European Landscape Convention

A Public Forest for All – Prices Start From £600 a Weekend

09.09.2014

A Public Forest Estate for the English cannot be allowed! Whilst forestry makes money, this money clearly doesn’t go into the right pockets. photo credit: Hands Off Our Forest  Development in our public forests is about to commence on a large scale. The timing is perfect; just the right amount of time since the successful […]

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Biodiversity Offsetting, the Wider Landscape and Social Consequences

07.01.2014

Will Biodiversity Offsetting drive an even bigger wedge between our precious, protected landscapes and our undervalued, quietly nurturing, ordinary landscapes…

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NGO concern as UK Government releases its consultation on biodiversity offsetting

05.09.2013

Today, the UK Government published a long-awaited green paper on its proposed plans to implement biodiversity offsetting.

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Biodiversity Off-setting and Invertebrate Conservation

02.09.2013

Biodiversity off-setting represents a denial of any distinctive ecological value as the underlying assumption is that one group of organisms (an ecosystem) can simply be replaced by another.

At a more specific level, there are several reasons why off-setting from the perspective of invertebrate conservation is doomed to fail.

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Biodiversity offsetting permits previously rejected housing development

23.05.2013

Tyneside wildlife areas threatened by new development – biodiversity offsetting undermining local communities?

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Biodiversity offsetting in the UK one year on… it’s not looking good…

07.05.2013

UK’s Biodiversity Offset Pilot has nothing much to show for it. Not one of the six counties involved has made a single offset. This is disappointing for organisations such as the Environment Bank, for whom these pilots are core business, but for much of civil society, the failure is just a reminder that biodiversity offsetting is not the right approach to conserving our remaining natural spaces.

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Trading Places – biodiversity offsetting.

22.04.2013

With good design biodiversity could be increased on a development site. Biodiversity offsetting prevents this, it is selling your landscape, your place and you can’t say or do anything about it.

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Suits don’t have Ears

17.03.2013

Segments of a lecture given by Landscape Research Groups’, Prof Peter Howard, touching on incorporating community landscapes into NGO/policy maker plans and biodiversity offsetting.

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Education in Land and Environment is Power – The Horticultural Student

06.03.2013

… my knowledge of everything that grows from the ground is my most valuable possession; I can’t believe I went without it before, and every day there are opportunities for me to put this knowledge to use.

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Middle Ground not No Mans Land

05.02.2013

There is opportunity offered in the government response and now policy to do so. It is up to the independent campaigners, including ourselves to keep these doors open.

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Terroir (sustainable land management systems) – a way forward for forestry & farming?

15.01.2013

More forests can repair the damage done, not least in that most degraded of landscapes of all, the urban landscape. ‘Terroir’, the sense of place we feel when we connect to our landscape, a better way forward?

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Save Farm Terrace Allotments!

09.01.2013

..as with public forests, allotments are ‘green spaces’ that are proven to work for both public well being and biodiversity. We must protect our cultural landscape heritage and protect what few allotments we have…

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Children and Nature

25.11.2012

“letting children enjoy the landscape in their own way can be just as effective as any exciting day out. If we encourage them to love & value their landscape, then hopefully we can not only kindle a lifelong passion but help to shape how the next generation will treat these issues

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Taking Green for Granted

01.09.2012

‘This green and pleasant land’ as celebrated at the opening ceremony of the Olympics is due to Britain’s very enviable climate which keeps it green. For how much longer though?

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SoW Response to Independent Forestry Panel Report

04.07.2012

“I am convinced that without a living discussion, based on facts about our forests, we will be less able to meet all contrasting goals. I am also convinced that we will never come to a final answer. This is not necessarily a problem since it is the discussion itself that is important.”

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Site Specific Land Management Planning

15.05.2012

Pip Howard outlines the vital importance, ecologically, socially and economically, of listening to the landscape and listening to communities when planning land use/management, by using the ancient and down right logical principle of ‘site specifics’.

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Manifesto for a working landscape by Eddie Procter

20.04.2012

Landscapists of the world, unite and take over!

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Campaigning for Everybody’s Landscape

01.09.2011

The United Kingdom ratified the European Landscape Convention: It appears that whilst DEFRA are fully aware of the convention, are the DCLG?

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A Participative Landscape Contract: lessons for the Forestry Panel from Europe

27.05.2011

Alex Lockwood explores our connection to our landscape as a whole and discusses the values of the European Landscape Convention. Posing important questions to the Forestry Panel.
“The public have a right to be concerned with what happens to their own landscape & be involved in decisions affecting it”

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