Secret green shame – in open view

This piece from the Daily Mirror’s environment editor is a cracker. We’ve come a long way in the last few years – can you imagine such an article being published a decade ago – no way. And with quotes from RSPB, Wildlife Trusts and CPRE? Opposing the environmental damage caused by the unsustainable intensive management…

Martin Harper to move from RSPB to BirdLife International

Martin Harper, the RSPB’s Conservation Director, will be moving to BirdLife International in May to become the Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia. I recruited Martin to the RSPB 17 years ago, from Plantlife, and he has done a fine job through the whole of that period, the last 10 years of which have…

Guest blog – Saving nature: how radical do we need to be? by Laurence Rose

Laurence is a Yorkshire-based conservationist and writer, a few months from retiring from the RSPB. Author of Framing Nature – conservation and culture and The Long Spring. Twitter: @LaurenceR_write In July last year, parroting the government’s own choice of language, several newspapers announced a ‘radical’ shake-up of the planning system. Clearly they hadn’t actually read…

My binoculars’ 45th

I took my binoculars for a walk this morning – we went to Stanwick Lakes on their 45th birthday. They seemed to cope well enough. They weren’t needed to identify the singing Chiffchaffs but they came into their own for some distant Sand Martins – my first of 2021. Later, in the sunny garden as…

Four weeks – and 100,000 signatures

The joint NGO petition is four weeks old and it is just shy of 100,000 signatures – not bad at all. It’s been a good week. We need more good weeks, and quite a few of them, to power through the 250,000 signature barrier and beccome truly noticeable and powerful. Thanks mostly to @Team4Nature’s social…