I hear that staff morale under the new interim Natural England CEO, Marian Spain, is rising. That’s good to hear. It might rise a little more if the report in Saturday’s The Times, that Tony Juniper might be NE’s new Chair, is true. It’s a difficult job but Tony might well be the person to…
Category: THE STATUTORY AGENCIES: NE, EA, FE etc
Bowland Gull Cull 24
Dr Coffey – what a charmer! What an advocate for wildlife she is as biodiversity minister!
Killing birds – the NRW case
There has been quite a lot of recent media interest in the data that have come to light through Freedom of Information Act requests to statutory nature consevation agencies in England, Scotland and Wales and published on the blog of Jason Endfield. He and others have done a good job in throwing some light on…
Forestry Commission press release – a writing opportunity
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FORESTRY COMMISSION LAUNCHES NEW PROJECT TO DIVERSIFY NATURE WRITING As part of celebrations to mark its centenary in 2019, the Forestry Commission has launched a new writing competition to diversify nature writing. From Wordsworth to J.K Rowling, England’s forests have inspired characters and chronicles that have shaped the nation’s literary history for…
Massive piles of dead Ravens
Thanks to Rob Sheldon we now know the scale of Raven killing licensed by SNH in Scotland over recent years. Licences have been issued to kill over 4,000 Ravens – a species otherwise protected by law – by the Scottish government’s nature conservation agency. With friends like this, protected wildlife needs no enemies. Read Rob’s…
Natural England PhD – Hen Harrier reintroduction
Natural England, that cash-strapped former conservation agency, is funding a PhD into raptor translocations. But it will use the case study of the reintroduction of Hen Harriers in England. Short thesis!
Great news – Fineshade Wood
This blog has written about the local issue of plans by Forest Holidays and Forest Enterprise England to develop Fineshade Wood with luxury cabins. Here are a few of those blogs: Dear Mr Pursglove, 6 May 2016; Fineshade Wood should be an SSSI, 15 April 2016; Fineshade Wood should be an SSSI, 28 March 2016;…
How many would you think?
I care deeply about the performance of Natural England – the government agency which is supposed to act in nature’s interests. That’s why I am taking a judicial review against their decision to license brood meddling (see here – we had two days in court last week but we need another day and we are…
A response from NE
Here is the link to the NE Enquiry Service. On the face of it, it looks like I may have been misinformed, or, in other words, I was wrong. But, it pays to check the wording carefully. Answer 2 seems to say that there is a more accurate or up to date dataset being finalised. …
More from this morning’s Efra Committee and Andrew Sells
The idea of giving an outgoing Chair of a statutory agency the opportunity to reflect on the state of the world is a good one – particularly if they grasp the opportunity , which Andrew Sells did this morning. He went out of his way to talk up vicarious liability and removal of the general…