BATS. Two interesting facts on long distance migration of bats have been made known. In December 2013, a specie of Pipistrelle was found in northern Netherlands, having been ringed in Somerset some three years earlier. The second involved one being trapped during October 2015 in East Sussex, it having been ringed as a sub-adult two months earlier in Latvia. In its first year of life, this bat had made a journey of 1,460km over a period of some seven weeks.
COUNTRYSIDE STEWARDSHIP. England’s agri-environment scheme is said to be a shambles. With an inflexible start date of 1st January, some farmers are being left financially high and dry because their previous HLS Scheme ends after 1st January, they then being out of pocket for 11 months. Complexity of CS and insufficient Natural England staff to administer the scheme are making matters worse.
PESTICIDES and GAMEBIRDS. Work carried out in Sussex by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust have shown that foliar insecticides and insecticidal seed dressings are having a significant effect on the species of insect that are important food sources for young game birds. No wonder many of our farmland bird species are struggling!
PESTICIDE BAN. Meanwhile, perhaps France is showing the way forward, for there will be a total ban on pesticide use in public gardens, parks and forests. As from 2019, this ban will be extended to prohibit use in private gardens (apart from use by professionals). This seems a good idea when seeing the amount shelf space devoted to pesticides in our garden centres (not to mention the stench coming from them). Many people reach for their killer of choice without a clue of the environmental damage some of these concoctions can have!
NITROGEN. The Plant Link UK network has issued a new report, ‘We Need To Talk About Nitrogen…’ and it has the backing of the National Trust, Woodland Trust and the RSPB. It highlights the serious damage that nitrogen deposition is having upon the UK’s semi-natural habitats and wildlife. I’ve been banging on about this problem for years, one which partially instigated my setting-up in the 1990’s of conservation grazing by ponies in Sussex.
Prof Mark Sutton from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology has been appointed Chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative. Prof Sutton said that ‘in the EU alone, the fertilizer value of nitrogen losses from agriculture is around 14 billion Euros per year, equivalent to losing 25% of the European Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget (or 10% of the entire EU budget) up in smoke or down the drain.’
DEFRA DEFICIENT. There’s a widespread feeling in Westminster that DEFRA will not be up to the job of sorting out the huge amount of environmental law and new agricultural regulation following Brexit. Since 2006 the department has lost 2,285 members from its core staff. It has also suffered from crippling and on-going cuts to its budget. Put in context, currently the Civil Service is leaner than it has been since the Second World War and simply does not have the capacity to deal with the gargantuan task of leaving the EU.