The final report of the Independent Panel on Forestry has been published. The initial Defra response to the report was fairly warm, and fairly non-committal. Everyone else seems to like it: RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, National Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Save Our Woods, CLA, Royal Forestry Society. Media coverage includes: BBC, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph. Read…
Tag: RSPB
Prof Sir John Lawton says…
…that the Chancellor, George Gideon Oliver Osborne, is a ‘bloody idiot’ on the subject of wildlife protection. Sir John, or actually, I see, John Hartley Lawton, is a Vice President of the RSPB, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a good birdwatcher, was the last chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (deceased), is…
Five short jobs, since it’s quite likely to be raining
1. Support Plantlife’s campaign to make verge-cutting ecologically literate. Have a look at these photographs from Nigel and Lois Harbron of a small patch of what is essentially a flower meadow which poses no threat to road safety and is bureaucratically scalped every year. 2. Spend two minutes to get a bank to give $5…
Buzzards – where next?
Yesterday Defra did a U-turn on their proposals to investigate buzzard control for the benefit of pheasants. It’s not easy for governments to do U-turns, although this one is getting the hang of it, and we should thank Defra Minister, Richard Benyon for his re-think. Thank you! The RSPB did a good job, after being…
Pheasants, buzzards and Defra
Yesterday, I was supposed to be thinking about pheasants as I am writing a fantastically interesting article about them for a well-known and excellent wildlife magazine. And following the disclosure of Defra’s wrong-headed plans to pour £375k of taxpayers’ money into a study of how to allow more pheasants to be shot and fewer to…
Maybe no harriers in England? Lead poisoning suspected. And a bit of wuthering.
The news that there may be no hen harriers nesting in England this year is sad but this day, if it has come, was going to come soon. Of course, extinction in England is a bit of an odd thing as England is ‘just’ a line on a map and on other sides of that…
Marmite revisited
Marmite – you may love it or hate it. Wildlife NGOs – you may love them or hate them. The results of the polls on this website over your favourite and least favourite wildlife NGOs produced a lot of interesting results. I guess it doesn’t really matter that much to Marmite how many people hate…
Oh oh!
I went out for a drive last week and saw a couple of red kites. They are fantastic birds aren’t they? If you remember I set myself the target of seeing red kites on 200 days of 2012 – and enjoying the moment each time. I am falling short so far – I’m heading for…
Poor things and real things
Did you watch Planet Earth Live on Sunday night? I did and there were some enjoyable moments in it. It seemed to be all about going ‘Awww’ at cute little mammals that were having a tough time of making their way in the world – but enough of the presenters Richard Hammond and Julia Bradbury….
And the winners and losers are…
The two polls for your favourite and least favourite UK wildlife NGOs are now closed. Thank you for voting. Across the two polls, over 2400 votes were cast: 1330 in the poll for the favourite organisation and 1085 in the poll for the least favourite. This seems to show that despite a few voices saying…