I attended many political party conferences in a former life and I got to grow to enjoy them. Moving from the LibDems to Labour to Conservative conferences became part of the autumn scene. There were individual members of every party with whom one could have sensible and constructive conversations about nature and the environment but…
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Silly biofools!
MEPs voted for a 6% cap on food-based biofuels yesterday. It could be worse (it always could) but it should be an awful lot better. Action Aid report. RSPB report. EEB report. BBC report. Business green report. Thomson Reuters report. EU Observer report. I am amazed that in this world when things are speeding up…
Binoculars
I would be very surprised if readers of this blog have been worrying about the fate of my binoculars since I dropped them on the concrete outside a motel at Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, on 23 June. A few days later (28 June to be precise) I took them into Hawkins in Northampton to see…
Biofuels – a burning question
Please do this today: ask your MEP to vote for the lowest possible limit on the addition of biofuels to transport fuels by clicking here and supporting Action Aid’s campaign. There is a vote tomorrow where MEPs will be asked to decide whether to limit biofuels to 5.5% or 6.5% of transport fuel volumes. The…
Hit or a Miss?
Looks like he’s going to miss this time? And it doesn’t look very much like a harrier. Could you make it up…?
Unholy alliance?
Ian Lindsay is Director of Education at the GWCT and he writes in the September NFU Countryside magazine about reintroductions. Do they, he asks, make conservation sense? His punchline is ‘…in the context of our declining wildlife, are reintroductions a part of sound conservation management addressing key environmental priorities, or an expensive, cynical and high-profile…
Bovine TB
I heard this suggestion several years ago from a clever colleague. I haven’t heard it since but I bet he’s right – although it’s a bit late in the day now. Is there any genetic basis for immunity to bovine TB in cattle? If so, why aren’t we using the more immune breeds of cattle? …
Yosemite fire
I suspect I am following the news of fires affecting the Yosemite National Park a little more closely than most. That’s partly because I was there around two and a half months ago and also because there is an interesting conservation back-story to present day events. Yosemite, in the California Sierra Nevada mountains, was the…
You have been warned…
Today, until midnight, is the last chance to buy the new Bird Atlas of Britain and Ireland at a reduced price. I’m looking forward to my copy and will review it here some time – but you will definitely want your own copy because it will be a fascinating read. Click here to avail yourself…
The best read
I think Butterfly Conservation‘s magazine, wittily called ‘Butterfly‘, is the best read of all the magazines produced by wildlife NGOs. I’m not sure whether it has had a make-over because it has always been excellent, but the current issue, that has a common blue on the cover (a close up of the image used at…