Today Natural England has announced a new licensing system for the culling of Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls – and it’s pretty good. These two species were removed from the general licences last year, and rightly so given that they are both declining in numbers. Natural England reveal that their analysis suggests that the…
Tag: Natural England
RSPB position on Environment Bill
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Martin Harper, the RSPB’s director for conservation said: The importance of this landmark legislation cannot be overstated – it should underpin our efforts to restore nature in a generation. It must set the right ambition, establish the right legal protections backed up by the right enforcement powers and introduce new tools to drive nature’s recovery….
Wild Justice puts DEFRA on notice
Yesterday, Wild Justice’s lawyers sent this letter to DEFRA. Paragraphs 16, 17 and 18 sum it all up pretty well. The choice is DEFRA’s – and with the choice comes the responsibility for the consequences. Essentially, WIld Justice has got what we asked for almost a year ago – an admission of unlawfulness from Natural…
Guest blog – Hope and what we do by Jean-Luc Solandt
Jean-Luc Solandt is a marine biologist struggling to get out of a policy expert. He worked on coral reef ecology for 15 years, providing diving survey data for the creation of Marine Protected Areas. He’s been working in the UK at the Marine Conservation Society for over 15 years on developing networks of MPAs, making…
Interesting figures on SSSI status
This was in my local(-ish) paper but it seems to be the Northants tip of a national iceberg. In the olden days it would have been an NGO that did this anlysis but not now – I wonder why not? The basic story is that Natural England isn’t doing its job properly in acting as…
NE and the planning system
Back in December 2017 I asked Natural England about their involvement, as a statutory consultee, in the planning system and received this information; I recently asked for an update and have been sent this: Now, there are many ways in which one could read these figures and really one would need an expert opinion and…
Come on Tony – must do better
Tony Juniper has been at the helm of Natural England for nearly nine months and in July Natural England will report on their progress during his first year. Hopes were high that we would all see a positive change with a change of both Chief Exec and Chair but probably the best that can be…
Theresa Villiers’s speech at Oxford Farming Conference yesterday.
This is the text of Theresa Villiers’s speech to the Oxford Farming Conference yesterday with comments from me. A vision for future farming as we tackle the challenges of climate change and nature recovery Leading Defra to put farming at the heart of tackling the twin climate and nature crisis Thank you … I am…
Guest blog – Woodland Musing 2 by Louise Bacon
Tree planting has been higher in my thoughts than usual recently, with all the GB political parties providing numbers of trees they intend to plant. As a volunteer in practical conservation land management for wildlife trusts etc., I have noticed that, without interference, trees are pretty good at growing themselves. Whether I have been cutting…
December 2019 – a record month in a strong year.
And so 2019 draws to an end. How was it for you? Here on this blog, December 2019 was a record December. Previous Decembers had never got into the 80,000s in pageviews, with December 2015 (at 79,000 pageviews) being the best December on record until this year when, as of yesterday, the pageviews already surpassed…