sustainable land use

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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Biodiversity Offsetting? Lets call it what it is: Greenwash for the destruction of nature for money

06.11.2013

We’ve heard of how de-humanising people enables us to commit atrocities against one another, I believe that reducing a forest to tradable biodiversity units is de-naturising and will enable atrocities against nature.

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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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UBUSUNA – Exploring Life with Japan’s Forests

21.05.2013

film-making project to travel around Japan visiting, recording life in rural communities living in close proximity with the mountains & forests

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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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A Springtime Adventure in the Woods

21.04.2013

The weather this past few days has brought the woodlands alive! Full of bird song and snufflings, bees, butterflies, flowers and bud burst. I’ve been exploring…

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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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Who will fight for nature in future?

23.01.2013

Independence of the charitable sector is under threat, so who IS going to fight for nature? Asks Sarah Walters of Alvecote Wood

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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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British Woodlands 2012, Report of Conference on December 11th

14.12.2012

British Woodlands 2012 was organised by the Sylva Foundation, and held at the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford. The aim was to hear voices from owners of small woodlands – the people on the ground who own or manage the smaller woods that form the majority of woodland in England.

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Campaign update from the Tree Savers

04.08.2012

from Penny of Tree Savers “..Whitstable protested against Network Rails tree clearance policy – or should I say it’s ‘Scorched earth’ policy..”

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Biomass for Biofuel – A Black Hole for British Biodiversity

26.07.2012

On the 25th July the UK government announced continued subsidies for electricity production from biomass, which according to the UK government will help meet its renewable energy targets. The same day, Drax confirmed it would be converting a North Yorkshire power plant for using ‘mainly biomass’.

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A Woodland Culture

20.07.2012

As I step off the ride into the coppice I imagine a cowled and tonsured figure beside me. Here in Leigh Woods near Bristol we know from written records that the Monks of Leigh Abbey were managing these woods in just the same way at least 800 years ago.

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Network Rail is starving the urban and peri urban landscapes of the UK of biodiversity

15.07.2012

Network Rail are custodians of the largest green artery to connect our rural and urban landscapes – those few metres of land either side of a rail track our biodiversity depend upon. A charge they do not take proper responsibility for.

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