Nature Improvement Areas are a new idea that came out of the report by Prof Sir John Lawton‘s group in 2010. From its strapped resources Defra has found £7.5m to invest in a slightly different type of nature conservation initiative – an area based, Big Society approach. No that isn’t a typo – a paltry…
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It might be spring
My last two visits to Stanwick Lakes have been very spring-like, even if they were both in late February. Reed buntings were singing, if you can call that a song, everywhere, and skylarks, song thrushes and dunnocks were belting out their songs too. I heard Cetti’s warblers for the first time in quite a while….
Wake up and do it George!
This is funny – I’ve played it several times for the chuckle it brings to my lips. Play it, have a laugh and then email the Chancellor so that he might wake up to the importance of wildlife in our lives. I’d be interested to know whether you get a respsonse from your MP like…
Well done Hawk and Owl Trust!
The Hawk and Owl Trust is a small but very good NGO, in my opinion. I was particularly pleased to see this formal and robust support for the epetition on vicarious liability on the HOT’s website. And this strongly worded piece from HOT’s President, and Springwatch heart-throb (I am told – he does nothing to…
Walking round in circles?
The CLA describe their own report on access, wittily named The Right Way Forward, as hard hitting; I would describe it as dyspeptic. The report’s Executive Summary is not very descriptive but is quite florid in its language. Almost everything, it seems, ‘defies logic’, needs an ‘injection of common sense’, is ‘unjust’ (to landowners), requires…
I seem to have joined Big Society again
I’ve recently been appointed as a member of the Anglian (Northern) Regional Flood and Coastal Committee which means that I can give up any prospect of being paid on several days a year to help comment on flood and coastal defence projects. I attended a very good induction day last week organised by the Environment…
A busy week
Congratulations to the re-elected NFU President, Peter Kendall, whose speech at the NFU Conference was described as ‘shocking and regressive‘ by one of his own members on this site on Wednesday. That farmer said he voted for the NFU in the Nature of Harming ‘award’ and writes rather harshly that ‘Peter Kendall is a PR…
Green Greeks
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Beware Germans bearing gifts may be the watchword in Athens now, but if you raise your eyes above the floor to the heavens, or just short of them, then you may see signs of green shoots of growth in the Greek economy. Or at least on the roof of the Treasury in Athens. These…
It’s mad!
Yesterday’s blog suggested a different way of paying by results for success in agri-environment schemes – regional top-ups for participating farmers if the regional farmland bird index rises. It’s a tricky thing to administer, perhaps, but it is essentially a good idea (in my humble opinion). This month’s copy of The Field – with an…
Just another member
I was up in t’northwest this week and managed to fit in a visit to the RSPB’s Leighton Moss nature reserve. I hoped to see a few good birds, remind myself of what a pretty place it is, maybe have a spot of lunch in the cafe and slip out again without being recognised as…