Standing up for Nature
Do you ever get a feeling of deja vu? Do you ever get a feeling of deja vu? Yesterday the Westminster parliament website started allowing e-petitions again. The website is a bit jazzier and it’s in a nice Westminster green colour. E-petitions still need to get 10,000 signatures to receive a government response (none of…
It would, perhaps, be a bit surprising if the guys at Raptor Persecution Scotland weren’t keen on Inglorious – but stranger things have happened. And so I was relieved that they seemed to love it! Inglorious is not a book about raptors – it’s a book about the ills of driven grouse shooting. But there…
Admittedly you can’t see my friend Henry in this photo, but I promise he was here. And ‘here’ is Langholm Moor, the Duke of Buccleuch’s place which hosted the first Langholm study and is hosting the second one (of which more on Thursday). It’s a crow trap in the foreground, and Whita Hill in the…
Last week, Iceland foods (prop Malcom Walker – a keen shooter) was reported in the Daily Mail (editor Paul Dacre – grouse moor owner) as being about to stock frozen grouse in their stores. This blog posted the following questions to Iceland (and emailed them to Mr Walker): Iceland says: All Iceland brand products are…
As climate change worsens, the expected range of the Red Grouse will shift north, perhaps leaving northern England altogether, at least those are the predictions of climate change modelling (see, for example, here). But in the Daily Mail (and only the Daily Mail as far as I can see – editor Paul Dacre, grouse moor…
I thought that Henry ought to see Walshaw Moor before he reads about it on pages 149-157, 175-176 and 190-192 of Inglorious – conflict in the uplands. But all this talk about the damage that heather burning does to peatlands (see here and here) reminds me that the RSPB has an outstanding complaint in to…
I am very grateful to Yorkshire Water for their full and quick response to my approach to them. If only the statutory sector were as quick! Here is the response from Yorkshire Water’s Andrew Walker copied below for ease and then some comments by me. “You are right to be concerned about rotational heather…
Today the Observer has a piece on the Climate Change Committee’s report to parliament (mentioned on this blog on Wednesday) which raised the issue of intensive grouse moor management ‘The damaging practice of burning peat to increase grouse yields continues, including on internationally protected sites.’. The article was interesting for a number of reasons. The…
I’m developing a new theory of advocacy – it’s not a very useful theory but it is keeping me amused, thinking about it. My theory is that everyone, on all sides, thinks that they are losing the advocacy war on most issues. What do you think of my theory? It’s just a theory but it’s…
Four weeks today, Inglorious – conflict in the uplands will be published by Bloomsbury. Inglorious has a Foreword by Chris Packham that is hard-hitting and passionate and makes the rest of the book look rather meek and mild. Inglorious starts with the Hen Harrier and its persecution by game interests, partly because many of us…