Access to information request – Partial release – Request No RFI 3031 regarding all records of, and documents related to, NE Board discussions on SSSI, SPA, SAC designation programmes, ‘gate zero’ and changes in strategy and approach from the present day back to the beginning of 2011 Many thanks for your letter and enclosures dated…
Tag: Natural England
Sunday book review – Natural Capital by Dieter Helm
This is a book written by an eminent economist who is also passionately interested in wildlife. There may be lots of such people but I haven’t met many of them. And Professor Dieter Helm has been since 2012, the chair of the Natural Capital Committee in England. The author states in his preface that ‘The…
West Pennine Moors complaint to NE over their response
Dear [Natural England] I wish to complain about the information that you sent me in response to this request (RFI 3031). I request an internal review by NE of whether it has discharged its obligations under EIR. Specifically, the paper NEB 49 13 is heavily redacted and contains little information about how the ‘Gate Zero’…
A barn of special scientific interest? West Pennine Moors
And in case any readers of this blog think that site designations do not matter too much, I hear of a flower-rich meadow which is in the proposed (for a long time) West Pennine Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest that is now destroyed and has a barn built on it. As a local has…
What the frack? West Pennine Moors
Just in case any readers of this blog think that notification of SSSIs is mere paper-shifting that doesn’t mean anything on the ground have a look at this very helpful map of areas offered for fracking by the Oil and Gas Authority. The areas SD61 and SD62 on the West Pennine Moors have a bright…
Satellite tags
Defra doesn’t have a plan for Hen Harrier conservation – if it did then the deployment of satellite tags on a large scale by private individuals and wildlife NGOs would have to be part of it. Of course, we taxpayers have paid for satellite (and radio) tags to be deployed on a moderate scale for…
Our Hen Harrier Study
Yesterday I received this reply from NE to a request for information about our Hen Harrier study. Dear Dr Avery, Access to Information Request – Request Number RFI 3112 Thank you for your request for information relating the Hen Harrier study which we received on 01 September 2015. Your request has been considered under…
Just wondering…
The RSPB is being criticised by the usual suspects (The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and also the shooting press) for the number of Hen Harrier nests that failed on its watch last season. We’ve been through this several times recently, including getting the Daily Telegraph to correct its earlier version and to apologise for…
Gate zero and the West Pennine Moors
You may remember that I asked for information from NE about the West Pennine Moors (see here and here) some time ago. The delay in returning to this subject is not that NE were very tardy (just a little bit) about responding but that they sent me a piles of stuff and I have been …
Awful government response to our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting
To Rory Stewart, Defra Dear Minister The government response to the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting is simply awful. It is partial and inaccurate. I have previously asked Defra whether responses of this sort are seen and signed off by ministers and have never received a response. Did you sign off this response?…