Blogs

It is important that, in addition to rewarding farmers and estate managers for planting new hedgerows, any policy should support them to look after what we already have and improve and enhance existing hedgerows.

It is alarming to see the imbalance caused by garden bird feeders laid out for clearly. Whilst well-intentioned, reports that it is boosting numbers of our more common garden birds and, in turn, threatening their subordinate counterparts, such as the willow tit and pied flycatcher should be a real cause for concern.

In addressing carbon emissions from our peatlands we must not forget that 92% of these releases come from; crops, grazing and forestry.

Anyone wishing to abandon a land use that has best preserved and protected some of the rarest habitat on earth – open heather moorland – must be clear about what they are proposing to replace grouse shooting with.

We need some much more detailed scientific investigation before we unreservedly welcome beavers back into the British countryside. 

Providing seed for birds will always benefit a select number bird species largely because many birds, such as wrens, rely on insects for food. 

Today we sent this letter to Màiri McAllan MSP, newly appointed to the Scottish Government as Minister for Environment, Biodiversity & Land Reform.

Habitat loss for over 80 years, often incentivised by Government to increase food production, will not be reversed overnight but there is cause for hope. 

The GWCT has estimated that planting a tree every 20 metres in English hedgerows would significantly meet the policy target, with the potential to host 40 million trees without repurposing a single acre of land.