On Monday I am taking part in a discussion as part of Biology Week where we will discuss whether we should bother saving the panda. Looks like fun and I hope to see you there. Saturdays are cartoon days on this blog and feature the work of talented cartoonist Ralph Underhill.
BLOG POSTS
Not so blithe now
I entered three poems for the Rialto/RSPB poetry competition but, not surprisingly, none of them won a prize. I’ve always liked Shelley, red Shelley, for his lyricism but also for being a campaigner and an angry one at that. If he were back with us he might (or might not) write this: Not so…
A couple of lessons
I’d quite like to write a book entitled ‘Advice to a young advocate’ which would give tips on how to influence the political system. I’d not be the right person to write all of it so I’d need a few co-authors too – I wonder what Tony Juniper would think of the idea. There are…
Plastic environmentalism
The Conference speech by the new Defra Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, will have been like discordant music to the ears of the environment movement. It would be very difficult to find many working in the environment who think that the EU is perfect but it would be almost impossible to find people who think…
FSA advice on eating game
Yesterday afternoon the Food Standards Agency (FSA) published revised guidance on eating game shot with lead. It starts: ‘The Food Standards Agency is advising people that eating lead-shot game on a frequent basis can expose them to potentially harmful levels of lead. The FSA’s advice is that frequent consumers of lead-shot game should eat less…
Golden opportunity for the RSPB
The RSPB’s annual report on people being nasty to birds for 2011 is now published. It tells the usual sorry tale of wildlife crime illustrated with depressing images of trapped, poisoned and shot birds. The report highlights the Law Commission’s review of species legislation as the golden opportunity to improve protection for birds of prey…
RSPB AGM
AGMs are often soul-less affairs – not so with that of the RSPB which was held yesterday in London’s QEII Conference Centre. This day in the past was a working day for me, and quite a stressful one too, as the period in the morning where you have to think on your feet and answer…
Ralph Underhill cartoon – 3
Each Saturday the Standing up for Nature blog features the work of talented cartoonist Ralph Underhill. Feel free to comment and to suggest future subjects for Ralph’s pen.
Wet plastic
I’ve only recently, this year, become aware of some of the facts about plastic in the oceans. Plastic Oceans is a good source of some information but here are some other links too (here, here, here, here, here). It’s sad to see that even the remote Southern Ocean has high levels of plastic, tiny pieces…
Lead poisoning still killing lots of birds and FSA advice on human health impacts ‘delayed’.
A just-published study reveals that lead gunshot is still a threat to wild waterbirds in the UK, over a decade after the use of lead gunshot was banned in wetlands and for shooting wildfowl in England ( similar but slightly different legislation pertains elsewhere in the UK). Waterfowl ingest spent lead shot whilst feeding. Sometimes…