Dear First MinisterI have just written a book, publication date 1 October, called Framing Nature – conservation and culture. I’ll send you a copy, hoping that you’ll have a few minutes one evening to read the first few lines of the introduction, which opens with the tragic story of the Scottish wildcat – a sad…
Category: CAMPAIGNING: petitions, marches, writing to your MP, HHDay
Dear First Minister – from Chris Gomersall
Dear First Minister and Cabinet SecretaryMay I ask, respectfully, which image of a white-tailed eagle do you prefer? And which best represents the aspirations of the Scottish government and its attitude to Scotland’s native wildlife and the environment? I am writing to you because of the latest in a long line of sickening and illegal…
Dear First Minister – from Jon Dunn
Jon Dunn is a birder, author and more, as his letter to Nicola Sturgeon about the poisoning of a young White-tailed Eagle in Strathdon demonstrates. Dear First Minister, I don’t expect you to have heard of me – though I have to say as a Shetland resident, I have admired the SNP’s governance of Scotland…
And another petition to stop peat destruction….
I’ve signed this petition from the RSPB. It’s a shame that it looks so much like a name-gatherer rather than a very serious campaigning move, but you can tick the boxes saying ‘no thanks’.
The Midhope track
Regular readers with good memories will remember the Midhope Track. This is what it looks like at the moment (above). The logs from the image below have been added to the plastic track but they are now sinking into the bog. Bob Berzins wrote about this track back in January 2019 and February 2017 (click…
Petitions Committee doing its job
You may have received an email like this one from the Petitions Committee: You recently signed the petition “Legal rights for ancient trees”: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300050 The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) have considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt that the response did not directly address the request…
Shooting Badgers (3)
The information on Badger culls in the 2014 IEP report were collected by observers. These are people who go out with shooters and watch and record what happens. Now it seems fanciful to me to imagine that shooters behave in exactly the same way when they know someone is monitoring what happens as they do…
Shooting Badgers (2)
The National Farmers’ Union has a petition about food standards: I want the food I eat to be produced to world leading standards. Our Government should ensure that all food eaten in the UK – whether in our homes, schools, hospitals, restaurants or from shops – is produced in a way that matches the high standards…
Shooting Badgers (1)
In the past two years, more than 67,000 Badgers have been killed under a government programme which claims to have as its aim the eradication of bovine Tb in cattle. About two thirds of these Badgers are shot (free shooting, sometimes called controlled shooting) and one third are trapped and then shot. Free shooting is…
Ban driven grouse shooting
All those months after reaching 100,000 signatures in just 20 days in favour of banning driven grouse shooting we get a result from the Petitions Committee. Instead of a Westminster Hall debate (I’m not sure they are happening these days, and it is almost the parliamentary summer holidays), Chris Packham was interviewed by Kerry McCarthy…