Browse by Tags

A few hours ago I sadly posted this blog , setting out our initial reaction to the shocking news that the proposal to extend the famously unsuccessful Lydd airport’s runway has been approved. I also had to tell my 8 year old son who has come to love Dungeness. His face fell – but he rallied...

Today’s shocking decision to approve an extension to Lydd airport in Kent is the latest stage in the sorry saga of attempts to develop the site. We’re very disappointed at the news and are profoundly concerned for the future of one the UK’s most important and iconic wildlife sites....

I get the feeling that this blog is going to be busy over the next few weeks. The budget this week has been picked to pieces by pundits – and I’m not going to add that list, here’s RSPB Conservation Director, Martin Harper, giving his perspective . The budget has raised the temperature...

This blog has just turned two! Some 330 posts later and what have been the big themes? I had a look at the same question a year ago – and here’s how the top ten topics have changed Dungeness – holds on to top spot with 53 posts Special Protection Areas – up one place...

My Dad grew hops in Kent – and as summer eases into autumn, the chill early ‘hopping’ mornings and bright days take me back to the hectic weeks of hop picking. I plucked a small handful of hops from a bine draping itself through a hedge and scrubbled the hops between my hands to release...

My colleagues at the sharp end of our work to save special places from harm are in the midst of one of the busiest periods we can remember (and some of us can remember quite a long way back). I’ve been following the lengthy public inquiry into plans to extend Lydd Airport in Kent (here’s...

A short day - the Inquiry has now been adjourned until tomorrow. Bob Gomes completed his evidence for the RSPB. Giving evidence, in my view, is tougher than any media interview I have ever done! You can feel the weight of the questions and how much hung on every answer. However, Bob 'stepped up for...

As the public inquiry into proposals to develop Lydd Airport continues I’ve set up my online alerts to ping through items to do with the area (I’m getting a lot of mouth-watering recipes for Dungeness crab – but from the west coast of the USA. I didn’t know there was a Dungeness...

The goings on in a Public Inquiry (PI) are not quite ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’, but it is still a formal and legal process with all its associated technical terms and references. My understanding of the most commonly used terms are: Examination-in chief – the witness’s barrister...

After a lengthy 11 hrs on the witness stand Dr Allen, the bird strike witness, passes the hot seat over to Dr John Day, the RSPB’s bird expert at this Inquiry in Folkestone. Dr Day is a highly qualified individual. He has a BSc in Biology, a PhD research degree and he is a member of many...

Picture the scene – a cosy, circular council chamber occupied by lots of legal people dressed formally in suits, others busily tapping away on laptops and everywhere you look boxes and boxes of paper all containing vital information about each side’s views about the expansion of Lydd airport...

As followers of this blog will know, the RSPB is busy right now saving many special places, from Dungeness to the Tana River Delta in Kenya. While colleagues are immersed in the Lydd public inquiry and other forthcoming inquiries and cases around the country, we’re fighting a battle on another...

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...

Tomorrow sees the public inquiry into plans extend Lydd Airport and potentially boost passenger numbers to 2m a year (they are currently under 1000) really get under way. We’re appearing at the inquiry giving evidence to back up our long-held objection to this proposal. The inquiry opened last...

The song of the shingle Years of campaigning, meetings, letter-writing e-mailing, more meetings, press interest, talking to people and worry, have come down to this – the start of the Lydd airport extension public inquiry. From Tuesday 15 February, when the public inquiry opens (and then...

Here's just two boxes of the paperwork for the public inquiry - the culimation of weeks of work by the inquiry team. You can catch up on the background to the case here . We'll be reporting regularly from the inquiry and for our Dungeness reserve during the weeks it runs. It opens on the...

Today it’s World Wetlands Day, an event that celebrates a landmark in wetland conservation. The Ramsar Convention was agreed in the Iranian town of Ramsar on 2 February 1971. The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especial as Waterfowl Habitat (to give it its full name) has...

Last year bitterns nested in the reeds at our Dungeness reserve for the first time – a great compliment to the habitat creation work that the reserves team have put in place. A habitat without its characteristic species is a bit like a stage without the cast – something to look at but not...

2011 is shaping up to be a busy year – the last few days of the new working year have seen us planning and preparing for the challenges and opportunities ahead. At the moment it looks like we are shaping for at least four public inquiries starting, on 15 February, with the Lydd airport extension...

Well, as we come to the end of the first full year covered by the Saving Special Places blog – what have been the highlights? Here are some of mine – but do add any you think I’ve missed. (There'll be second post tomorrow). We’ve managed a post roughly every two and a half...

I spent a couple of days in Milton Keynes earlier in the week joining conservation staff from across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. These are the people often at the centre of the long running sagas of site protection that I cover in these posts – so it was good to spend a couple of days...

It’s the Saving Special Places blog’s first birthday. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last year – both from the UK and further afield, from the Severn to the Serengeti. Last September Lydd and Hunterston were already prominent cases, one post was entitled ‘Lydd Airport...

Here’s a post-summer holiday trot through developments on some of the stories we’ve been following. Dungeness . The purple heron family has taken to the wing and has now left the reserve. Time will tell if this was a one off event or if these elegant birds return next year. If they do...

It’s been a long and anxious wait for the news that the UK’s first purple heron chick has fledged successfully – and here’s the first picture of the youngster taken by Philip Eglise. At some point soon the purple herons will be heading south to spend the winter in Africa...