Category: Guest blog

Andy Atkins steps down from 7 years as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth in June.  He is taking a few months break to write a book and, if there is time left over, to paint a series of landscapes from a large collection of sketches.  After that he plans to throw himself back…

Stuart Housden writes: On 21st April 1945, seventy years ago, Derek Ratcliffe climbed to his first peregrine’s nest in the north Pennines. He was then a schoolboy at Carlisle Grammar School, but described that day in his memoir In Search of Nature as his ‘red letter day’. In fact, he was almost killed, as the…

Richard Wilson is an independent professional ecologist with more than 15 years experience. When in the field, he specialises in avian and invertebrate ecology, with a smattering of botanical surveying thrown in for good measure. His background as a consultant has led to a keen interest in EU and UK law in the context of…

After twenty-some years pursuing a career in marketing and management consultancy I jumped ship and returned to academia, initially to study Countryside Management and then moving on to read for a degree in Ecology. The marriage of my old world and new is not a comfortable one. From the dual perspectives of environment and economy,…