Inglorious: conflict in the uplands will be available for Hen Harrier Day (9 August), the Inglorious 12th and thereafter. Published by Bloomsbury in late July – but you can order it now on World Book Day.
Tag: Richard Benyon
Wuthering Moors 42
The scale of burning of English blanket bogs revealed by the latest RSPB work is scary. There are 127 separate consents (mostly through HLS agreements – ie we taxpayers are paying for it too) for burning on blanket bogs. These affect these seven Special Areas of Conservation (SACs)(Border Mires, Kielder-Butterburn; Ingleborough Complex; Moor House –…
Who will be leading the NFU? and Dredging the depths
Two weeks tomorrow will see the election of a new NFU hierarchy of President, Vice President and Deputy President. The candidates for the NFU posts are as follows and you can see what they say about themselves by following the links (and their Twitter accounts). Not much about the environment is there – from the…
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…
Toffs
A couple of days ago I suggested that the recent Defra minister Richard Benyon might be called a ‘toff’. This was greeted by a stream of comments angry on the toffish ex-Minister’s behalf. Let’s just get the meaning of this four-letter word out of the way first. Toff – a member of the upper classes,…
Shuffling two packs
The Government changes In Defra, out go Richard Benyon and David Heath and in come George Eustice (Con, Camborne and Redruth) and Dan Rogerson (LibDem, North Cornwall). I always feel sorry for those who are required to move on because their Prime Minister needs to adjust the left/right balance, the male/female balance, the north/south balance…
Wuthering Moors 38 – some more photos
Rumour has it that NE and Defra are both in a tizzy over a few photographs of moorlands on this blog. So, let’s have some more of them. These are all, I’m told (as I have never been there myself) from Walshaw Moor. To check the grid references use this link. …
Catfield Fen revisited
This blog has touched on the subject of the drying out of Catfield Fen on four previous occasions; 30 May 2012, 22 August 2012, 10 September 2012, 30 September 2012. Whilst this blog, Standing up for Nature, has not paid much attention to Catfield Fen for nearly a year the owner of the site, Tim…
The quiet man of Defra?
What is the point of the Liberal Democrats exactly? And what is the point of David Heath? Who is David Heath, you might ask? David Heath is the single Lib Dem Minister in Defra and he is the middle-ranking Minister between the boss-man Owen Paterson (excellent at giving out prizes to pork pie people we…
Defra – drowning not waving
There are 653 days until the next General Election and since a week is a long time in politics this a very long time to go. However, most people will probably already have made up their minds on this coalition government and it will take distinct jolts , changes or events (dear boy) to alter…