Plastic environmentalists

I attended many political party conferences in a former life and I got to grow to enjoy them.  Moving from the LibDems to Labour to Conservative conferences became part of the autumn scene. There were individual members of every party with whom one could have sensible and constructive conversations about nature and the environment but…

Biofuels – a burning question

Please do this today: ask your MEP to vote for the lowest possible limit on the addition of biofuels to transport fuels by clicking here and supporting Action Aid’s campaign. There is a vote tomorrow where MEPs will be asked to decide whether to limit biofuels to 5.5% or 6.5% of transport fuel volumes.  The…

Badgers, Syria and democracy

I read an interesting blog last week by Matthew Taylor about whether ‘doing something’ is seen as better or worse than ‘not doing anything’. I am emotionally a ‘let’s do something’ type of person.  If I see a mess I’d rather be doing something about it than not doing something – sometimes, even if I’m…

Wuthering Moors 36 – FoI/EIR to NE on Appropriate Assessments for Walshaw Moor

Dear Natural England This is a request under the EI Regs and/or Freedom of Information Act.  It is a simple request for copies of three documents.  It is not a difficult request to fulfill.  Please send me the information within 10 working days of this request, ie by 20 September 2013. This request refers to…

Wuthering Moors 35 – response to Defra’s case

Here are a few points on Defra’s response to the RSPB’s complaint to the EU Commission in the Walshaw Moor affair (see blog of 12 noon today). 1. Five tracks, five car parks, two ponds dug out of the peat, earthworks? 2.  Some of the alleged damage may not ultimately be restored. 3. NE has…

Wuthering Moors 34 – the Defra response to the EU Commission

Further to this morning’s post, here is the information levered out of Defra on their response to the EU Commission regarding the RSPB complaint to the EU over the Walshaw Moor affair and its implications. WMEL below refers to the Walshaw Moor Estate Limited. I will post my early thoughts on this, here, at 1500…

Wuthering Moors 33 – Defra forced to apologise over EIR breach

Received late on Monday night: INTERNAL REVIEW: RESPONSE TO THE EU COMMISSION FOLLOWING THE RSPB’S COMPLAINT REGARDING WALSHAW MOOR Thank you for your email of 8 July, appealing against Defra’s decision to withhold Defra’s response to the EU commission and for the level of service received. Your case has been reviewed by the Information Standards…

A tangled bank

        If you subscribe to the excellent British Wildlife then you may have seen my article praising the wildlife NGOs for the State of Nature report which came out in June. I didn’t get the impression at the Bird Fair last week that any follow up is planned.  Maybe I’m wrong, but…

NoFA Nick?

  This is just a reminder to vote in the annual RSPB/Butterfly Conservation/Plantlife/Daily Telegraph Nature of Farming Award poll.  You, we, get the chance to choose who we think is the UK’s most wildlife-friendly farmer. This year there are eight finalists and they all look good.  You have to choose and cast your vote by…

Grouse – various

Isn’t nature wonderful – the image at the head of this post is of strongylid worms (the white things) crawling out of some red grouse poo. It’s possible that quite a few people and organisations feel like they are in the ‘grouse poo’ at the moment but, on the other hand, maybe they are all…