Standing up for Nature
Cartoonists deserve long holidays! Here’s a selection of some of Ralph’s best cartoons (IMHO) from earlier this year.
We have this week, in just a couple of days, seen the passing of three impressive figures in UK nature conservation: Norman Moore, Michael Meacher and Mick Carroll. I knew all three of them a little and admired each of them a lot. It would probably be difficult to think of three more disparate figures,…
I was in Cley last night so I didn’t see the Channel 4 news. This interesting piece (wildlife protection to be watered down?), with Stanley Johnson (sire of Boris etc, and author of the Habitats Directive (see p88 of Fighting for Birds)), is worrying. It may be simply a language thing, although the Dutch are…
Emma Websdale is a Conservation Biologist and writer. Working as the Senior Communications Officer for The Wildlife Trusts, she is particularly motivated in engaging younger audiences, helping them make sure that nature doesn’t drop off their agenda. She has written three previous Guest Blogs for this site (one about extinction and Passenger Pigeons, another other…
There have been many excellent Guest Blogs here over the years – and months, and weeks, and days (and there’s another one tomorrow). I like Guest Blogs because: I don’t have to write them, they add to the variety of the blog, experts can write about things of which I know little or nothing, they…
I feel a bit Goring-like when I hear the word ‘partnership’. I’m all for partnership but only as a ‘means’ and not as an ‘end’. All too often these days, those in nature conservation talk of partnership as if it’s the only way to get things done but it clearly isn’t. I’m all for…
Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting is today half way through its six-month life. It closes on 21 January. My fear when starting it off in July was that it might fail, in the six months now allowed, to pass the total we reached in over 10 months last year. But I should have…
An ichneumon wasp new to the UK was caught in a chance sweep of a butterfly net at the RSPB’s Broadwater Warren nature reserve is a type of wasp never before recorded in the UK. Back in 2013, Tony Davis of Butterfly Conservation was undertaking a moth monitoring programme at Broadwater Warren when he came…
Findlay Wilde is a friend of mine. He blogged here in 2012 (Is the future in safe hands?), 2013 (Guests at Nature’s Table), 2014 (Wishing you a Harry Christmas) and now this is his 2015 blog! Back in June this year, I posted a series of guest blogs on…
I’ve been talking to Yorkshire recently – has it been listening? I’ve never given exactly the same talk twice in my life – that’s partly because every talk is somewhat tailored to the audience (as best as one can – sometimes one doesn’t know that much about the audience) and they are usually of slightly…