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Roadside flowers hit hard by council cuts | Letters
As Patrick Barkham says (Postcards from the hedge, 2 August) austerity is responsible for wild roadsides. But this is only partly so. Plantlife has for years campaigned for roadside verges to be left uncut until flowers have dropped their seeds, which can be as late as August or September. One cut can be ideal, with the proviso that visibility is maintained for road users. Dorset county council is following such guidelines and is experimenting with stripping topsoil to reduce fertility and introducing yellow rattle to inhibit vigorous grass growth. It is hoped that other local authorities will introduce such measures into their roadside maintenance schedules to help wildflowers that have been pushed from farmlands to the margins.
Paul Walker
Buxton, Derbyshire
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Continue reading...Chinese firm with military ties invited to bid for role in UK's nuclear future
China National Nuclear Corporation on government list of preferred bidders for development funding for next-generation modular reactors
A controversial Chinese company has been selected to bid for millions of pounds of public money in a UK government competition to develop mini nuclear power stations.
The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) features twice in a government list of 33 projects and companies deemed eligible to compete for a share in up to £250m to develop so-called small modular reactors (SMR).
Continue reading...Great white shark feasts on minke whale carcass in Massachusetts – video
Researchers from the Centre for Coastal Studies (CCS) catch on camera a great white shark feasting on the carcass of a minke whale this week. The sighting is a sign of a resurgence of the species along the north-eastern US Atlantic coast, and led to three popular tourist beaches being temporarily closed
Continue reading...Trying to bribe public to accept fracking won't work, say campaigners
Greenpeace accuses Theresa May of wanting to ‘silence concerns with a wad of cash’ as Labour and Green party join attack
Environmental campaigners have accused the government of trying to bribe the public to accept fracking, after Theresa May unveiled plans to give households cash payments worth thousands of pounds if shale drilling occurs in their areas.
The prime minister personally intervened with proposals for households to get direct cash handouts in areas where fracking takes place, changing plans that would have given money to local communities.
Continue reading...Great white shark feast caught on film points to population rebound in US
A resurgence of gray seals, a favorite food, has been credited for the shark’s comeback on the Atlantic coast – but sighting has led to beach closures
Researchers in Massachusetts this week captured footage of a great white shark feasting on a minke whale carcass, off the coast of Cape Cod. The sighting led to the temporary and precautionary closure of three popular tourist beaches.
Related: Monster shark fishing tournaments face growing pressure to reform
Continue reading...China launches first mobile telecoms satellite from Beijing
Local people to get cash payments from fracking
The prime minister has intervened to allow people who live near sites used for shale gas exploration to be given cash payments so that they benefit from the developments.
In rewriting George Osborne’s plans, Theresa May has ensured local people can share in proceeds from fracking projects. Previous proposals for the Shale Wealth Fund only included cash for community trusts and councils.
Continue reading...How millions of trees brought a broken landscape back to life
Twenty-five years ago, the Midlands villages of Moira, Donisthorpe and Overseal overlooked a gruesome landscape. The communities were surrounded by opencast mines, old clay quarries, spoil heaps, derelict coal workings, polluted waterways and all the other ecological wreckage of heavy industry.
The air smelt and tasted unpleasant and the land was poisoned. There were next to no trees, not many jobs and little wildlife. Following the closure of the pits, people were deserting the area for Midlands cities such as Birmingham, Derby and Leicester. The future looked bleak.
Continue reading...Nuclear safety fears grow as France snubs UK watchdog
Britain’s nuclear watchdog was made to wait more than a fortnight for key files from energy giant EDF confirming that components recently revealed to be suspect had not been used in one of Britain’s largest nuclear power stations.
Emails released under the Freedom of Information Act show that in early May, France’s EDF Group initially rebuffed requests from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to hand over files about a foundry in France that made specialist parts for EDF’s reactors. The request followed a shock announcement by the foundry’s owner, Areva, on 2 May that quality control reports could have been falsified. The email trail shows the ONR was still making requests for a components list on 18 May, 16 days after the safety fears were first aired.
Continue reading...The 20 photographs of the week
The opening of the Rio Olympics, ongoing violence in Syria, elections in South Africa – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week
Continue reading...Last dance of summer for the pied flycatcher
Newport, Pembrokeshire Of all birds, none reminds me more clearly and poignantly that ‘summer’s lease hath all too short a date’
“Like miniature magpies!” That’s how my friends’ young daughter described them to me years ago, delighted by the little dancing birds of summer that thronged the track down to my house. She wanted to know what they were called. They were here again as I climbed out of Newport heading for Carn Ingli.
If any bird typifies Wales and summer, it’s surely the pied flycatcher, performing its quick and lightsome aerial minuets along the lanes. So long as there are sessile oak woods nearby, especially ones equipped with nest-boxes, from April to early August you’ll witness the birds’ incessant activity. You’ll hear their tuneful quarrels with the redstarts, see them with their young darting and flurrying among the foliage and gorging on the oakwood caterpillar feast as they prepare for the journey back to their winter home in west Africa.
Continue reading...David Attenborough reflects after 90 years
Identify animals in the wild with Wildlife Spotter
Meet the nameless nudibranch
Baby whale stranded in New Zealand harbour for 20 days has died
The orca, nicknamed Bob, was dehydrated and emaciated, and refused food offered by scientists trying to save him
The baby orca stranded in Tauranga harbour in New Zealand for more than 20 days has died.
The calf – nicknamed Bob by locals – had been separated from it’s pod in mid-July, and despite the efforts of a task force set up to reunite Bob with his family, his kin were never located.
Continue reading...In Season: Sprinter
Country Breakfast Features Sat 6th August
Our collective amnesia on climate change | Letters
George Monbiot’s article (The climate crisis is already here – but no one’s telling us, 3 August) reinforced something I’ve been aware of since the Paris climate talks – a dearth of information and emphasis in the media regarding action worldwide aiming to ensure that the world’s average temperature doesn’t rise by more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial level.
Why am I hearing about small community efforts to install solar panels in emails from organisations like Friends of the Earth and 10:10 and not on TV or in the papers? Why is it that the decision of the Saudi government to move to renewables was not trumpeted by the media, but had to be searched out online? Why is it that the efforts of organisations like Ethex are not being publicised and praised, giving more people the knowledge they need in order to invest in community renewable energy projects? Above all, why is it that the appalling and shameful lack of action of the Conservative government on reaching the Paris goals is not being more frequently and urgently challenged in the media?
Continue reading...Brexit and the future of farming in the UK | Letters
Your editorial “The future of food and the farming revolution” (4 August) discusses a speech by the director of the National Trust, whose main role is protecting British heritage. That Brexit provides an opportunity to reform agricultural policy is reasonable, but many of the problems outlined were not solely due to failures of the common agricultural policy (CAP). For example, the lack of improved productivity from British farms is largely due to low farm-gate prices that make it hard to justify investment in new techniques. This is exacerbated by the arbitrary management of supermarket contracts. The use of immigrant labour has more to do with rural housing and employment policy, restrictions on the traditional Travellers’ way of life, and lack of employment in eastern Europe, than with the CAP. Neither was CAP responsible for the horse-meat scandal, which was caused by reaction to low prices in the processing industry. Pollution of water courses, due to loss of nutrients, represents an economic disaster for farms, and is caused either by severe weather, or by incompetent management. Management problems have been made worse by the closure of agricultural colleges and the Agricultural Advisory Service.
Butterfly populations are still in decline in spite of the diversion of subsidies into environmental schemes. The lack of planning for individual farms, and the lack of before and after ecological surveys on individual farms, are major contributors to this. While there have been some successes, much of the publicity appears to be green-washing by companies practising uniform management over several different habitats.
Continue reading...Lancastrians will never surrender their territory | Letters
For the Yorkshire Dales to acquire some real class and distinction (Lancashire loses turf to Yorkshire for Dales expansion, 2 August) it has clearly been necessary for the national park to encompass some of Lancashire’s treasured acres. Although the park now embraces the high moors of Leck Fell, let it never be forgotten that all these lands, along with the administrative jiggery-pokery that redefined the Furness district and “Lancashire across the sands” as Cumbria, remain irrevocably within the County Palatine of Lancaster.
Many gradely folk share the sentiment “insufferably bumptious Yorkshire” and have long held the view that the only good that comes out Yorkshire are the roads into Lancashire.
Robert Wright (Exiled Lancastrian)
Caersws, Montgomeryshire
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