Category Archives: agriculture

Public Goods for Public Money

“Public Goods for Public Money” has become a bit of a mantra, not just for me, but for a wide range of organisations and individuals fed up with one failed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy after another. I was … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, Common Agricultural Policy, European environment policy, public goods | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Death of Greening

Remember the European Commission’s much vaunted proposals to “green” the Common Agricultural Policy? The idea was that, to show the European public (who pay for the farming subsidies the CAP hands out) that their money really was being spent on … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, Common Agricultural Policy, Greening, NFU, public goods | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Owen Paterson: Enlightenment Man

Owen Paterson is Enlightenment Man in the modern day. OP believes that the environment needs to be improved and repeats this at every opportunity. He also promotes individualism and the public benefits derived from private profit-making. This is his central … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, badgers, biodiversity offsetting, Charities campaigning, conservation, deregulation, enlightenment, environmental policy, ethics, George Monbiot, management, neoliberalism, Owen Paterson | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Conservation needs Change

This a continuation of the series of blogs stimulated by the re-wilding and conservation debate at the Linnean Society on Wednesday. I looked at how people’s relationship with nature has evolved to the point now where we can more or … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, animism, Beavers, biodiversity, Common Agricultural Policy, conservation, ecosystem services, environmental policy, European environment policy, farming, Floodplains, Forestry, Forestry Commission, greenspace, housing, management, neoliberalism, NFU, Owen Paterson, public goods, public land, regulatory reform, semi-natural | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

What are we waiting for?

Reading George Monbiot’s book on re-wilding has made me think a great deal about what would need to change in Britain in order for us to restore nature to something like a sustainable level, and to give it the resilience it will … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, conservation, environmental policy, farming, Floodplains, George Monbiot, grazing, management, public land, rewilding, semi-natural, uplands, wolves | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Age of Can Do

Here’s the piece Mark Avery published on his blog this morning. It encompasses some of the thinking I’ve been doing in preparation for this evening’s debate. Let me know what you think. Can Do We are living in the age … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, animism, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, ecosystem services, environmental policy, farming, George Monbiot, grazing, management, Mesolithic, neoliberalism, rewilding, semi-natural, straight tusked elephant, wolves | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Today’s Blog

Here’s the link to today’s blog, which is on Mark Avery’s website.  

Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, environmental policy, farming, fishing, George Monbiot, management, rewilding, semi-natural, spiritual value | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The fallacy at the heart of the Governments biodiversity offsetting proposals

I have been thinking a bit more about last week’s Biodiversity Offsetting debate at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Biodiversity, which I blogged about here. Something was niggling away at the back of my mind and I couldn’t quite … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, Biodiversity APPG, biodiversity offsetting, EIA, farming, housing, meadows, Owen Paterson, regulatory reform | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Biodiversity Offsetting – some further thoughts

Today’s blog appears on the Woodland Trust Blog site. http://wtcampaigns.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/biodiversity-offsetting-some-related-issues/.

Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, biodiversity offsetting, Charities campaigning, ecosystem services, environmental policy, forest elephant, George Monbiot, housing, management, meadows, neoliberalism, Owen Paterson, rewilding, scrub, spiritual value, straight tusked elephant, uplands | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Wolves Dogs and Sheep

Where’s the wolf Fido? By User:Squigman (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons I used to be quite good at statistics, but that was a very long time ago. Now I marvel at my colleagues at Footprint Ecology, who painlessly … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, farming, grazing, rewilding, sheep dogs, wolves | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments