Here is a speech by the Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Nick Herbert, which was made on Tuesday. We hope that all the political parties will be making it clear what they will do for the environment if they are in government after the General Election.
But we'd also like to help you to tell the politicians what you want! Nature needs a voice in the General Election and you can speak up for nature by contacting your candidates in your own constituency. Click on the link here to see what we are doing in the run up to the General Election and click on the 'Contact your candidates' link on the right hand side of the page to see how to contact those people who will be standing for Parliament in your constituency.
Mark, Interesting speech, although I wish they had taught me at school how to intepret politicians' speeches. I do note that there is stated intention to use increased environmental taxation to reduce other taxes. I presume this means that, if elected, money from taxes such as landfill tax may not be available to conservation bodies for environmental projects. If I have read that correctly that could hit RSPB and Wildlife Trusts hard. That is not intended to be a political comment but does illustrate how members might need advice on the sort of questions to ask local candidates.
Hi Mark been reading Hope farm diary a bit and came to following conclusions.
1 Really impressive increases in more or less all wildlife,can't really say how impressed I am.
2 The stubble in winter seemed to make a big difference.
3 Seems important to have a bird seed area
4 Can you say how the yield of rape compares say with neighbours conventional sowing.
My thinking after this is if only the ELS or similar could say reward say increase in bird numbers as you have said on particular farms and I think if special grant say for one farm in each parish to do these things for a start think we would see a massive reward.Last winter for some reason a field of stubble got left over winter and amazing numbers of mixed flock of Finches and Skylarks almost always on there.Feel sure if we could find a way to get one farm in each parish to do similar to Hope farm as well as large benefits farmers could walk with a bit of a swagger and perhaps get less criticism,Personally think these measures would have improved the bird count on farms much more than stopping us clean ditches out for 5 years I think it was.Seems really strange but perhaps I have to say that perhaps Jamesm is right that a lot of shooting syndicates large and small do many of these thing already and I don't think the cost for one in each area would be that great anyway a great way to spend £600,000,now that would really be NATURAL ENGLAND as opposed to East Anglia England.
It's great that the tories are pushing the environment to the front of the political agenda.
However, it is important to remember the gap between their public relations strategy and the true beliefs of many party members. See this article in the Guardian.
www.guardian.co.uk/.../climate-scepticism-grows-tories
Nigel Lawson was also recently on BBC Question Time. It's worrying that, as a prominenet Conservative, he thought that one cold winter, in one small country was relevant for a point he was making against man-made climate change. Concerning that as the head of a new thinktank on global warming he doesn't seem to know the difference between the weather and the global climate.