I bet my former colleague Simon Marsh had a bit of a busy day yesterday – and probably the day before too. The Daily Telegraph published an opinion piece by Simon telling of his disappointment in the way that the government’s planning reforms have turned out. Not much news there you might say as that…
Category: THE WILDLIFE NGOs – RSPB, Wildlife Trusts Wild Justice, BSBI etc
What’s happening in the NGO family?
Everybody seems to be talking about NGOs this week – last week government was shouting at them! Greenpeace is 40 this week . WWF is 50 this week. The late, great, Sir Peter Scott who founded the Wildfowl Trust, now Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, and had a lot to do with setting up the WWF…
An interesting event – of some significance?
Those readers of this blog who are also signed up to my monthly newsblast will have read that I have quite kind thoughts about the content of the England Biodiversity Strategy – except that there may be too little money to implement it. But I noticed that a group of wildlife NGOs – the RSPB,…
Boomtime for bitterns
I’m delighted that the RSPB and Natural England have been able to announce that booming bitterns have passed the 100 mark – and reached 104 booming males in fact. Given that in 1997 (incidentally, the year before I became the RSPB’s Conservation Director) there were only 11 booming males this is a remarkable and very welcome recovery. And let’s…
Captive audience at RSPB Arne
Today I’ll be at the Bird Fair (come up and say hello – and perhaps buy a copy of Blogging for Nature from me) but last Thursday I was still on holiday in Dorset having not seen white-beaked dolphin and not seen Adonis blue butterfly. What would I not see next? Arne had already provided…
Raptor haters – an update
A reader of this blog contacted the Chair of the National Trust, Sir Simon Jenkins, over his apparent views on raptors as referred to in my blog on 9 July. And having been in contact with Sir Simon myself he writes ‘The piece was written before I had any link to the National Trust and certainly now…
A slightly dull report
Yesterday’s blog considered an interesting report by gamekeepers about the state of the countryside and today’s blog is about a slightly dull report by the BTO, RSPB and the JNCC about the state of breeding bird populations in the countryside. Yesterday’s report was based on a questionnaire survey whereas this one is based on tens…
The raptor haters – Sir Max Hastings
The raptor haters is an occasional series of articles on people who slag off birds of prey. Just over a week ago I was sitting next to Sir Max Hastings at the Game Fair and got on surprisingly well with him but he’s gone down in my estimations, not that that should worry him too…
Brooks and badgers
Thinking about next week’s Game Fair at Blenheim, I remember a few years ago sitting next to the Telegraph columnist Charlie Brooks at lunch on the Friday. Mr Brooks had just recently written a piece slagging off the RSPB so we had a few things to chat about and the conversation roamed over the usual…
Bye bye RSPB
Today is my last day at work for the RSPB. After just over 25 years I am moving on. They have been a wonderful 25 years – I have so many stories from them I ought to write a book – now there’s an idea! My successor is Martin Harper – formerly of Plantlife and…