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Ever wondered what @NaturalEngland does?
I was pleased to record this podcast with the Civil Service Climate & Environment Network, answering questions about our work, why we do it & the context.
Tony Juniper
16.2K posts
Tony Juniper
@TonyJuniper
Nature recovery. Chair @NaturalEngland. Fellow @CISL_Cambridge. Chair @coolearth. Former @friends_earth @wwf_uk @wildlifetrusts @BirdLife_News. Writer.
- Dear @BBCNews could you please stop saying how pleased we all are with continuing dry, sunny & hot weather? Our rivers & wetlands are dying & wildlife fading away. We need RAIN. It is good. You can’t make the weather, but please stop saying global heating is a positive thing.
- Science is very clear. It’s not net zero in 2050 that must be the headline goal, but cutting emissions before then, including 50% cut by 2030. Delaying action deepens peril for our children & grandchildren. Think Libya, Greece, mass migration & all the rest, & on a massive scale.Rishi Sunak is poised to water down some of the government’s biggest net zero commitments, including plans to phase out the installation of new gas boilers and delaying a ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-…
- For those who don’t read the Sunday Telegraph, there are further attacks on @NaturalEngland in there today with calls for the organisation to be disbanded. The reason is because we are doing our job, implementing laws & Government policy for Nature recovery. Funny old world.
- Hello @camcitco There was a lovely display of buttercup on Midsummer Common yesterday, but you’ve mowed them into oblivion this morning. Also patches of nettles that butterflies would lay eggs on all gone too. Do we have an actual biodiversity strategy in #Cambridge?
- I’m delighted to see final confirmation today from @michaelgove of my new role of Chair @NaturalEngland I’m so much looking forward to working with everyone in doing all we can to aid Nature’s recovery. There is so much that can be done...
- Very good to join Prince William today to walk at Wistman’s Wood National Nature Reserve. We discussed expansion of this unique temperate rainforest fragment - a vital step for its long term resilience. Very impressed by his passion for Nature recovery
- Here is the kind of climate change feedback that was being warned about two decades & more ago. High temperature, permafrost melt, peat & trees burning with black carbon fallout hastening ice melt, all causing more warming. ‘Emergency’ does seem right word
- Seems very odd not to be sending The King to COP27. He is not only regarded as one the most credible climate leaders in the UK, but also globally. Hard to think of what the reason might be not to make the most of our most valuable diplomatic asset on the most important question.“It’s not the right occasion for the King to attend COP” doesn’t make sense. The occasion is happening. Does it mean he shouldn’t attend COPs at all? Or COP is at the wrong time for him to attend? I think they’re embarrassed his leadership will be at odds with their lack of it.
- Several reports today dismiss greenbelt as ‘scrubland’, the implication being that development on such land is better than what’s there now. Truth is that expanding scrub is one of the quickest ways we can make progress for Nature recovery. Quite worrying
- This really is an extraordinary graphic. While we agonise over the impact of releasing a few Beavers back in the landscape, about 50 million non-native Pheasants are released into the environment each year with not much debate at all.Just looking back at this paper link.springer.com/article/10.100… by @TimBlackburn66 and @KevinJGaston for a tutorial I'm running on Monday - this really is an extraordinary figure isn't it? 49% of Britain's bird biomass in August is pheasant.
- Why is the choice posed always food versus Nature? People can’t eat grass, yet we have about 125,000 hectares under golf courses. Generally don’t eat horses, but we spare about 500,000 hectares to feed them. For scale, Birmingham is about 26,000 hectares.
- Back to the future. The idea that we must sacrifice Nature for economic growth is a frame that I thought we’d got past. Seems not. Rather than writing it again, here’s a piece I did back in 2013. Just as true now, but sadly still needing to repeat
- RIP lovely friend. She was full of life and herself to the end. 14 years old last month and life passed today. Pictured here in her prime. @SparkesSusan and I will miss her.
