Martin Harper wrote an interesting blog last week about S-type conservationists and D-type conservationists. Which are you? The gist (you should read the original to check the details – and read some interesting comments) is that there are conservationists (S for supply) who act for nature in its own right through direct nature conservation action…
BLOG POSTS
The raptor haters? Robin Page.
Robin Page clearly is special. He has issues. When you read his own words it is difficult not to think that he has a lot of pent up anger that needs to spill out now and again (see here and here). And so it comes as no surprise that he is angry about birds of…
Other reading
I’m going to point you in the direction of some other blogs – blogs that I like to read (although not necessarily agree with). But first I’d like to point you back towards a few of my previous blogs and the comments that have accumulated on them. Since I came back from the USA this…
Don’t fire-bomb the countryside tonight!
I like 5 November – although clearly the Catholic conspirators missed an opportunity to influence Parliament. The failed Catesby plot allows us to celebrate with fireworks – and that’s what I’ll be doing this evening (probably after Strictly Come Dancing). But a couple of years ago I was in Stratford upon Avon at this time…
Why do they do this?
The reaction from the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation to yesterday’s RSPB report on the numbers of poisonings of birds of prey was a bit predictable. After making the arguable claim that gamekeeping is a ‘profession‘ the NGO makes the obligatory nod in the direction of upholding the law and then talks about the ‘surge’ in birds…
Not very nice
If anyone out there is thinking of killing me, please choose something quick. Whilst at the RSPB I had very few death threats (far fewer than my boss – goes with the territory) but they were mostly because of our position on ruddy ducks. It is ironic, with the passage of time, that those who…
Edgy?
A recent tweet on Twitter from Mary Creagh MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Defra, said that Defra Minister Richard Benyon had described the relationship between nature charities and Defra as ‘edgy’. The ‘really quite admirable’ Mr Benyon did use that phrase, in a debate, when expressing his pleasure at having his report card…
FWAG
The Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group is ‘expected to go into administration in the coming days’. Henry Lucas the FWAG Chair of Trustees has written to a range of organisations giving them the bad news. FWAG is a little over 40 years old and has been a respected part of the wildlife and farming scene…
You are one in 7 billion
Today, apparently, will be born a child who will bring the standing crop of the human population to 7,000,000,000. Yes, that’s a lot! The human population reached 1 billion in 1804 and 6 billion just before the millennium – we’ve stuck an extra billion people on the planet since then and 8 billion is about…
Nature Improvement Areas – nature conservation’s ‘Strictly’
A few days ago Natural England put the list of 20 short-listed areas that have been proposed as Nature Improvement Areas onto their website and apparently didn’t tell anyone. And Defra didn’t tell anyone either it seems. How odd? It’s like not mentioning the penultimate episode of Strictly Come Dancing. Perhaps it’s because this is…