Author Archives: Miles King

About Miles King

UK conservation professional, writing about nature, politics, life. All views are my own and not my employers. I don't write on behalf of anybody else.

National Meadows Day 2021

today’s National Meadows Day blog is over on the People Need Nature website – here. Please head over there and take a look. Thanks

Posted in meadows, People Need Nature, Poundbury, Prince Charles, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Where’s the Beef? the UK Australia Trade Deal and the desperate search for Brexit Benefits.

There’s been an awful lot of media attention focussed on the idea that the Government’s Trade Deal with Australia will lead to the UK being swamped with sub standard Australian Beef, pushing plucky British Beef farmers out of business. I’m … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture policy, beef, Brexit, Common Agricultural Policy, NFU, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

On Death and Nature

It’s been a while since I wrote anything and I have a bit of time while I’m waiting for some people to get back to me with answers (or even some funding), and there are other reasons for the quiet … Continue reading

Posted in churches, churchyards, covid19, Death, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Berrier End Farm Tree Planting Fiasco – update

You will remember the fiasco I wrote about last Autumn, of Berrier End Farm in Cumbria. This was about 100 acres of valuable wildlife habitat, including large areas of peat bog and wildlife-rich grassland, which was damaged by tree-planting, that … Continue reading

Posted in Forestry Commission, grasslands, heathland, peat bog, tree planting, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Ten Years on – from Dark Days of Farming to a new Post-CAP future

Reading about yesterday’s launch of the Sustainable Farming Incentive Scheme –  the post-Brexit post-Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) farming support scheme for England we’ve been waiting for these past nearly 5 years – sent me off the archives, where I found … Continue reading

Posted in Agri-Environment Schemes, Brexit, Common Agricultural Policy, Defra | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

10 years after the Forestry Commission wasn’t sold off, the bad old FC has returned

Cast your minds back, dear reader, Ten Years. I have deliberately capitalised these words so please don’t send me any grammatical correction comments. Ten years seems like an incomprehensibly long time ago, considering what we have been through in the … Continue reading

Posted in Forestry Commission, peat bog, privatisation, public land, tree planting, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Forestry Commission ignores pleas and replants conifers after Wareham Heath fire

This press release was published this morning. Wildlife charities call for new vision after Forestry England replant conifers on precious heathland   RSPB, Dorset Wildlife Trust, Plantlife, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and Butterfly Conservation have today expressed concern after Forestry England’s (FE) decision to replant pine trees on precious heathland in Wareham Forest. In the current ecological emergency, they urge FE to begin working with them on a … Continue reading

Posted in climate action, climate change, Forestry Commission, heathland, tree planting, Uncategorized, Wareham Forest | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Vaccines and Variants point to two alternative futures.

Variant. The word takes me back to sometime in the early 1970s and this car. Someone in the London suburb where we lived had a pale blue one, and I was fascinated by it. It certainly wasn’t a beautiful car, … Continue reading

Posted in covid-19, covid19, Uncategorized, vaccines | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Attempted Coups, Pariah States and Brexit-Trump

Writing this in the aftermath of the attempted coup in Washington on Wednesday is difficult and perhaps premature. Difficult because I, like I am sure many of you, am still processing what’s happened, the enormity of it. Premature because President … Continue reading

Posted in Brexit, Tory Party, Trump, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

What a Year

I think “what a year” is how most people feel about 2020. It started with us wondering whether we would crash out of the EU without a deal, and ended with a deal being rushed through Parliament not only without … Continue reading

Posted in 2020, Brexit, covid19, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments