Blogs

The extreme wildfire events around Europe and the latest State of the UK Climate report from the Met Office are a stark reminder of the effects of climate change. For many years the risk of wildfire in England was rare; now, due to climate change, it is increasing year by year. Wildfire has been considered a climate risk since 2012 and therefore addressed in the national adaptation programme.

As the BEESPOKE project draws to a close, there are a number of crucial messages to take away. Pollinators, like many living creatures, need food, shelter and somewhere to nest. The need for floral diversity to provide pollinators with food sources that suit them is a key point around which the BEESPOKE project was largely based.

Will ELMS plug the ‘funding’ gap that the withdrawal of BPS exposes the farming industry to? 

In early 2021 Dylan Roberts, our Head of Fisheries, wrote a blog on the reintroduction of beavers entitled “Environmental Engineer or a waterway menace?”.  With the launch of the Species Reintroduction Task Force and in particular calls for beavers to be released freely into the wild getting louder, we felt now was a good time to revisit this often-controversial subject. 

Hedgerows are an essential part of the English countryside. To help safeguard the hedgerows we currently have and promote their growth, Defra have launched a new consultation that focuses on establishing effective and proportionate regulations to protect them.

On Wednesday 21 June, our Scottish Head of Policy, Ross MacLeod, and Scottish Advisor, Dr Nick Hesford gave expert evidence to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee as they debated the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill.

GWCT are advising all shoots planning to release gamebirds on or within 500m of a Special Protection Area this summer to apply for a licence without delay. 

In recent weeks I have been revisiting the known causes of the declines seen in some of our bird species such as the Curlew, Lapwing and House Sparrow and so the recently published paper “Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe” caught my eye.

The debate over the conservation of hen harriers is one of the most controversial and polarised and as a consequence has been widely used in social science analyses of conservation conflicts.  

On 16 May, final amendments were considered for the Agriculture (Wales) Bill in the Senedd. This bill outlines the Welsh Government’s proposal to prohibit the use of any snare (including licensed use) or other cable restraint. It is hugely disappointing that an amendment tabled to enable the strict licensing of Humane Cable Restraints (HCRs) for conservation purposes was not accepted.