Standing up for Nature
Following my blog ‘first’ thing this morning here is some more information on the damage that burning does to blanket bogs. Martin Harper’s blog today expands on the RSPB’s thinking about burning of blanket bog. More details of the RSPB’s complaint to the EU over the management (they clearly regard it as mis-management, as did…
The RSPB is getting stroppy about burning of blanket bogs – I like that. Burning heather on a rotation of 7-20 years is part of the industrialisation of the upland landscape of parts of the UK. The main reason for doing it is to produce totally unnaturally high densities of Red Grouse which can then…
Here’s a head-ache for the new NFU President and his team, and also for Owen Paterson; one man in the first few days of his job and the other, if rumours are to be believed, in the last few weeks of his. An Independent Expert Panel was appointed by Defra to help evaluate the effectiveness,…
…I can see clearly now the rain has gone! I can see all obstacles in my way… We wish Owen Paterson clear vision for the months ahead. 1. Climate change is real 2. Fixing bovine tb cannot be done by a cull of badgers alone 3. Culling badgers is quite likely to increase the…
The recently knighted Sir John Randall MP is a birder. Having stepped down from being Deputy Chief Whip he is now enjoying the freedom of the backbenches and the freedom to speak up for nature (note this speech he made in the Christmas adjournment debate from 1:40pm onwards where he touches on various subjects including…
I am grateful to my MP, Andy Sawford, for writing to Defra on my behalf to ask them about the continuing declines in farmland birds. And I am grateful to Lord de Mauley (or Rupert) the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Natural Environment and Science at Defra for his reply. Rupert mentions that this…
During his/her annual speech last night the Chief of the Environmental Defence Staff was horribly misquoted as saying; I can understand, completely, that in times of slightly lower national richness we must clobber the environment for all it is worth. I have, of course, no argument with our ‘greenest ever Prime Minister’ on that score. …
The decision of the coalition government to reject the Secretary of State for the Environment’s recommendation of a full 15% rate of modulation for the CAP (and go for 12% instead) caps off an awful year for wildlife in England; – glacially slow and inadequate progress on MCZs – UK opposition to a neonic ban…
Well done to the RSPB, and the Wildlife Trusts, for launching an impressive e-action over the weekend to persuade the Prime Minister to back his Secretary of State and go ahead with a 15% transfer of funds from one part of the CAP (the rather useless part) to another part of the CAP (the rather…
I like Charles Clover but I don’t (by any means) always agree with him. His column in today’s Sunday Times is entitled ‘Greedy farmers a-milking it, no turtle doves and no partridges either‘ and describes Peter Kendall as ‘the cocky ambassador of agri-business‘. Wow! Even I am more polite about PK than that! Charles Clover,…