Category Archives: European environment policy

The EU: environmental good or ill?

The next political tremor tomorrow when the Euro elections results are announced, no doubt will be reported by Nick Robinson on the BBC as a Magnititude 10 super quake. Has Farage got hold of polaroids of Nick as a student … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, bureaucracy, Common Agricultural Policy, corporate lobbying, European environment policy, Habitats Directive, NFU, SSSis, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Keeping a Level Head

A Somerset Levels Wet Meadow (c) Miles King I feel almost reluctant to put pen to paper (metaphorically) on the issue of the floods and the Somerset Levels, because so much has been written or spoken in recent days fromn … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, anti conservation rhetoric, anti-environmental rhetoric, Common Agricultural Policy, Environment Agency, European environment policy, Floodplains, grasslands, meadows, Owen Paterson | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

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

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

For the Greater Good

Yesterday’s Guardian (or it may have been the Observer) carried an interview with NFU President Peter Kendall, in which Peter observed sagely that climate change is now the biggest threat to British Farming – not through gentle warming, but extreme, … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, anti-environmental rhetoric, biodiversity, carbon storage, climate change, ecosystem services, European environment policy, farming, grazing, neoliberalism, public goods, soils | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

All creatures great and smelly

A fundamental question that conservation keeps returning to is share or spare? Should we create spaces where nature is predominant – for example, nature reserves and at the extreme end “self willed” land. Or should we promote a harmonious interplay … Continue reading

Posted in agriculture, bats, biodiversity, biodiversity offsetting, churches, deregulation, ecosystem services, environmental policy, European environment policy, farming, greenspace, Owen Paterson | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments