The idea that up to 7% of the fuel you put in your vehicle could come from food crops – not waste but actual food crops – is obscene in a world where people are starving. It’s even more obscene where the calculations show that (for various reasons which I won’t go into now) this…
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Black Hairstreak
It was almost like Glastonbury yesterday in Glapthorn Cow Pasture – a huge crowd (of eight of us – but that is huge for there) and muddy underfoot. The Black Hairstreaks were performing very nicely – and the eight of us had about a half a butterfly each on average. You can always tell where…
How do we get to rewilded uplands?
The simple vision of rewilded uplands painted yesterday prompted a question from a reader (Ezra Lucas) that is answered, or at least discussed, here. The question is how do we get from where we are to a more rewilded upland situation, and how do we get from a post-grouse shooting world to rewilded uplands? First,…
46000
Another 1000 passed! Hooray! We will soon have 100 Westminster parliamentary constituencies in the ‘100 Club’ and two thirds (or more) of them will be Conservative seats. High Peak becomes the third seat to pass 200 signatures. There are more than 12 weeks to go – I wonder what the final total will be. I…
Throwing CAP up in the air
Everything is in flux, but if we really are leaving the EU then the biggest conservation opportunity is bound to be through changing our financing of agriculture. We spend £3bn per annum on agricultural support at the moment (in England and Wales). We can spend more or less than that post Brexit because we…
Slim Chance of survival of Hen Harriers
Yet another satellite-tagged Hen Harrier, this one called Chance, has disappeared – her last known location (when transmitting a strong signal) was on a south Lanarkshire grouse moor. This sounds as though it must be in the same general area where Annie (pictured above) died. Add in Highlander whose satellite tag stopped transmitting…
Rewild our trashed hills
I think anyone looking at the landscape above would be hard-pressed to call it ‘natural’. It is drained and burned – and it has tracks running all the way through it. It’s the burning that creates that patchwork of different colours – patches of heather that were burned in different years according to a…
Henry’s picnic – of course it rained
A group of 75+ met at Grimwith Reservoir car park yesterday to gather together to protest about the lack of Hen Harriers in the ununited-UK, in the uplands of England, in National Parks and in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. There was sun, there was gloom, there were midges and there was rain – a…
If you really want to have a go at the establishment…
If you really want to have a go at the establishment and you don’t really care how – then just sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/125003 If you want to have a go at the establishment in a more thoughtful way then read it first and then sign it! https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/125003 If you…
Look what we’ve done now!
I went to bed worried on Thursday night (or was it Friday morning?) having heard the first few referendum results, and woke to be devastated by the news early on Friday morning. Devastated may sound like an exaggeration but I assure you it isn’t – and it’s a word that I have heard from many…