What is ‘nature’ when you are already a part of it? The existence of the label is already a symptom of its loss Jon Moses Right to Roam

Nonsense on SSSIs from Derek Thomas MP ... 'Someone other than Natural England should be checking the scientific evidence to ensure that it is robust' then 'Defra have experts that can scrutinise the work'

Those experts ARE Natural England !

bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

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Final sentence tells you everything you need to know about the motivations behind this attempt to strip nature designation powers from Natural England. Shameless.

📽📽📽NEW VIDEO📽📽📽

It's pretty poor that after 300 years of permissive access, you can simply remove it. Link below.

Destruction of a precious ancient bluebell woodland in the Kent countryside under a deluge of illegal landfill waste shows the utter failure of environmental law, complete inaction by the authorities & increasing lawlessness in the UK. Let me tell you the story of Hoads Wood 🧵

If, like me, you think that this government is taking the piss when it comes to public access to nature, this is well worth a read.

Brilliant essay from Aris Roussinos on Britain's cultural vacuum and the eternal return of twee luvvie programming as the ruling aesthetic of a fading power.

unherd.com/2024/04/britai…

I wrote about Thérèse Coffey's acid trip. The 15 minute access con. The permissive access scam. The imaginary new national park. And why these fake DEFRA announcements are a distraction keeping patrician rule of the countryside in place.

For The Great Outdoors

thegreatoutdoorsmag.com/news/opinion-t…

We remain committed to the plan. It's just that the plan doesn't exist. And we have no plans to make the plan exist. Our commitments are to concepts, abstractions, ur-forms of notions which one can imagine as concrete expressions yet which drift away like mind-clouds in a dream.

Day 2 of #WildService with River Roding Trust. We cleared 28 bags and 3 giant rubble sacks of litter from the river & planted black poplars in its place.

Black poplars are now our rarest native tree, due to the loss of water-meadows.

And we were planting some of its rarest genotypes!

Just a sample of the litter collected from one 30m stretch of the River Roding this morning, as part of our #WildService weekend with River Roding Trust.

Plastic pollution is a structural crisis.

Unilever et al: we've got a delivery for you.

Defra UK wen deposit return scheme?

Sarah Shuffell 🐑🐑🐏 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Jon Moses Pete 🌳 Look out for our new level 3 in agro-Ecology coming soon. Developed with the Apricot Centre and Real Farming Trust Real Farming Trust

This essay on Raymond Williams's commitment to 'read & think vividly without surrendering hope', by Jedediah Britton-Purdy, is nourishing & brilliant.
Especially good on RW's deep-time epic, People of the Black Mountains. 'They are all commoners...'.
dissentmagazine.org/article/raymon…

An interesting case, because Dwr Cymru, unlike its English counterparts, is nominally incorporated as a non-profit.

Want to learn about river guardianship & get into some practical nature restoration this weekend?

There are just a few tickets left for our inaugural Wild Service in Action event, held on the River Roding in East London (in collab with River Roding Trust!) 👇

eventbrite.co.uk/e/wild-service…

The new Black Mountains College offers FE courses in practical conservation (married with a soulful ecological ethos). It's very popular, with many 'urbane' young people travelling to Wales to join. Crucially, being Wales, the courses are free.

Maybe more of that & less 'these kids today'

Translation: Ofwat would not grant Thames Water sufficient dispensation from complying with environmental laws to make further investment from shareholders a profitable prospect. Ofwat needs to hold firm: if Thames can’t comply with the law & remain solvent, send them to the wall