Standing up for Nature
I guess I think I am a wordsmith, and yet a picture really can tell a thousand words – or more! The 2020VISION project aims to inspire a wide audience with a compelling case for rebuilding and reconnecting fragmented habitats, not only for the benefit of the plants and animals that live there, but for…
I am a great fan of Birdtrack. I can see lots of value in the data that are accumulating there in terms of looking at future changes in bird distributions and numbers. But also it allows me to check changes at my local patch at Stanwick Lakes where I go scores of times each year….
Did you see Zac Goldsmith on Newsnight on Tuesday evening? If not, have a look (about 16 minutes in) because he was very good. As Jeremy Paxman sat in front of an image of green countryside Allegra Stratton spilled the beans on what the Treasury is thinking on the planning the system (read it here)….
Gary Burgess posted a comment on this blog on 18 February on a rather old blog and I thought that few would notice what he had written and so I offered him the chance of a Guest Blog to air his views more prominently. I’m really glad that Gary took up the offer but I…
Nature is everywhere, it’s all around us and it is in trouble in many places around us. When government was looking for areas to qualify as Nature Improvement Areas it had plenty of places from which to choose – 76 proposals came forward for the £7.5m funding that was available for just 12 sites. Those…
Nature Improvement Areas are a new idea that came out of the report by Prof Sir John Lawton‘s group in 2010. From its strapped resources Defra has found £7.5m to invest in a slightly different type of nature conservation initiative – an area based, Big Society approach. No that isn’t a typo – a paltry…
My last two visits to Stanwick Lakes have been very spring-like, even if they were both in late February. Reed buntings were singing, if you can call that a song, everywhere, and skylarks, song thrushes and dunnocks were belting out their songs too. I heard Cetti’s warblers for the first time in quite a while….
This is funny – I’ve played it several times for the chuckle it brings to my lips. Play it, have a laugh and then email the Chancellor so that he might wake up to the importance of wildlife in our lives. I’d be interested to know whether you get a respsonse from your MP like…
The Hawk and Owl Trust is a small but very good NGO, in my opinion. I was particularly pleased to see this formal and robust support for the epetition on vicarious liability on the HOT’s website. And this strongly worded piece from HOT’s President, and Springwatch heart-throb (I am told – he does nothing to…
I am grateful to Defra Minister Richard Benyon for this reply to a letter which my MP, Louise Mensch, sent to him on 15 December concerning implementation of the EU Birds Directive. The letter asked about farmland birds, hen harriers and marine protected areas. The Minister’s civil servants have written him quite a detailed reply…