Reading the minutes of other people’s meetings is not my natural habitat or habit. However, you never know what you might find. The trouble is, most minutes are written to hide rather than expose any interesting parts of the meetings they purport to summarise. What might we find out if we had the energy to…
Tag: Defra
Round up
Defra: are pretty hopeless really aren’t they? I haven’t had a reply to my ex MP’s letter about Andrew Wood’s witness statement. I’m probably on a database as a pleb – but that’s better than being a patrician. (see previous blogs on Wuthering Moors). Autumn: I saw a jay on my walk around Stanwick Lakes…
Taking mud to Essex
Last week Environment Secretary Owen Paterson launched work on Europe’s largest man-made wetland nature reserve – at least so say the RSPB and Crossrail whereas Defra is noticeably silent on the matter. Luckily, there is photographic evidence of the event. In an amazingly complex and difficult project, for which the RSPB’s Chief Executive Mike Clarke…
Ralph Underhill cartoon
I’m pleased to announce that each Saturday the Standing up for Nature blog will now feature the work of talented cartoonist Ralph Underhill. Feel free to comment and to suggest future subjects for Ralph’s pen.
Interesting slip
In Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday the Prime Minister said that he wants all government departments to be departments for growth. The Agriculture Department should be promoting British food, apparently. Sounds like a good idea perhaps, except you don’t have an Agriculture Department PM – you don’t even have a department with agriculture in…
Reshuffling the cards
Let us start by wishing Caroline Spelman well and thanking her for being a champion of biodiversity during her time at Defra. The outgoing Secretary of State did a good job on international biodiversity protection – and was notable for her own personal successes at the Nagoya meeting. Spelman lacked charisma and had the air…
Wuthering Moors 27
Blogs entitled ‘Wuthering Moors’ form a series of articles about the Walshaw Moor Estate and its relationship with Natural England and Defra. The Observer published this letter from a sizeable group of Hebden Bridge residents who are concerned that the management of nearby grouse moors including Walshaw Moor has increased the risk of flooding for…
What would Douglas Adams think of this?
Douglas Adams, who wrote the five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, was a great environmentalist. Hitchhikers is a book about environmentalism – and the fact it is funny doesn’t make it any the less serious. At the beginning of the book, when Arthur Dent’s house is to be demolished, he is…
Shuffle
The Bird Fair was great – and will have provided much inspiration for future blogs. I’ll come back to it soon but let’s change tack to politics. David Cameron, and everyone else, deserves a holiday, but the PM’s mind may be spinning over a rumoured reshuffle. Let me first say that I think that it…
Back to skylarks and Hope
I wrote a little about skylarks here recently – and how numbers had quadrupled at the RSPB’s Hope Farm over the last 12 years, increasing from 10 pairs in 2000 to the low 40s in recent years). The story of how skylarks increased is quite well known – it’s done by leaving small bare patches…