environmental commentator
The local authority voice was apologetic, ‘I’m sorry but once in the planning system, we have to insist on further ecology surveys – even if the application is to enlarge a pond for wildlife.’ My client, as passionate a naturalist as about doing the right paperwork, let out an exasperated sigh. He had already paid for … Continue reading A precautionary pond
For three hundred and sixty five days a year we jostle, stamp, cajole, consume, and survive alongside nature. Which itself is, of course, trying to do exactly the same. Except that we humans are somewhat more dominant in the age of Anthropocene. In 2010, I published a journalistic debate paper ‘New demands; old countryside‘ (pdf) … Continue reading Dead Poets
We could all do with more critical friends to help find common ground. Two landowners at opposite end of the country contacted me: one wanted to see hen harriers re-introduced on his farm and the other wishing to ‘rewild’ his upland grazed farmland. Problem is that both have been put off, disillusioned even, by dismissive polemics towards … Continue reading Critical friend conservation
