Patrick works for Green Alliance as the policy assistant for the Greener UK Unit. Greener UK is a group of 14 major environmental organisations, with a combined public membership of over 8 million, united in the belief that leaving the EU is a pivotal moment to restore and enhance the UK’s environment. He holds an…
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Flows (1)
Thirty-three years ago, at this time, I was walking around the Flow Country in the north of Scotland in my first few months working for the RSPB. Last year, at this time, I was in the northwest of the USA. What links those two times is the trees I was looking at. In both cases…
Costs
Let’s hear it for the Aarhus Convention! So, of £26k raised in double-quick time last spring (2018!) £5k goes in costs and the rest goes to my, our, legal team. And that also pays for the appeal which we are pursuing. This shows clearly what a great a deal I had from my, our, legal…
Guest blog – The Ethics of Animal Exploitation part 3 by Alick Simmons
Alick Simmons is a veterinarian, naturalist and photographer. After a period in private practice, he followed a 35-year career as a Government veterinarian, latterly as the UK Government’s Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer. Alick’s lifelong passion is wildlife; he volunteers for the RSPB and NE in Somerset, is chair of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare,…
Paul Leyland – Golfclub Duckfly
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Paul writes: there is a recent practice for giving previously obscure hoverflies English names, in addition to their Latin ones. Often the names are fairly mundane and don’t really add to the insect’s appeal, however I think this one is great and is likely to make you more interested to look out for one. Anasimyia transfuga is…
Sunday book review – Irreplaceable by Julian Hoffman
This is a book about saving wild places across the world. In its chapters we travel from a couple of places in Kent to Glasgow, the Gwent Levels, the Fens of Cambridgeshire but also the mid West of the USA, forests in India and the seas of Indonesia. Each of the chapters deal with a…
Tim Melling – Rockhoppers on the march
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Tim writes: these are all Southern Rockhopper Penguins (Eudyptes chrysocome) returning from a foraging trip to their noisy nesting colony in the Falklands. Arthur Cobb, after whom Cobb’s Wren is named, once described the noise of a Rockhopper colony “as if thousands of wheelbarrows, all badly in need of greasing, are being pushed at full…
And then there were two…
So, the Conservative Party membership (which is slightly higher than I thought at 160,000 – it must be all those Brexit/UKIP infiltrators) has the choice of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. Crikey! It comes to something when the man who seemed to want to wreck the NHS is seen as the safe pair of hands…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
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Mass lobby of Westminster on Wednesday 26 June
Where was I?
I’ve been away for a few days and found this Hen Harrier hat. I also found a Hen Harrier nearby (though a ringtail). Where was I?