AGMs are often soul-less affairs – not so with that of the RSPB which was held yesterday in London’s QEII Conference Centre. This day in the past was a working day for me, and quite a stressful one too, as the period in the morning where you have to think on your feet and answer…
Search Results for: lawton
Wildlife Trusts rehabilitated
The Wildlife Trusts, in my opinion, did not distinguish themselves over the issue of public forests and SSSIs in 2010/11. They gave the impression to many of us of having one eye on the main chance and having lost focus on the needs of nature. Let’s put it down to a momentary aberration which we…
Nature Improvement Areas
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…
Nature Improvement Areas – nature conservation’s ‘Strictly’
A few days ago Natural England put the list of 20 short-listed areas that have been proposed as Nature Improvement Areas onto their website and apparently didn’t tell anyone. And Defra didn’t tell anyone either it seems. How odd? It’s like not mentioning the penultimate episode of Strictly Come Dancing. Perhaps it’s because this is…
Top scientist slams government
In his acceptance speech when receiving the RSPB Medal, Professor Sir John Lawton FRS described the coalition government’s proposed ‘dismantling of the planning system‘ as ‘truly terrifying‘ and the ‘backpedalling‘ on climate change in George Osborne’s conference speech as being ‘deeply worrying‘. Sir John, who is an RSPB Vice President, Chair of the Yorkshire Wildlife…