Office by Alex Penny
Leading for Nature
NO, Mr Coles (Have Your Say, June 13), you are not the only one to think the way you do about the Severn Barrage committee.The end question is, should the decision against the barrage be set aside and…
How will we meet future electricity needs? There is still no coherent energy policy for the UK. Carbon limits restrict coal, oil and gas consumption, nuclear is flagging and the NIMBY tendency sinks many wind turbine schemes. It is time for a reality check.
Two pilot badger culling schemes are under way, but the BBC still won’t face the truth: our badger population is causing havoc.
Make up your own mind if Robin Page holds a balanced and informed position on badgers as the main cause of hedgehog decline.
If the Soil Association joined those opposing the cull it would be able to brand its organic milk and dairy products ‘badger friendly’- no doubt leading to a much needed boost in sales, says Dominic Dyer…
The Soil Association is finding life difficult in holding a clear public stance on bovine TB and the badger cull. Dominic Dyer gives his view of why their stance is being queried.
To passers-by, the red-brown earthy mound rising up from the path would probably warrant little more than a cursory glance.
I am aware that farmers who disagree with the current government policy on bovine TB feel that their views on the farming system are not taken into account. This piece by Andrew Wasley and Sarah Stirk shows the depth of feeling that exists about the current bTB stategy.
PUBLIC safety during the badger cull is being pushed to the top of the list of priorities of Gloucestershire’s Police and Crime Commissioner.
Martin Surl made his feelings known in a recent meeting…
Rumours of warning notices about public personal safety during periods of badger free shooting make this interview with PCC Martin Surl very relevant. I know from my meetings with him that he considers this to be the most challenging aspect for the Gloucestershire constabulary.
A new body that aims to set the environmental strategy for Scilly and Cornwall has appointed its first chairman. Alan Knight, who lives in Perranporth will head up the area’s Environment Partnershi…
It is great to see that Scilly now has a LNP led by a respected sustainability thinker Alan Knight.
Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership meets on Thursday 20th with yours truly in the interim chair; quite a long interim as I have filled this role since the LNP inception in 2012.
LNPs have a lot to play for but with no mandate, no money and not enough respect from their sponsoring department Defra. The Value of Nature is emerging as a clear theme and the subject of major thinking within the environmental NGOs and academic world. Tony Juniper is leading the charge with his book ‘What has Nature ever done for you?’
It is a pity that whilst the Department of Business Innovation and Skills is supporting Local Enterprise Partnerships strongly, the health of LNPs is dependent on the partners that make them up. Without Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and Natural England their would be no LNP in this county.
We are cattle farmers who are opposed to the badger cull
Tremendous response to this post with lots of suport for the independent views of farmers and concent that the NFU and Defra have formed too cosy an attachment with a single focus; culling badgers.
While England once again prepares for a badger cull, Wales is well into the second year of its badger vaccination policy. But will it secure enough funding to be rolled out nationally?
Voluntary organisations like the Wildlife Trusts are not just talking about badger vaccination as an alternative to culling badgers, they are putting their money where there mouth is an developing practical programmes.
Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust is now in its third year of a programme on seven nature reserves.
If governments and the farming unions want help with developing and delivering badger vaccination programmes they just have to ask. So far, whilst the Welsh Assembly has successfully run its own programme, it has not benefitted from the practical support of volunteers and a public fund-rasing appeals.
||It is unlikely the Welsh administration could bear the cost alone and the Government is aware farmers will, on the whole, be reluctant to fund a policy many do not believe in.
Dr Glossop said she was therefore asking organisations and individuals which have shown an interest in badger vaccination to ‘put their money where their mouth is’.
“Over the last six months or so we have been having very detailed talks with all the groups interested in seeing badger vaccination, like the RSPCA, Badger Trust and the National Trust. We have also met with Brian May,” she said.
Contacted by Farmers Guardian, the organisations mentioned by Dr Glossop, plus the wildlife trusts, all expressed an interest in working on badger vaccination and were already doing so to some extent. None gave a direct commitment at this stage to working with the Welsh Government, however.||
Animal rights campaigners have launched a petition on the 10 Downing Street website calling for north Shropshire MP Owen Paterson to be removed from his role as Environment Secretary.
Democracy moves in mysterious ways.
A TEAM of MPs has refused to back plans by a private sector firm to build a £25 billion barrage along the Severn Estuary.
Not the end of the story of tidal energy from the Severn but perhaps the end-point for massive heavy engineering schemes embodying old technology.
