Wuthering Moors – 29 The bigger picture

The Walshaw Moor Estate case is important in itself, and we commend again the RSPB for taking a firm stand on it, but it is also indicative of a much wider and deeper Defra malaise. If Defra is not now acting merely as the Rural Jobs and Fieldsports Department then it needs to get its…

Wuthering Moors 28

In a move that will be highly embarrassing for the UK government, particularly for Defra and the Defra Minister Richard Benyon, the RSPB today launched a complaint to the European Commission over the Walshaw Moor affair. The RSPB is ‘Stepping up for Nature’ by suggesting that Natural England, the delivery agency of Defra, contravened European…

Not so blithe now

I entered three poems for the Rialto/RSPB poetry competition but, not surprisingly, none of them won a prize. I’ve always liked Shelley, red Shelley, for his lyricism but also for being a campaigner and an angry one at that.  If he were back with us he might (or might not) write this:   Not so…

RSPB AGM

AGMs are often soul-less affairs – not so with that of the RSPB which was held yesterday in London’s QEII Conference Centre.  This day in the past was a working day for me, and quite a stressful one too, as the period in the morning where you have to think on your feet and answer…