It’s December tomorrow so you should be posting your Christmas cards soon. About a dozen people have ordered sets of these cards so far and have told me that they will send them to Defra, Natural England, the NFU and David Cameron as a protest against the badger cull. If you’d like to purchase a…
Tag: Natural England
CAP consultation – here’s one I prepared earlier (and have updated slightly)
In each part of the UK, the governments are consulting on how the tweaked Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be implemented. I have drafted my response to the Defra consultation and here it is for people to comment on. If you like it you can simply copy and paste it into the consultation and send…
Guest Blog – Guests at Nature’s Table by Findlay Wilde
My name is Findlay Wilde, you might remember me from the last guest blog I did for Mark about my concerns for the future of our fabulous, but endangered, wildlife and habitats. And now I am back to write my second blog. A lot has changed in a year and I have now started High…
Burn, baby, burn
The burning of heather moorlands to create the right conditions for unnaturally high densities of Red Grouse may be harming the aquatic life in the rivers draining such uplands according to a new study. The authors, from Leeds University, studied the aquatic animals in 10 rivers in the north of England – five from burned…
Four tories
I was quite shocked by Owen Paterson’s performance on the Today programme on Tuesday in response to the Nature Check report (click here to listen, at 01:34 and 17 seconds). That is, shocked in the sense of outraged rather than surprised. The gist of Paterson’s comments was that the views of the 41 organisations signing…
Saturday Cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Ralph Underhill writes: I passionately believe that the planning system needs to do more for wildlife, particularly areas that currently have no protection. However, I do not think “Biodiversity Offsetting” is the right mechanism, even if existing proposals aren’t too bad it is the principle and precedent setting that we should really be worried…
Guest Blog – The Age of Can Do by Miles King
Miles King has been causing trouble in nature conservation for over 25 years and is currently Senior Ecologist at Footprint Ecology. He has been variously, head of conservation at Plantlife, The Grasslands Trust and Buglife. At other times Miles has worked for English Nature, Natural England, Dorset AONB and as a freelance conservationist. Miles lives…
Minox Challenge – the BTO by Andy Clements
Small is beautiful. I’ve now stopped introducing the BTO as a ‘small’ organisation. With 120 staff, an annual turnover of £5m, 17500 members and around 40,000 wonderful volunteers whose birdwatching creates our data, the numbers speak for themselves. Of course we are small when you compare us to the mighty RSPB, the ubiquitous Wildlife Trusts…
Minox Challenge – Butterfly Conservation by Martin Warren
Who could resist a butterfly? Butterflies are among nature’s most colourful and spectacular creatures, which are used across the world as symbols of beauty and spirituality. Sadly, they are also one our most seriously threatened groups of wildlife. This is the case for why Butterfly Conservation, the NGO that works to conserve butterflies and moths,…
WOS
Last Saturday I drove into Wales, to Monmouth, to spend the day at the meeting of the Welsh Ornithological Society. I gave a talk and listened to lots of others. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Gwent Ornithological Society so it was fitting that we were in Monmouth. I enjoyed hearing from Al…