A feature of the (poor quality) debate on Israel-Palestine in the UK is that most people have never visited either country, don't understand the political culture & have never witnessed settler fanaticism. That allows for a 'western liberal' projection which collapses the moment you leave Tel Aviv.

Beavers dont kill trees, they coppice them. Here are two trees that have been beavered at Bathampton Meadows (just down the river from Warleigh Nature Reserve) that people have been worried were “killed” that are both still growing happily. Let’s talk about it.

Prices keep rising while service declines—investment feels minimal, staff seem stretched, and forest school days have gone from a full day in the woods with campfire lunches to a walk to the rec ground down the road.

Nurseries are increasingly experiencing this. My daughter’s nursery was recently acquired by Kids Planet, a company that has expanded rapidly—from 17 nurseries in 2016, to 75 by 2021, and over 250 by the end of 2025. All funded by private equity fund BGF.

@jon-moses.bsky.social mentioned Clean Up Britain, I saw this account often being reposted on Twitter in the past. I agree with Jon as regards the politics, but it is the process we should examine, these accounts make you miserable and angry, a stream of negativity. Fly tipping is a problem.

Tracks tbh, I encountered them years ago pre-Musk takeover of twitter and it was very clear that their focus was Daily Mail tier grumbling instead of structural reform of the packaging/waste sector (e.g. deposit return & the like) that we know are by far the most effective interventions

Hi @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social, you're listed as a 'celebrity supporter' of an organisation called Clean Up Britain, whose X account appears to be posting support for crank anti-Islam messages (some seemingly being churned out by bots).

MASSIVE numbers on the Together march against the far right today. Right to Roam has been marching with the Folk Against Fascism bloc - Morris dancers reclaiming rural English traditions from the far right The countryside is for everyone!

Again, the allegation here has to be left unsaid because the moment you spell it out it makes no sense – to affect the result here the claim needs to be that Gorton and Denton was full of Muslim women who wanted to vote Reform, but were coerced by their husbands into voting Green instead.

And some interesting complexity 👇

Definitely a lot of other drivers as well - pay, medical inflation, cost of *waves hands* everything but yes, allowing vets to be owned by non-vet partners is a shitshow and should never have been allowed (nor should it be in any other profession).

This well-reported piece appears to have nonetheless missed what I suspect is the 'real' story behind these massive price rises: the UK veterinary sector has been targeted by US private equity firms in the past decade, and turned into yet another vehicle for extracting wealth from ordinary people.

Mackenzie Crook’s magical suburban folk tale, #SmallProphets published by #PenguinBooks and #PuffinBooks down the years. A 🧵 1/

The reason Joanna Marchong hates the NHS is that she's paid to do so by the right-wing Adam Smith Institute, which lobbies on behalf of the private healthcare industry.

Today is an exciting day: I have relaunched Inkcap! New website, new branding, lots of in-depth reporting on nature in Britain coming your way. Please share & help me get this thing off the ground. www.inkcap.co.uk/inkcap-is-ba...

"Judgment is politically vulnerable. Rules are not. The procedure exists to make discretion disappear, or seem to. The system’s actual flexibility lives entirely in this unacknowledged interpretive work, which means it can be removed by anyone who mistakes it for inefficiency." Exceptional piece.

Yes, that is how this works.

“This isn’t just about my livelihood – it’s about justice for the lough before there’s nothing left for the next generation.” The slow murder of Lough Neagh—the largest lake on the island of Ireland & across the British Isles—is a tragedy and a travesty. Go go Declan Conlon.

This is the start of a wilder Wales 🌳 We’re proud members of the @cynghrairailwylltio.cymru, a growing movement uniting organisations, landowners, communities and decision-makers to restore thriving ecosystems, boost rural livelihoods and celebrate Welsh landscapes and our wild nature. 🧵1/2

'seemingly small things expand exactly in proportion to the attention you give them' 🌱

This April, some of England's largest landowners are obliged to publish estate management plans, through being members of the National Estate for Nature. The privately-owned Clinton Devon Estate has published its plan early, and it looks really good: 1/ clintondevon.com/wp-content/u...

Again, I point out that the landscape I grew up in was absolutely ravaged by the side effects of fossil fuel extraction so my sympathy for these people whining about how they might see a solar array is pretty limited

The pup has got that Friday feeling

Government: “We think maybe there ought to be some light-touch regulation and oversight of an industry that releases 50 million non-native birds for shooting every year.” Shooting estates: “THIS IS A DECLARATION OF WAR!”

Leaving aside the distasteful way the Countryside Alliance refers to mere licensing of commercial shoots as a "declaration of war", a number of things about it's current stance on shooting make no sense. 1/ www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/labour-pheasant-shooting-50v6v8zf5

My review of 'Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind' by Richard Fortey, for @theecologist.org. (Published a while back but just realised it was online). www.resurgence.org/magazine/art...

This is exactly the issue, the 'green field' syndrome, an industrial agricultural crop 'good' even though it may result in environmental harms and at least in the case of ethanol corn (in US) is a huge boondoggle. While solar is industrial and bad. I guess when green amenity lawns are seen as

Revealing who owns England just became Government policy. Here's my blog post analysing this historic moment, as well as assessing some of the other ambitious policies unveiled in the Government's new Land Use Framework: whoownsengland.org/2026/03/19/r...

Also while the land is under solar a good deal of it will be having the benefit of not only retaining soil (compared to it washing away, especially when growing Maize), but the soil will be regenerating. If the right seed mixes are sued it could be providing homes for Beetles, Butterflies and Bees.

Very pleased to have played a role in the founding of @cynghrairailwylltio.cymru. Here's what I had to say: "Rewilding is repopulation. The answer to our social and ecological challenges is the same: we need a diversification of rural life, just as we need a diversification of habitat." /1

The Welsh Rewilding Alliance has launched today, sharing a vision for 'a wilder Wales where nature thrives, rural economies prosper, and we all have better access to wild landscapes'

🔴 The UK Could Be Quietly Heading for a Solar Power Revolution As fossil fuel prices soar due to Trump’s Iran war, the UK Government’s plans for ‘energy independence’ could transform how British households power their homes bylinetimes.com/2026/03/19/t...

Labour's LATEST ATTACK on our RURAL HERITAGE shows how little they UNDERSTAND THE COUNTRYSIDE. CRACKING DOWN on our 500-year-old rural practice. Yes, CRACKING DOWN on our 1,000-year-old rural practice. 🤔

A historic day as the England Coast Path is completed. Congratulations to @ramblers.org.uk & @naturalengland.bsky.social. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Aaaaaand there it is. "Tens of thousands of acres!" Which is... less than 1% of England. For comparison: we currently use 2.3% of arable land to grow crops for bioenegy. As we transition, this can be replaced by solar, which is wildly more efficient. Meaning overall *less* land used for energy.

The director of the Conservative Party's rural forum, with an entirely normal and not the least bit unhinged reaction to the Land Use Framework. Released today by Labour but initiated and developed by... The Conservative Party.

Had to clamber over a barbed wire fence, rip my coat and trespass to get a photo of this folkloric monster pretending half-successfully to be a tree. I have no regrets.

Okay, have just finished reading the Land Use Framework. Overall: I think it's good, in places very good. Nothing surprising if you follow these debates, but a lot of things that needed to be said have now been Officially Said. Standout weaknesses are 30x30 and access. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Funny bit of trolling by the civil servant who put together this chart in the Land Use Framework. Solar energy - a fixation of the rural right - so negligible in percentage land use terms there's not enough space to put a number.

I think we can see what the government's line is going to be when the 30x30 target is missed: "we haven't done it, but we now know where we want to do it". Unless it's Reform. In which case I suspect it'll be "we haven't done it and here's how we plan to undo the rest of it".

The first-ever Land Use Framework for England has been published. I think it is the most far-sighted plan for England's land since the Second World War. Here's my thoughts on what it does (& doesn't) do: 1/ www.gov.uk/government/p...

🎶 chippin' away, chippin' away, every little day we're chippin' away 🎶

Nominative determinism aside... unlike a lot of politicians who rail against drugs publicly while being coked up to the eyeballs in private, Crispin has always strongly advocated for a progressive approach to drug reform. Can hardly accuse him of hypocrisy.

VICTORY! Government to open up the Land Registry - bringing to an end a thousand years of secrecy shrouding who owns England. I’ve been campaigning for this for ten years: the new Land Use Framework, published later today, makes it government policy. 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

At least they're honest about whose class interests they're representing.

We have loads of nightjars in and around Thetford Forest, mostly open access and managed to help them by Forestry England, a success story of combining access, wildlife and sustainable forestry

Why, though? Will the festival be discussing 'preserved lemons never go mouldy once you open the jar?' too?

This is a great news story. But it's also an interesting access story; revealing of how we talk, and think, about access rights. Nightjar are an 'amber' list species. They're ground nesters. And they roost in the sorts of habitats which often overlap with existing access land in England and Wales.

The people have misread the mood of the nation, I’m sorry to say.

"The results are astonishingly clear. On rewilded land, biodiversity surged across the board, with the number of bird species up 261%. The variety of bumblebee and butterfly species more than doubled, their abundance increased over 10x." The cure for nature loss exists. share.google/w30RUdw1902W...