Fewer flowers, where are the bees?

This photo shows one of the field-scale projects that I have supplied
seed for.  This 15 hectare field was sown with wild flower and
grass seed in 2004. Although the soil was in a very poor state after
having been 'mined' for arable crops for 30 years, the flowers
eventually 'took off' after about 5 years and are spreading every
year. It is topped in late summer and sheep-grazed in autumn, but
now would benefit from some summer cattle-grazing.
Before it was ploughed up in the 1970s this field grew very
good suckler beef. It could once more..

Sarah Raven's excellent new series, Bees, Butterflies and Blooms began transmitting yesterday on the BBC. The first programme featured what's happened to the countryside in past decades, whether village greens or farms, and showcased some positive stories of a farmer and rural community restoring wild flowers around an arable field and on the village green. Yours truly had a minor role, sweating it out on the hottest day in 2010 (you won't see the sweat, carefully edited out) in a Sussex wild flower meadow. Sarah and I agree that our wild flowers are in serious trouble in the countryside. Both of us and others, continue to play our part in getting some of them put back, but the truth is that much of the countryside, whether grassland  or arable land, is wildlife-poor desert devoid of most of the wild flowers which were abundant 50 years ago. Like Sarah says, we can't turn the clock back, but things could be a lot better (sometimes with little effort or cost).

The wild flower restoration charity, Flora locale, with which I am still associated as Technical Adviser, offers really good days out, showcasing methods for restoring wild flowers and their habitats across the UK. This year there are many rural-based events but also some on wildlife gardening and improving wildlife in towns. So, if anyone other than me reads this blog and wants to learn more, then why not visit the website and see what events are on offer this year?

More climate lies

Yesterday, David Rose, writing in the Mail on Sunday said 'Forget global warming'. Rose said new data from the Met Office showed that "the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years". He also said the figures "suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age" and that they also confirm that "the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997". Unsurprisingly the Met Office has issued a press statement confirming that Rose's assertions are no more than a pack of lies. Although 'pack' and 'lies' are two words not actually used in the MO statement, the word 'belief' is. 

Unsurprisingly this figure from the Met Office was
not published, if it had it would have clearly
shown that Rose's assertions were pure fabrication
on his part.

Undoubtedly Rose is a climate sceptic wishing to use his privledged position, as a journalist writing for one of Britain's most-read Sunday newspapers, to push his belief on to others who do not have the time or mental capacity to understand the complexities of global warming. This makes it ever more harder to convince ordinary people that climate change is real, a threat to the future of their children and grandchildren and that they have a part to play in doing something about it.

The Mail on Sunday does not have a good track record in telling the truth about climate change having published other features that encourage its readers to believe it isn't happening. This is not the only newspaper that regularly fails to tell the truth, or 'massages' storylines to peddle some kind of belief that fails to acknowledge evidence. So I was quite interested to find the Angry Mob website. Unsurprisingly, much of this excellent blog is aimed at the appalling catalogue of journalistic misinformation churned out by the Daily Mail and its sister newspaper. 

Back to Rose's assertions and the truth - the Met Office says it  "is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850". Don't bother to get the sledges out then, buy the suntan cream, collect rainwater and don't live in a place that is less than 10 metres below sea level.

Hedgerow management

So, are farmers are all doing a good job in looking after our countryside? Well, the answer to that is some are, but some are not. Unfortunately, it is the case that the way many hedges are managed is both bad and prehistoric, both in action and attitude. The outcome is bad for the landscape, bad for wildlife and bad PR for the farming community at large . The picture on the left, taken this winter, says it all. This is part of a Devon roadside hedge and is just one example of how many hedges are still flailed annually within an inch of their lives.

Another 'hedge' being flailed into oblivion,
near Great Shefford, West Berks

We knew about how to manage hedgerows well decades ago - using chamfered cuts, allowing the hedge to grow taller and by cutting less-frequently. Over that time, successive government agencies and others have given thousands of talks, walks and advice on the matter. So those who continue to manage their hedges in such a crap way  can't claim ignorance. You would also think that whoever pays to have the hedgerow cut, would work out for themselves that their bottom line could be a tad healthier if their hedges were less-regularly cut. My only conclusion is that those who are responsible for "managing" hedges like the illustrated examples must be severely lacking in brain cells or they just don't care.

Of course such hedgerow mismanagement is terrible PR for the farming industry at large and an indictment of the Common Agricultural Policy, particularly the Cross Compliance requirements which do nothing to prevent inappropriate hedgerow management, while the Entry Level Stewardship scheme just allows farmers pretty well to carry on with what they have done before, whether good or bad.

The good news is, that, by restoring good hedge-management some of the farmland birds currently continuing to decline will return - such as Yellowhammer and Bullfinch, especially if at the same time farmers maintain and restore good-sized areas of flower-rich habitat.

Good hedge management isn't rocket science but those who continue to do the opposite should be outed and, under CAP reforms, such individuals and businesses should (in my view) lose their eligibility to receive any taxpayers' money to keep them in farming. There are plenty of others willing to take their place who would love to farm and manage our countryside in ways that are in harmony with the landscape and nature.

Link to hedgelink

Ups and downs, stuff etc.

Am I alone in having suffered the pre-Christmas droop and now the post-Christmas blues? Or is it that being compiler of British Wildlife mag's Conservation News, an ecologist and now into sustainable building - I can't do anything or go anywhere without seeing how people have messed up either the natural or built environment. One of the biggest downers as I perambulate the locality (Newbury) are supermarkets and high street stores full of stuff that we already have, knowing full well that old stuff that people have is actually quite new stuff and most of it (the old new stuff) probably ends up in the local tip. (In contrast I am greatly cheered by the shadow retail economy of charity shops.) Then there's the wider economy - based on printing money and creating debt (see the excellent Money is Debt, but be further depressed), and the exponential replacement of people with machines - whether in farming or supermarket checkouts. Is it no wonder there will be a projected 2 million unemployed in 2012?


Be assured that my next blog will be focusing on happy things, to start the New Year off with a glowing warm feeling, and on that note I wish anyone who has bothered to read my babble a healthy, happy and profitable 2012. (A New Year's resolution is to post a new blog at least once week ..)

The Green Deal and climate change

On Tuesday I attended a meeting about the Government's Green Deal, which will provide a financing package to homeowners and business for 'super-insulating' their properties. The finance package means up to £10,000 will be available to make houses warmer, especially those with solid walls which cannot be cavity-filled. This is a novel scheme as the 'loan' will actually be a charge against the property, not a debt to follow the person living in the property. It will be repaid through a charge on the electricity meter. Making our houses use less energy is essential if the UK is to meet its carbon reduction target (an 80% reduction on 1990 emissions).

A big problem is we won't reach these targets because our emissions are now about 30% MORE than they were in 1990 if you count the emissions which we have exported because we don't make stuff now, and instead import it from China. So some of China's emissions are actually ours and we should count them (but do not). In my humble opinion, the only way we are going to prevent dangerous climate change is if we are able to invent a gizmo that sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into something inert. Human's are stupid but also very clever. So let's hope someone invents the CO2 sucker sooner rather than later.

Running dry

Last week I was down by my local rivers, the Kennet and Dun, to look at how they might be improved by bank regrading and suchlike. On the bank of the Kennet was a large Brown Trout with a bite out of it - something that wouldn't have been seen a year ago, as the culprit was one of the local otters. It is good to know we have otters back, but maybe not such a popular animal with our local fly fishers! (Although I know they would be thrilled to see one.)

The really bad news is low flows. Our rivers are fed by chalk aquifers that surround Hungerford and Marlborough. They act like big sponges, soaking up rain and then releasing water slowly into the watercourses. The aquifer naturally has low points but normally gets 'recharged' this time of year when we can expect a good amount of rain in the autumn and winter. This year the rain hasn't come yet. Coupled with overall low rainfall the rest of the year, including a prolonged spring drought, the fear is that the aquifer will not get sufficiently recharged and the springs will therefore not 'break' and refill the Kennet and its tributaries this winter. The surge of cold spring water is a vital feature of local chalk streams upon which its aquatic life depends. Brown Trout, for instance, will spawn after Christmas and their eggs need a high level of oxygenated water flowing over them to develop. Currently, the level of flow in the River Dun is almost at a historic low (since records began around 95 years ago), although not yet as low as it was in the 1976 drought. Forecasts associated with climate change suggest this area may be one to suffer increasingly from drought, so low flows may become a permanent and threatening feature to our chalk streams and rivers.

One piece of good news is that by fencing the river, it is beginning to recover a more natural, narrower channel. In some places, brush groynes have been put in to speed up the restorative process of slowing the flow at the edges. In others, just by fencing it alone has allowed emergent plants like the watercress (see picture) to flourish. Under the water these plants are alive with freshwater shrimps which the fish will feed on. The plants will also naturally slow the flow at the river edges, eventually leading to silt deposition and the creation of a narrower watercourse where the flow will be faster and cleaner.

Desperate times
... means that wacky ideas start to be seen as acceptable, no matter the cost or their environmental impact. Thus, Boris's idea of a floating airport in the Thames has become a fully fledged architect's drawing thanks to Sir Norman Foster. Chancellor George Osborne is also now said to be supportive and Sir James Dyson says it is a good idea too.

Today the Government announced it is going to provide money (lots of it) to help first time buyers borrow unsustainable amounts of money, and to lend to developers and local planning authorities so lots more houses get built. Meanwhile there are millions of unoccupied houses rotting with disuse. The rest are too expensive to rent or buy for many because the property bubble created by lending too much money in the first place has still not burst (although is falling). If the property market continues to fall those poor buyers will be in negative equity and neither the banks or taxpayer will get their money back once interest rates go up and today's cheap mortgages become totally unaffordable. So much for developing a green and resilient society. The Daily Mash's take on this new support for housebuilding is jolly entertaining and spot on.