Category: THE WILDLIFE NGOs – RSPB, Wildlife Trusts Wild Justice, BSBI etc

Guest blog – How donations to World Land Trust can be Multiplied Four Times by Andy Langley

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Andy Langley is a wildlife enthusiast and supporter of World Land Trust (WLT), who will be doing a sponsored birdwatch this October to raise money for WLT’s ‘Protecting the Ecuadorian Amazon’ appeal. Each October, for the last seven years, my employer Ecclesiastical Insurance, part of the Benefact Group, has pledged matched funding up to £5,000…

Guest blog – Think Big, Act Bigger by Roy Dennis

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Roy Dennis is a senior and eminent wildlife conservationist with a lovely voice and plenty of things to say. He once worked for the RSPB as Highland Officer and before that he was the director of the Fair Isle Bird Observatory. For many, Roy is best known for his role in promoting reintroductions of mammals…

RSPB in some trouble

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Indications have been growing for some months that the RSPB is in trouble but it’s no use hiding it any more. Many organisations go through what seem like interminable reviews, and RSPB has had its share in the past decade or so, but this one is pretty serious. The jobs of hundreds of staff have…

English Hen Harrier numbers slump

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Natural England has published, in more detail than in previous years (click here), the numbers of Hen Harriers nesting in England – they are down this year. Numbers in 2024 are lower than in 2023 and 2022 and only slightly higher than in 2021. This year puts an end to a run of years of…

Sunday book review – The Lie of the Land by Guy Shrubsole

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This is Guy Shrubsole’s best book yet, despite the success of his excellent Who Owns England (reviewed here) and his book about soggy, slippery woods, The Lost Rainforests of Britain (reviewed here) because this book is about everything! It covers a lot of ground, all of it, because it is about land use and who…

Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 56 by Nick MacKinnon

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Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…

Dear Mr Reed, 1

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Dear Steve Reed, just think, in a month’s time you may be in your second day in your new job as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. How will your first day in the job have gone? I’m a Labour Party member, living in the marginal seat of Corby in Northamptonshire, and…

Press release Scottish Rewilding Alliance – Three-quarters of Scots want more beaver reintroductions

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Three-quarters of Scots want more beaver reintroductions – but government agencies ‘go slow’ despite beaver deaths  Three-quarters of Scots want Scotland’s public bodies to step up action on beaver reintroductions, shows research conducted for the Scottish Rewilding Alliance.   But government agencies are not delivering on a Scottish Government call on them to lead in…

Press release from Trees for Life

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Leap forward for red squirrel reintroduction on Scotland’s west coast Red squirrels could return to the entire northern coastline of Scotland’s west coast Morvern peninsula and flourish again on neighbouring Ardnamurchan following reintroduction of the species by Trees for Life.   The rewilding charity has this spring released six red squirrels into broadleaf woodland on the remote…