A rather fluffy gauntlet – the event

Last Tuesday a bunch of NGOs launched their ‘Response for Nature’ report (or reports actually – one for each UK nation) at an event in London.  I’ll comment on the reports later today but the event was a room full of wildlife conservation organisation staff talking to themselves. There were speeches: from Steve Backshall, Josie…

Wildlife NGOs in 2013

This year has been difficult for our wildlife NGOs.  Money is tight and the government is hostile to nature. The Grasslands Trust disappeared from the Tangled Bank of wildlife NGOs and many others have had to cut their expenditure (and their staff). There have been encouraging signs of NGOs working more closely together – most…

New Networks for Nature

I attended the fifth New Networks for Nature meeting in Stamford on Friday and Saturday.  It’s a different type of meeting – refreshingly different.  Where else would you get organic food for lunch, haikus, a panel debate with leading thinkers on environmental matters, the President of the SWLA, three talks about non-native/introduced/alien species, some young…

Nature Check

Today, 41 organisations, under the banner of Wildlife and Countryside Link, publish their assessment of Government’s progress over the last 12 months, on its own stated commitments (a report called Nature Check).  In four areas Government gets the green light indicating good progress, in nine areas a red light for failure, and in 12 areas…

NGO Watch

Have you noticed a breeze of change blowing through the NGO world?   At Plantlife, their much-loved Chief Executive, Victoria Chester, is moving on to a higher vocation and so they are looking for a new leader.     The Freshwater Habitats Trust has emerged, like a dragonfly, from the waters of Pond Conservation –…