for expanding remote woodlands An innovative rewilding experiment on a hillside on Scotland’s west coast has yielded promising results, raising hopes for faster, more cost-effective reforestation of the country’s wild and rugged uplands. At Dubh Allt, a 780-acre landholding near Roshven on the Moidart peninsula, forester and landowner,…

RSPB press release – Singing success for one of the UK’s rarest insects

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Singing success for one of the UK’s rarest insects   The Field Cricket was previously threatened with extinction in the UK but has since made an incredible comeback following successful conservation efforts by a range of organisations including the RSPB.  The males are known for their singing, using specially adapted veins on their wings to…

Debate on grouse shooting 4 – the petition system

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If anyone ever tells you that it is easy to get 100,000 signatures for a petition then ask them how many times they have done it. Very few people have. I have – five times and I have given considerable help and advice to others too. I’m a fan of the idea that any citizen…

BSBI press release – Hunting for Wales’ missing wild plants

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This summer, botanists are out scouring Wales’ most special wildlife sites, trying to re-find wild plants that haven’t been seen for decades. They are taking part in a project, run by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) with funding from the Welsh Government’s Nature Networks Programme, to refind priority plants in Wales. BSBI…

Debate on grouse shooting 3 – the political parties

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Having discussed the most important aspect of the debate on driven grouse shooting, the government response – click here, I will now turn to other aspects of the debate. There are 650 MPs in the Westminster parliament, and 634 come from 13 political parties with an additional 15 independents and the Speaker. Grouse moors occur…

My new solar panels

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These are three solar panels I had installed maybe as long as 20 years ago.  We were early adopters of green technology and these were panels that heated your water – thus saving on gas bills. They were a bad buy – they were pretty expensive, we were sold more than we needed and they…

Debate on grouse shooting 2 – the government response

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If you are running a campaign then your aim is to achieve change in the world, change on the ground, change in reality. One of the most direct, though not particularly easy, routes to achieving widespread change is through influencing the action of governments as they control laws, regulations, enforcement, taxation and government spending. Petitions…

Reflections is two years old today

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I know I’m a tad biased, but I do think this is a good book and it’s just as good to read now as it was two years ago on publication day. The idea, launched in this book, of being a conservation investor rather than a ‘member’ or ‘supporter’ is a lasting one and many…

Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 8 by Nick MacKinnon

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Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…

Cornwall

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Last week I headed to Cornwall. Cornwall is a long way away. It’s a long way away from everywhere (except west Devon) and even those in Cornwall think that west Cornwall is far from east Cornwall. I gave a talk to the the Cornwall Bird Watching and Preservation Society – click here – and I…