Standing up for Nature
A Message from Martha has appeared in another couple of ‘book of the year’ lists this week. First Bel Mooney included A Message from Martha in her nature books of the year in the Daily Mail and then Barbara Kiser included it in her list of bird books in Nature.com. It’s always nice to see…
Cairngorms National Park Authority say grouse shooters may kill too many Mountain Hares, kill too many raptors illegally and are industrialising the hills. BTO Science round up – I received the very first of these by email recently and, although I haven’t read it all yet, what I have dipped into looks very good. Sign…
Which NGOs have had a good year? Which political parties would you like to see in a coalition government? What do you think of this blog? Over 600 of you have responded to the short survey on these and other fascinating issues – at least, your answers are fascinating. Click here to have your…
17 December: Andy Sawford (Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government); Corby, Labour): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will publish a consultation on a licensing scheme for commercial game shooting. George Eustice (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Camborne and Redruth, Conservative): Landowners…
Let’s just have a recap: Ban driven grouse shooting Number of signatures: 20,073 Open for signature until 30/3/15 Introduction of offence of vicarious liability for raptor persecution in England Number of signatures: 10,908 Closed 17/11/2012 Licencing of upland grouse moors and gamekeepers Number of signatures: 10,429 Closed 27/02/2014 You’d think, wouldn’t you, that…
I was in the library at The Lodge the other day, reading for writing. It’s inevitable that I bump into quite a few people I know, and have a few conversations about life, the universe and everything. They are mostly conversations about birds and nature conservation. Two of them illustrate the scale of change in…
Here are three examples of responses from Labout MPs to their constituents on the issues raised by the Rally for Nature last week. You can see that each response is clearly a personal one and that’s why I haven’t revealed the identities of the MPs or their constituents. I’d be interested in any further responses…
I woke a little while ago to find that our e-petition, calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting (in England), passed a major milestone during the night. 20,000 signatures! Thank you to all who have signed and thank you to those people, mostly individuals rather than organisations, who have promoted this e-petition since it…
The mile is a fairly strange thing, but I grew up with it. Being a distance of 1760 yards, with a yard being 3 feet (each of 12 inches) the somewhat arbitrary nature of this imperial measure was obvious. But in their way, all milestones are arbitrary. On the literal road, the pace that takes…