You can add your name to support campaigning in Kenya to challenge decisions to press ahead with planting for biofuels. This puts pressure on land for growing food crops, water resources, the lives of local people and a rich natural environment.
Want to find out more? You can listen to our Helen Byron – who visited the delta recently – talking to Charlie Moores on a Talking Naturally podcast. Helen managers our in put to international casework and campaigns to save special places. The Tana River Delta is high on her list of priorities.
And here’s some more to read.
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Is it just me? There seems to be a lot going on at the moment, and it’s a mixed bag for the natural world. A lot of the big stories this week directly relate to some of the most special places on Earth – so it’s worth a quick review.
First up – and quite new news – the proposed road development through the Serengeti has been dropped. We’ve been supporting our friends in the Wildlife Society of Tanzania and many others across the world in calling for this outcome – so if you added your name and stepped up, thank you. I’ll return to this story soon as there is a lot behind the headlines.
Nearer to home, we welcomed the news that the latest proposals to build a huge concrete wall (aka barrage) across the Mersey has been shelved (hopefully to gather dust). In breathing a sigh of relief that the immediate threat has been lifted – we aren’t in the mood to celebrate (much) because the focus on barrages is preventing real progress on new tidal power technology that is designed to minimise environmental impact.
Back to Africa – and Kenya’s stunning (but-much-less-well-known-than-the-Serengeti) Tana River Delta remains under siege from the biofuels industry with the announcement of 10,000 ha trial jatropha planting scheme (jatropha is a plant that can be processed to produce fuel). You can read more here (and listen to a podcast from Talking Naturally) – or, here , if you would like to add your name to the local campaign to challenge the legality of the decision.
On the domestic policy front, the Department of Communities and Local Government has published it’s definition of the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Sorry – wake up! Dull sounding, but crucially important to how development proposals in England will be treated in the future.
And it’s not great.
You can read what Martin Harper, our Director of Conservation, has to say here . The short version is that some comforting introductory words can’t disguise the pressure of the drive for economic growth and the consequent threat to the natural world that will bring. If you fancy delving a bit deeper – do visit the Planning Blog, here (but do come back), you can also watch Greg Clark, minister for planning policy, talking at the RTPI conference last week. What do you think?
Out of a clear blue sky came the rumour (which still persists) that the funding structure for agri-environment payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was going to be scrapped. We’ve mobilised around the issue and if you are one of more than 6,400 people who have e-mailed EU President Barroso, thank you, if not – here’s the link. Any hope of hitting the target of stopping the loss of nature by 2020 (signed up to by the EU and the UK) will be undermined if this rumour turns into reality.
To finish on a positive note – we want every child to get outdoors and experience nature, and today the kids won’t be having all the fund as at over 50 sites across the county we’ve invited the local MP to come too. We’re doing this with the Field Studies Council and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust – and you can read more about it here .
In all that, there’s been a lot of stepping up for nature – you can keep up with our new campaign here .
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