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Category Archives: housing
Biodiversity Offsetting: Planning Appeal agrees housing on Essex flower meadows will create “environmental gain.”.
Tomorrow sees an event to bring together organisations and individuals who are very worried and angry about Biodiversity Offsetting. The Forum on Natural Commons event “Nature is not for sale” is taking place tomorrow evening in Regents Park, London. This … Continue reading
Posted in biodiversity offsetting, housing, meadows, Uncategorized
Tagged biodiversity offsetting, housing, meadows
24 Comments
Mapping local greenspace: will it help protect these green lungs?
moody greenspace (photo Miles King) As some of you may have guessed, I’m not the biggest fan of Policy Exchange. This is the think tank the Tories love most – its ex-treasurer is the new Natural England chair, Andrew Sells, … Continue reading
Posted in biodiversity offsetting, greenspace, housing, Policy Exchange
Tagged biodiversity offsetting, greenspace, Policy Exchange
10 Comments
Upcycle Bungalow Land to build more homes
Bungalow Land (David Hunt [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons Britain and especially England needs more houses. Yes there are a million empty homes – some of which can be brought back into residential use easily (many cannot). But they aren’t … Continue reading
Posted in bungalows, greenspace, housing, public land
Tagged Brownfield land, Bungalow, greenfield land, Housing association, Nick Boles, Poundbury
9 Comments
Another skirmish on the Lodge Hill Battle Front
It was an exciting day yesterday. I was part of a small 5 person RSPB team giving evidence in support of the Lodge Hill SSSI notification at an Extraordinary Natural England Board meeting. The opposition were there in numbers – … Continue reading
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 Agriculture, biodiversity, Britain, common agricultural policy, Conservation, ecosystem services, England, George Monbiot, greenspace, Inheritance tax, land reform, Mark Avery, re-wilding, Semi-Natural
7 Comments
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 All Party Parliamentary Group, biodiversity, Biodiversity action plan, biodiversity offsets, Defra, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, EIA, Environment, nature after minerals
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 biodiversity, Church, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, George Monbiot, offsetting, Owen Paterson, re-wilding
3 Comments
What do Pollinators need?
Last week, after a long time coming, The Government announced at a Bee Summit, that it would prepare a national pollinator strategy, to be published this November. This is thanks mainly to the efforts of Friends of the Earth, who … Continue reading
Posted in agriculture, bees, biodiversity, ecosystem services, environmental policy, farming, Forestry Commission, grazing, greenspace, housing, meadows, public land, regulatory reform, road verges
Tagged Bee, Bee Summit, Environment, Friends of the Earth, Government, National Farmers' Union, National Pollinator Strategy, Pollinator, public land, State of Nature, wildflowers, wildlife-rich habitat
4 Comments
a new nature blog 