CONSERVE ENGLAND

£300k grant for wildlife research

2011-10-27T23:26:00.000-07:00

A CONSERVATION project to protect wildlife habitats has been awarded a grant of more than £300,000.

The Heritage Lottery Fund has given the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which is based in Stanhope, £316,300 for WildWatch North Pennines.

The three-year project allows a network of volunteer wildlife groups to record and conserve areas of biodiversity within the area.

The North Pennines AONB landscape is made up of heather moors, dales, haymeadows and upland rivers and is home to a wealth of wildlife.

However, information about many habitats and species is sparse, making conservation difficult.

Over the course of the project, up to five volunteer groups and 150 people will be trained to survey and record the surrounding area.

An online portal will be created for volunteers to record their data and share it with communities and conservation organisations. This data will help inform ongoing conservation efforts and help the long-term survival and protection of the area and its wild inhabitants.

Activities for volunteers and trainees will include learning how to identify grassland fungi, analysing bat sound recordings and running moth traps.

The public will be asked to report sightings of more obvious animals such as adders and hedgehogs.

Ivor Crowther, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund NorthEast, said: "This stunning landscape gives so much to so many people, be that beautiful views or a chance to get up close with some of the North of England's most precious wildlife.

"This project will ensure that as many people as possible get the opportunity to get involved with this special area and help protect it for future generations.

"The Heritage Lottery Fund is delighted to be involved with this project and know it will be a great success."

Chris Woodley-Stewart, director of the North Pennines AONB Partnership, said: "There really is something for everyone in this project, from those with little or no experience of wildlife spotting to those who are accomplished recorders.

"The spirit of the project is about everyone sharing their experience and knowledge and learning from each other as we go.

"Those who want to get really involved will be able to join or form a local group, get training from expert practitioners, and take part in organised surveys or practical conservation work to help the North Pennines."

Source http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/local/crook/9331061.__300k_grant_for_wildlife_research/

The constant fight to save our heritage

2011-08-02T01:00:00.000-07:00

Martin Hesp talks to Baroness Andrews about the challenges facing English Heritage

As the leading guardian of the nation’s past, Baroness Andrews is deadly serious when she calls for people in the West Country to become more vigilant in helping to preserve the region’s rich history.

And the chairman of English Heritage warns new planning laws will mean it is even more vital individuals keep an eye on their area in a bid to preserve the common birthrights and legacies that give a place distinction.

“One of the major things people know about this country is its history – and they are fascinated by it,” she says.

“They come to see what we’ve made of it and how it stands up. And it is a source of enormous wealth to us.”

Asked if there could be moves against spending money on the past during a period of current and perhaps future economic restraint, Baroness Andrews argued: “Someone might say ‘why don’t you just knock down that old building?’ But that old building is extremely precious to a lot of people.

“And it is not just nostalgia – it’s actually about what makes places look different, feel different – be a pleasure to live in and take pride in.

“If the tourists come to see our conservation areas for what they represent, so much the better. But English Heritage is not just about buildings – we are about places, and what makes this country such a brilliant place to live in.

“It means keeping an eye on the planning department and the sort of development proposals coming forward – especially now, when the planning system is changing a lot and the intention is to give local people more power.

“But we don’t want the neurosis and the Nimbys – we want people to take a pride in their communities. Make sure what you‘ve got is well known. It’s partly about marketing.”

Baroness Andrews was on a four-day tour of the region and her diary was filled with numerous briefings with local councillors as well as visits to English Heritage sites including places of worship and other sites of interest.

As well as monitoring the condition of all the region’s listed buildings, the organisation also manages sites such as Stonehenge and Old Sarum in Wiltshire, Muchelney Abbey and Nunney Castle in Somerset, several Roman sites in Gloucestershire and medieval castles in Dorset.

The Baroness’ visit was a timely one for several reasons, one being that, by English Heritage’s own reckoning, no fewer than one in seven of the nation’s officially designated conservation areas are deemed to be “at risk”.

Another was the launch of a major new initiative called the National Heritage Protection Plan (NHPP).

This sets out how English Heritage, with help from various partner organisations, will prioritise and deliver heritage protection for the next four years (2011-2015).

Its aim is to make best use of the organisation’s resources so that England’s vulnerable historic environment is “safeguarded in the most cost-effective way at a time of massive social, environmental, economic and technological change”.

The all-embracing programme is divided into eight themes sub-divided into a series of more than 400 projects which address specific areas of work – for example, places of worship, historic ports, strategic designation.

“The plan has only been developed in the past couple of years and is just being put into practice,” Baroness Andrews says.

“It was precisely to bring aid to where there’s been huge pressure to conserve, often driven by local interests and yet with limited resources, both from our part and from the community itself. The NHPP will give us, across every form of landscape, a list of what is most important and it will also match that with a capacity to do something.

“So we have a notion of urgency and now we have a notion of how we can respond and also a notion of what other partners we’ve got in the field.

“You may ask why we’ve never done this before but, in fact, the whole evolution of heritage protection has been just that, an evolutionary system.

“We’ve listed things as they’ve come to us – or we’ve decided we should list that building, or this particular type of building. Now it’s all much more strategic.”

I put it to the baroness that talk of national strategies and might sound grand and impressive – but what did it all actually mean to people on the ground.

“When you are talking about areas at risk you are usually talking about buildings,” she said.

“English Heritage puts a lot of resource into saving heritage at risk – our work has taken a lot of buildings and places out of the risk in recent years. But we are in a situation where there are fewer resources and we are going to have to be even more watchful. It’s a constant battle.”

I also put it to the Baroness that sometimes organisations like hers were guilty of over-interpreting the past and their massive information boards, and so on, could become intrusive in more natural environments.

One example of this which has sparked raised eyebrows is the National Trust’s ‘talking benches’, launched earlier this month.

One of them carried the voice of Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox, from Bolton in Lancashire, telling visitors of the delights of Stourhead in Wiltshire.

“It’s a very fine line between giving people enough information to make sense of what they can see, and overdoing it. But I take the point. You can just alert people,” she said.

“You can use different technologies. You can have discreet information rather than large boards.

“For example – at Stonehenge we had a major problem over how to interpret it.

“And I take your point that sometimes you can do more harm than good by forcing people into a mass of detail which can be too much.

“What people want is an experience – because a lot of time nowadays people are getting things off a screen – getting information that is second-hand, fifteenth-hand.

“What we’ve got to do is treat our visitors in a very special way if we want to take them along this quite complex piece of history. It must be an experience.”

We finished by talking specifically about the West, one of the richest in all of English Heritage regions when it comes to number of sites and breadth of history.

“I certainly have got to know the area since I’ve become chair because we’ve got such wonderful properties here and some very significant ones.

“I’m beginning to know the challenges of the South West and the role we play in the prospects of the region and I am aware how much we contribute to its wealth at the moment.

“It is a rich area and that is partly why so many people come here. Heritage adds this extraordinary dimension but it is part of what makes a place worth going to. And the point about this country is that it does have the most spectacular heritage. We underestimate it at our peril.”

Source http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/constant-fight-save-heritage/story-13049293-detail/story.html

Earth Hour fans 'disappointed' to see so many lights

2011-03-30T22:30:00.001-07:00

Buildings and homes across the country went dark Saturday night as Canadians took part in the fifth annual Earth Hour.

But early results suggested fewer people turned off the lights this year.

In Toronto, energy use fell by 115 megawatts between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., a drop of about 5 per cent, said Jennifer Link, a spokeswoman for Toronto Hydro.

Last year, the city's Earth Hour efforts saved 296 megawatts; in 2009, it was 454 megawatts.

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Power reported saving 10 megawatts of power, a significant drop from last year's 18 megawatts.

Utilities in other provinces said it could take them until Monday to calculate the results.

Some experts say Earth Hour is losing steam now that the novelty has worn off.

But Steven Price of the World Wildlife Fund, which runs Earth Hour, said the goal isn't to boost energy savings during the event.

"What we want is the participation, because it's an awareness campaign that allows people to take some action" to fight climate change, he said after Saturday's Earth Hour.

A record number of countries and municipalities signed up for this year's event, he said.

Over the next few days, the organization will conduct surveys to determine how many people participated, Price said. He expects there to be about one-billion people worldwide.

In Toronto, hundreds watched as the billboards in Dundas Square suddenly shut down.

Still, some in the crowd said they were disappointed to see so many stores stay brightly lit.

"There's still too many lights on," said Brandon Marton, pointing to the store signs and street lights illuminating the area. "You really don't get the full effect."

Others were dismayed to find no public celebrations, like there had been in previous years.

"It's unfortunate, because it seems to draw people," said Dave Makarchuk of Guelph, Ont., who expected some kind of outdoor show to mark the occasion.

"I know it drew us here," he added.

Earth Hour began in Australia in 2007 and has since spread to more than 130 countries.

Source http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110327/earth-hour-lights-on-110327/20110327/?hub=CalgaryHome

Salmon catch and release guide offers advice to boost survival

2011-03-15T21:09:00.001-07:00

WILD fisheries groups, including the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards (ASFB), the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (RAFTS) and the Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA), have launched a campaign aimed at maximising the survival rate for salmon released back into the water by anglers.

"Catch and release", which has been promoted widely since the 1990s to help conserve stocks, now accounts for two thirds of all salmon caught by anglers in Scotland and for the more fragile spring stock component, over 80%.

Brian Davidson, Operations Director for ASFB and RAFTS, said: "Numerous studies including radio-tracking have shown that salmon released by anglers after capture have high survival rates with successful spawning. Releasing the salmon they catch is probably the greatest contribution that anglers can make to the conservation of this iconic species. The critical factor determining the survival rate, which in some conditions can be close to 100%, is the way that fish are handled, particularly in minimising the time, if any, that fish are out of the water".

Paul Knight, CEO of the S&TA, added: "The evidence is clear that when the correct advice is followed, the overwhelming majority of fish released make a full recovery. The leaflet now being distributed 'Catch and Release: An Angler's Guide' gives explicit advice on best practice. 'Catch and release' is often characterised as 'throwing' fish back. This unfortunate term could hardly be further from the reality as careful handling, without if possible removing the fish from the water, is crucial.”

The leaflet, which is now being distributed extensively through angling organisations and fishing beats across Scotland, offers simple and clear guidance for anglers who intend to release fish. The Catch and Release guidance campaign has been prompted by evidence of some poor handling techniques including images on the internet and in magazines of fish being held up by the tail or by the gills. The leaflet has also been supported by the Environment Agency in England and the fishing tackle companies Hardy of Alnwick and Greys of Alnwick.

Source http://www.fishnewseu.com/latest-news/uk/5439-salmon-catch-and-release-guide-offers-advice-to-boost-survival.html

Powerplays: Useful or just a ruse?

2011-02-21T02:28:00.000-08:00

Back in 2005, Powerplays (PP) were introduced to ODIs to spice them up. For long, they had been turned into a formulaic affair with a smattering of excitement through the odd close finish. The Powerplay was supposed to change it all.

Come 2008 and there was a further twist: the batting captain could choose when one of the PP was taken. Sounds good on paper, but did it really change much?

During an ODI, the first 15 overs are typically the compulsory PP (first 10 overs) and the bowling PP (overs 11-15). And then there's some anticipation about the batting PP. Usually, this is taken between the 30th and 40th overs when the going is normally restricted to singles and twos with the odd boundary. The point remains that teams often lose the momentum built in the first 15 overs by delaying a PP. It is expected that the last 10 overs will be violent batting and therefore, it sounds logical that the overs 30-40 be used to conserve energy of the batsmen. Often, though, batting captains thrust their PP choice on unsuspecting batsmen in the middle with disastrous results.

In the recently-concluded Australia versus England ODI series, the batting PP proved to be the turning point. In favour of the fielding team! Just making a point with proof!

In the subcontinent, where the pitches anyways favour batting, it could be useful if the bowling Powerplay allowed the bowling captain unlimited bouncers or maybe 8 fielders outside the 30 yard circle. Something to balance the game out, possibly. That, however, isn't the case. The only respite the fielding team gets is no mandatory catching fielders. With the first PP being well set, the second and third PPs can play a critical role.

CWC 2011

Of the major teams, most do well in PPs. Australia has the best average at 27.65 ahead of Sri Lanka, New Zealand and India. Their bowling economy rates, though are equally bad indicating that batsmen from most of these sides have the PPs sorted out. Does that mean that the PP stands nullified? Far from it.

Read deeper into the numbers and it reveals that the recent two series - Eng v Aus and Pak v NZ -have shown varying degrees of successes for batsmen. NZ and Australia continued to do well than their opponents, but Pakistan didn't do too badly. England, though suffered badly during the PPs.

Among other cup favourites, India has traditionally done well in the PP situations from a batting point of view. Their bowlers, already under scrutiny and doubt, have failed and will be under pressure to contain the opposition. It will help India that they start their campaign against the weakest of the Test playing nations in the PP - Bangladesh who score at about 7 runs per over during PP but concede at almost 8.5!

Whatever the team's history in PPs in the recent and not-so-recent past, it will be interesting to see how they counter spinners in this period. If the practice matches are anything to go by, spinners will operate from very early on in the match and some captains may be smart to hold on to a couple of overs from their main spinner for the PP.

Source http://www.sify.com/sports/powerplays-useful-or-just-a-ruse-news-cricket-lcstubicbib.html

Under The Weather

2011-02-11T00:43:00.000-08:00

Remember April, which was, so we are told, the hottest English April for at least 350 years, and considerable areas went up in flames?

Seems a long time ago now.

It’s just as well for Gordon Brown that most people in Britain these days aren’t particularly superstitious. If they were, they would probably feel that the bad weather now attending Brown’s accession to power is inauspicious, an ill omen, that presages evil in the land.

15th June

"Heavy flooding caused rush-hour chaos today. Huge downpours hit much of Britain overnight, particularly in the Birmingham area..."

16 June

"Thunderstorms and torrential rain caused chaos across a swathe of Britain yesterday, with widespread flooding disrupting road travel and rail services....

More than 40 workers were trapped by flood waters surrounding their tool factory in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, after a band of storms and showers crossed the region overnight and continued into the north of England...."

20th June

"Thousands of people have been left without electricity after severe weather hit parts of England and Wales. Direct lightning strikes and high winds cut power to around thousands of homes in east Kent, while torrential rain caused flooding of homes and roads..."

23rd June

"Flash floods wreak havoc..."

Now it’s more tornadoes in Telford and Burnham-on-Sea, and Floods force thousands from homes ( eyewitness accounts), with Sheffield particularly badly hit.

The Guardian reports that; “Only a fortnight ago the government's chief scientist warned that more funds were urgently needed to update the UK's Victorian-era drainage infrastructure.

…Engineers were today urgently trying to stop the Ulley reservoir in Yorkshire from bursting its banks due to record rainfall.

…The extreme weather will also be unnerving for officials tasked with delivering on Mr Brown's latest policy focus - building lots of new houses. Plans to build up to 200,000 new homes in the Thames Gateway have been questioned because much of the area has been classed as a flood plain in the past.”

The foolhardy replacement of benign porous and spongey vegetated surfaces with hard, impermeable surfaces due to excessive building nowadays is one major factor increasing the risk for flooding.

UPDATE: Hat-tip to Barkingside21 and Clairwil, who linked to Philip Booth’s very timely post on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. These would help to alleviate a lot of the flooding problems of development, if only planners would wake up and take action to make sure that SUDS are mandatory on new-build.

What always strikes me about sensible eco-solutions is that so many of them are ANCIENT and people in the past had so much more sense than people today. The housing with SUDS in Philip’s photos looks remarkably like traditional old-fashioned streets of vernacular housing all over the world, from Europe to Asia and beyond.

Again, it's back to the future ….

Paice threatens industry with compulsory set-aside

2011-02-11T00:40:00.001-08:00

FARMING Minister Jim Paice has threatened to introduce compulsory set-aside in England unless more arable farmers get involved with the Campaign for the Farmed Environment (CFE).

Mr Paice has sent an open letter to the farming industry signalling that he is losing patience with the lack of progress on the scheme.

The campaign urges farmers to renew Environmental Stewardship agreements and use them to target specific wildlife benefits, to leave land fallow and to undertake and record other environmental measures. But against a backdrop of soaring cereal prices, it appears that scheme targets are not being met.

CFE was heralded as a victory when it was introduced by the previous Government as a voluntary initiative to replace the environmental benefits of set-aside in 2009. But it always carried the threat of a return to regulation if farmers failed to deliver the required measures off their own backs.

In his letter Mr Paice praised the work of the Campaign in using targeted land management to deliver valuable environmental benefits.

He said: “The Government is putting food production back up the agenda, but we have made it clear that this must be done alongside protecting and enhancing the environment and farmers must show they can do both.

“We want the Campaign to be a success and don’t believe that we should regulate and impose more red tape if the farming community can achieve the same results through its own actions.

“The CFE is the farming industry’s chance to demonstrate that this voluntary approach can work better than regulation and that they are best placed to decide on, and tackle, their local environmental priorities, without intervention.

“But if the farming community cannot step up and achieve these results voluntarily the Government will have to consider a compulsory approach to deliver these same benefits.”

From next Monday, Defra will be sending out the annual survey of land managed under the CFE to 5,500 farmers and land managers across England. The survey will reveal what voluntary measures they have put in place to support the campaign and will help determine its future.

NFU president Peter Kendall applauded ‘those farmers and advisers who are ensuring that the Campaign has already had real impact’ but said compulsory measures were a ‘real threat’ unless more is done.

He said: “I urge those who are about to renew their Environmental Stewardship agreements or considering entering, to choose key target options, those that deliver most for wildlife and resource protection. The success of our industry’s campaign lies in our hands.”

CLA president William Worsley said: “We need to show what we in the industry already know - that England’s farmers can be relied upon to conserve the natural environment so long as we are provided with the right opportunities, information and incentives. We don’t need a return to the bad old days of top-down regulation.

“It is vital, particularly as spring approaches, that everyone supports the Campaign.”

Source http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/latest-news/paice-threatens-industry-with-compulsory-set-aside/37026.article

Don’t Get Too British, Girls

2011-01-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

This is what one father said to his daughter as he beat her; “you are getting too British”.

As File on 4’s horrific and deeply disturbing programme this evening (repeated on 1st July) revealed, Islamist feeling is growing, and with it an increasingly iron fist clamping down on women.

The following BBC article plays down many of the findings in the actual radio programme, but it does go this far;

“Nazir Afzal, the CPS's national lead on honour crime, told BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme the threats to kill a woman known as Miss B, who is now in hiding, came from her family but originated in an Egyptian terrorist group.

He said: "They told her husband that if he didn't put his wife in her place then they would do it themselves."

[Another woman] Heshu Yones was stabbed to death by her father, Abdalla Yones, who had associations with a Kurdish nationalist organisation, says Mr Afzal….”

All the facts of this nature are strenuously denied by the MCB spokeswoman, who says that the MCB has told the police officers that it really isn’t happening at all.

Meanwhile New Labour is insisting on further putting Muslim women in the UK in the front-line, putting the onus on them to turn male family members away from “extremism”. This is completely cuckoo, it will not work, but will put women in even more jeopardy than they already are.

People; “Taxpayers are to fund evening classes to show Muslim woman how to control their men - and stop them becoming suicide bombers.

Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly will this week stump up £650,000 on a string of courses across Britain.

They aim to teach the women "confidence building, communication skills, negotiation and mediation".

Ms Kelly hopes the women will then be able to persuade husbands, brothers and sons not to be tempted to become Islamic terrorists.”

New Labour’s frightening and vertiginous disconnection from reality can be seen by the increasingly crazed and desperate ways that they are scrabbling around trying to glue back the pieces of the smashed bottle and scoop the milk they've spilt, back in. Somewhere, in the dimness of their minds, the fear is growing.

Homes for Warblers

2011-01-19T00:26:00.000-08:00

Good news of Dartford Warblers from Pete. They’re doing well and to keep on thriving, they need more heath to be conserved and created. One area which is particularly important is the Home Counties' Thames Basin Heathland, which is being threatened by growing human population.

Message to the humans: back off guys, and give everybody else a bit of space for a change.