Thank you Steve!

I am grateful to Steve Ormerod for his guest blog of yesterday. It was good of him to respond, as he did – he didn’t have to at all. As Steve wrote, the RSPB and I share almost completely common ground on the problems as we see them. Maybe we differ here or there, but…

Good news for wildlife – bad news for driven grouse shooting?

The news that the European Commission is starting infraction proceedings against the UK, presumably for lack of action in England, over upland management issues, revealed on Martin Harper’s blog today is very welcome. It’s very welcome because it shows that the EU is a force for environmental good (but we knew that anyway) – although…

Wuthering Moors 52

This is a map of Walshaw Moor which was used in the 2012 case against the estate which was mysteriously dropped by Natural England.  You can make out the purple areas, which are made up of lots of purple lines, which the key tells us are artificial watercourses. Many of these would be known to…

Defra – a shameful department (2)

George Monbiot’s article in today’s Guardian reinforces the view that Defra has sunk to about as low as it can get. He points out that Defra announced the impacts of NOx pollution on human mortality and a consultation on how to fix it on the Saturday just before the media were swamped with the news…

Wuthering Moors 51

email to Dr Mike Clarke, Chief Exec of the RSPB.   Dear Mike How are you getting on with your complaint to the EU over Defra’s handling of the Walshaw Moor case and its position on burning of blanket bogs in general? I have asked Defra how they are getting on but they have invoked…