I phoned the Defra Press Office on Monday and they said they’d get back to me. I phoned the Defra Press Office on Tuesday and they said they’d get back to me. I phoned the Defra Press Office on Wednesday and they said they’d get back to me. All I want is the details of…
Tag: Defra
I’ll be Doggered if I know (1)
Today you get two blogs for the price of none – this one’s about being at sea (or they might both be about being at sea…) Last Thursday Defra issued a press release about the Dogger Bank being given extra protection under the EU Habitats Regulations as a Special Area for Conservation (SAC)(but it’s proposed…
The war on biodiversity loss, cuts and bank voles
Last week the biodiversity (and many other things) Minister, Richard Benyon, was quoted on the matter of the recovering bittern population. The Minister said “To see a species that was once extinct in the UK rise to a population of over one hundred is a real achievement. This is largely down to the work of the…
Boomtime for bitterns
I’m delighted that the RSPB and Natural England have been able to announce that booming bitterns have passed the 100 mark – and reached 104 booming males in fact. Given that in 1997 (incidentally, the year before I became the RSPB’s Conservation Director) there were only 11 booming males this is a remarkable and very welcome recovery. And let’s…
Gone and forgotten?
‘Farmland birds in Europe fall to lowest levels‘ is a terribly sad headline. And we should be raging that things have got so bad. The grey (or ‘English’) partridge is in free-fall right across Europe with a decline of two thirds in numbers since 1990, and of 82% since 1980 according to the European Bird…