Wuthering Moors 34 – the Defra response to the EU Commission

Further to this morning’s post, here is the information levered out of Defra on their response to the EU Commission regarding the RSPB complaint to the EU over the Walshaw Moor affair and its implications. WMEL below refers to the Walshaw Moor Estate Limited. I will post my early thoughts on this, here, at 1500…

Wuthering Moors 31

Blogs entitled ‘Wuthering Moors’ form a series of articles about the Walshaw Moor Estate and its relationship with Natural England and Defra. Regular readers of this blog may remember that I submitted a request for information to Defra about their response to the RSPB complaint to Europe over the Walshaw Moor affair. I received no…

Guest Blog – ‘Muzzled Watchdog’ to ‘Toothless Terrier’? by Helen Kirk

Helen Kirk has been described as ‘an indefatigable and tenacious environmental campaigner and amateur naturalist’.  For more than 30 years she has championed and helped safeguard the Humberhead peatlands, and the special plants and creatures that depend on them. She is the executive secretary of the Thorne and Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum and has recently…

More good news – unless you are a raptor hater

Today the Environmental Audit Committee publishes a report on Wildlife Crime. Amongst other useful findings it recommends that the government in England and Wales introduces an offence of vicarious liability for wildlife crime (as already exists in Scotland) and makes the possession of the banned pesticide carbofuran illegal (as it already is in Scotland). In…

Wuthering Moors – 29 The bigger picture

The Walshaw Moor Estate case is important in itself, and we commend again the RSPB for taking a firm stand on it, but it is also indicative of a much wider and deeper Defra malaise. If Defra is not now acting merely as the Rural Jobs and Fieldsports Department then it needs to get its…