It’s very nice to have been nominated, for the second year, for The Great Outdoors Awards 2018. Woohoo! as they say. I’m in the Campaigner of the Year category – which is recognition enough. Thank you. Also in the same category is Chris Packham so you’d be bonkers to vote for me instead of him….
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Writing competition – deadline is midnight Sunday
This blog runs a writing competition each year. This year, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write a short essay on which is the ‘best’ month for enjoying wildlife (or alternatively, the ‘worst’ one). A few rules: Entries should be sent as WORD (.doc or .docx) attachments to emails sent to…
Where I’ll be on Monday
Mellow Yellow but no Turtles
Comments Off on Mellow Yellow but no Turtles
My favourite local farmer, Duncan Farrington, has been developing new delicious products with his prize-winning cold-pressed rapeseed oil. This Chilli and Cumin dressing is delicious – and I know it comes from a local farm with high environmental standards too. Duncan tells me that he didn’t see a Turtle Dove on his farm this year…
A Bluffer’s Guide to Agriculture Policy (3)
Forget how we got to this place, the consensus is that it’s not the best place possible and so Brexit gives the UK a better opportunity to come up with a better way of spending taxpayers’ money on land management. Michael Gove has latched on to the mantra of ‘Public money for public goods’ as…
Loads of money!
I see that I started being a Blackwell’s affiliate in March 2017 – about 18 months ago. If you buy books from Blackwell’s using the links in my posts (mostly in book reviews) then I’ll get a small cut of what you spend. That’ll obviously be nice for me and it may allow you to…
#PeoplesManifestoforWildlife – what they say
the Countryside Alliance don’t like it – although there is no indication of what they think is wrong with the document except that Chris Packham had a lot to do with it! Both Tim Bonner and Liam Stokes took to Twitter to be snide about Chris (and I guess the rest of the contributors, but…
Listen #ThePeoplesManifestoforWildlife
You can listen to several of the authors of chapters in The People’s Manifesto for Wildlife on the LUSH Soapbox in a podcast by Charlie Moores. The voices are : Chris Packham Maya-Rose Craig Carol Day Amy-Jane Beer Bella Lack Dominic Dyer Miles King Dave Goulson Ruth Peacey myself
Unpublished, but talked about, grouse studies
Last year I wrote about the grouse shooting industry’s habit of speaking in public about what are allegedly the results of studies that suit their case but where the findings are not in the public domain. In 2016 we had Ian Botham and Matt Ridley referring to a report which has still not been published…
A Bluffer’s Guide to Agriculture Policy (1)
I wonder what the new Agriculture Bill will deliver for us (and I’ll come back to who ‘us’ is later). When (if) we leave the EU then we will also leave the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) which has been a much-criticised part of our lives for more than four decades. If we are to say…