No longer active on here. Find me on Bluesky: https://xitter.cf/t.co/CApIamwQHi* Campaigner @Right_2Roam š³š„¾š± WILD SERVICE: Why Nature Needs You (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Monnow Valley
Joined December 2010
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Jon Moses retweeted
We're proud of the lifesaving work our volunteers do in the Channel ā we make no apology for it. Those we rescue are vulnerable people in danger & distress. Each of them is someoneās father, mother, son or daughter - every life is precious. This is why we launch:
Note that the Countryside Alliance always talks in terms of 'electoral significance' rather than electoral popularity. That's because the stuff it's obsessed with polls like cold sick.
My musings on the disastrous animal rights takeover of Defra in the Johnson years and what the Conservatives need to learn from it if they are to win the countryside back.
thecritic.co.uk/the-tory-rurā¦
The sad thing?
In Wales, intact remnants are almost exclusively in the few places the geography made it impossible for them to be destroyed, such as here in the Prysor gorge (still modified through damming).
Making space for these special habitats shouldn't be controversial.
Apparently some people are doubting the existence of a Welsh rainforest, so hereās an introduction.
There are tropical rainforests and there are temperate rainforests. This is a temperate rainforest.
This habitat is characterised by high enough rainfall and humidity that mosses, ferns, lichens, and liverworts can grow on almost every surface including on the trees.
Rainforests once covered huge areas of Britain but now only small fragments remain.
This site has more information and an interactive map showing the UKās natural rainforest zones vs the remaining fragments:
lostrainforestsofbritain.orgā¦
Jon Moses retweeted
š"Where we connect, we protect"š
Jon Moses (@jm0ses) @Right_2Roam
Substackā”ļørighttoroam.substack.com/p/nā¦
Ref #HeathlandsReunited & 115 volunteers led by @SDNPA
who recreated, reconnected & restored #heathland
helping species like #nightjar make a comebackā£ļøā”ļøsouthdowns.gov.uk/mythical-gā¦
A more balanced take than usual but there's still a problem: the more you burn, the more you're effectively selecting for fire-adapted species like heather. Indeed, for gamekeepers, that's the aim. Over time these dominate, leading to a more flammable, more simplified landscape.
Wet ground alone will not stop a moorland wildfire. The debate over upland fire is often framed as rewetting versus controlled burning, as though one tool must win. The science points somewhere more practical: the two answer different questions.
A moorland fire has two components. A fast surface fire burns the vegetation above ground. A slow, smouldering fire can then take hold in the peat itself, and it is the smouldering fire that carries the real cost.
Peat fires make up only around a quarter of the UK's burned area, yet peer-reviewed research attributes up to 90% of the country's fire-driven carbon emissions since 2001 to them.
Rewetting is the defence against that deep fire. Wetter peat resists smouldering, and evidence from 27 Scottish wildfire sites shows wet blanket bog and wet heathland resisting severe burning where the ground had become wet enough.
But rewetting takes years to decades, and it does nothing to the fuel standing above the water. Fine heather ignites once its own moisture drops below around 60%, which can happen on a bright spring day even over saturated ground. As Natural England's chief scientist told Parliament, a wet peat substrate does not necessarily stop a wildfire taking the surface vegetation.
Reducing that surface fuel through cool controlled burning, cutting and grazing is therefore essential for preventing peat from burning. A resilient upland needs all the tools available.
Read more ā link in replies:
In that context, I think @NaturalEngland's position (opposed by the Moorland Association) makes sense. Focus on direct restoration, cease routine burning on peatland but permit it as a tool of last resort where circumstances justify, monitor and adapt as the evidence base grows.
Not sure coming after a guy with a decade worth of receipts was the best move by the EA.
A stunning reminder of why we cannot give up on our rivers yesterday, as I stumbled across an adult eel on the Roding for the first time, lounging in the shallows in the shade of a council tower block & within earshot of the North Circular.
This now rare & magical sight used to be common, until eel populations crashed on the Roding in the 1980ās & have not recovered. Seeking to understand & reverse this population crash should surely be a key role for the governments environmental regulator, but as usual they have done nothing to improve water quality or remove barriers to eel migration. Worse, they are actively blocking my efforts to help the eel population recover.
Ordinarily, baby eels (elvers) for restocking are expensive to buy. However, I managed to secure a kind donation of elvers from fishermen on the River Severn (where the elvers often get stuck behind barriers on the river). I applied for my @EnvAgency restocking permit like a good boy & all they had to do to help recover eel populations on the Roding was to say yes. Perhaps predictably, my application was rejected, because there was no positive evidence that reintroducing eels to the Roding would be a good thing. Perhaps most annoyingly, my application to restock eels on the Roding was rejected because reintroducing them would interfere with the EAās monitoring of their continued decline.
I asked what would happen if I went ahead & released the elvers anyway & was told that the EA would fine me up to Ā£50,000. Yet another example of the malevolent uselessness of the EA: obsessed with procedure, but will do absolutely sod all to actually reverse the decline in our rivers.
My annual heatwave repost.
There is no right to swim in 97% of rivers in England and Wales.
No, it's not for safety.
It's because we're a profoundly silly country which has long treated the rivers as the property of the privileged.
I get why we can't have a free-for-all. There is a place for permits and process. The problem is when those tasked with protecting a place - landowner, regulator, the state - give up all pretence of doing so. That is why this resonates: they prosecute solely to hide their shame.
This is the worst āstrong supportā Iāve ever received.
However, the malevolent uselessness of @EnvAgency is not limited to the recent incident on the Aldersbrook. Over the last 10 years I have been battling, along with hundreds of dedicated local volunteers, to protect & restore the River Roding against all the odds. The Environment Agency has not lifted a finger to help in these actions & indeed has often been a blocker to our work on the river.
Hereās some examples of the āstrong supportā weāve received from the Environment Agency over the yearsā¦ š§µ
You cannot act as a gatekeeper to accessing, defending, and restoring nature when you're unwilling to do it yourself. It doesn't matter what is on your website strapline, job description, or ten year strategic plan. Moral authority matters. @EnvAgency you need to drop this case.
Jon Moses retweeted
This is the worst āstrong supportā Iāve ever received.
However, the malevolent uselessness of @EnvAgency is not limited to the recent incident on the Aldersbrook. Over the last 10 years I have been battling, along with hundreds of dedicated local volunteers, to protect & restore the River Roding against all the odds. The Environment Agency has not lifted a finger to help in these actions & indeed has often been a blocker to our work on the river.
Hereās some examples of the āstrong supportā weāve received from the Environment Agency over the yearsā¦ š§µ
