Please sign this petition

[daveO]

I know there's a petition for everything these days and people get sick of signing them but this one is calling on the government to enshrine the UK's new environmental targets (to reverse natural decline in the England by 2030) in law rather than stick to the all talk and no action Tory policies that we've been seeing. This petition is backed by over 50 nature conservation charities (and Boris's own father). This idea has been already debated in parliament and has been voted down by the Tory majority which is very worrying. You can read the full debate here if you're interested https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-01-26/debates/20CFA026-8E78-4D84-82E4-B4236D826AA4/Environment%20Bill

The government is missing every single environmental target it sets for itself at the moment, tree planting, biodiversity, marine conservation, emissions, water quality, recycling, and it seems like little attention being given and there's no urgency to catch up on them. Hopefully this will go some way towards holding them to account. Please sign and share, every signature is greatly appreciated

https://e-activist.com/page/75310/petition/1?ea.tracking.id=Wild Justice

 

[dwardo]

Done.

 

[slowworm]

The petition says:

I urge you to back this up with significant funding and a strong and independent Office for Environmental Protection that can enforce important targets like this and will hold current, and future Governments to account. We cannot tackle the nature and climate crisis without this crucial action."

Creating yet another government department is likely to make matters worse. Not only the millions of pounds needed to fund (raised by tax that'll likely cause more damage to the environment) but it'll just be a huge exercise of more buck passing.

I doubt much will change until more members of the public actually value the countryside. Sadly I think the Tories are just reflecting the overwhelming majority of the public.

 

[daveO]

I think their idea would be to combine Natural England and DEFRA into one independant organisation with funding that reflects the urgency of the work they deal with. The existing departments are willingly under-funded and lack the resources to deal with their current work load let alone the extra challenges of the climate emergency. They're also quite under the thumb of government control and the conflicts of interest that that can raise. Look at the bat licence breaches that the HS2 contractors are getting away with for example.

 

[Fadcode]

It might be an idea to read the aims of some of the organisations that are backing this petition, especially Wild Justice, before putting your name to it, giving any Dept/organisation carte blanche will result in my opinion the closing off of the countryside to everyone.
It's already being discussed of a Ban on Angling, under the auspices of saving the countryside.

 

[slowworm]

I think their idea would be to combine Natural England and DEFRA into one independant organisation with funding that reflects the urgency of the work they deal with.

I thought NE was already arms length? I'm not sure an even bigger unelected quango would be beneficial. It would take years to set up, probably fail horribly and then someone else would change it. Even now I thought DEFRA had to step in to sort out problems with NE?

I'd rather some form of simple legislation was brought in to make climate change and essential consideration in all government decisions (especially councils).

 

[Billy-o]

The current government are susceptible to pressure from their friends to keep people orf their land ... view any initiative from them in this with suspicion. Though I think that can probably be said of their involvement in any arena.

 

[daveO]

It might be an idea to read the aims of some of the organisations that are backing this petition, especially Wild Justice, before putting your name to it, giving any Dept/organisation carte blanche will result in my opinion the closing off of the countryside to everyone.
It's already being discussed of a Ban on Angling, under the auspices of saving the countryside.

I'd be interested to see some legitimate sources for that info. There's been so many smear campaigns against wildlife charities and especially Wild Justice from certain sectors with an interest in maintaining the status quo that it's hard to know what to believe these days. Interestingly it's often the same organisations who put pressure on the government/DEFRA/NE to reduce environmental protection and have brought about the need for this petition in the first place.

 

[zornt]

Does one have to be a citizen of England?
I would gladly sign it but I am a U S citizen.
Jon

 

[Fadcode]

Trust slams ‘anti-fishing’ report

THE ANGLING Trust has written to the Prime Minister attacking “a biased and...

www.anglingtimes.co.uk

On the face of this, it may seem to some a good thing especially if you don't fish for pleasure, the question is where does it end, the last sentence indicates you may not be allowed to keep Koi Carp, so does that mean they have to be destroyed, what about goldfish?, and tropical fish?, eventually do they all need to go.

In relation to getting everything back to nature by reversing natural(sic) decline, then obviously the best way to achieve this , is to stop people being able to access certain areas, Dartmoor, Brecon Beacons, Snowdon, the Highlands, etc, we are already being told too many visitors to these areas are spoiling it.

No use cutting off your nose to spite your face.

 

[daveO]

Trust slams ‘anti-fishing’ report

THE ANGLING Trust has written to the Prime Minister attacking “a biased and...

www.anglingtimes.co.uk

On the face of this, it may seem to some a good thing especially if you don't fish for pleasure, the question is where does it end, the last sentence indicates you may not be allowed to keep Koi Carp, so does that mean they have to be destroyed, what about goldfish?, and tropical fish?, eventually do they all need to go.

In relation to getting everything back to nature by reversing natural(sic) decline, then obviously the best way to achieve this , is to stop people being able to access certain areas, Dartmoor, Brecon Beacons, Snowdon, the Highlands, etc, we are already being told too many visitors to these areas are spoiling it.

No use cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The Angling Trust are one of the groups asking people to sign this petition though.

 

[Tonyuk]

You may aswell start buying chocolate teapots. There about as much use as signing petitions.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Chaps,
Usually people check with Tony about putting up petition threads. Particularly as they often have political tones and this forum has a strict "no politics" rule. The moderators are unaware of any such approval from Tony for this thread, so it is being watched closely.

Clem

Zornt,
The petition does not have a field for Country, which implies it is for UK only. I would say that petitions regarding the policy of sovereign nations should be signed only by those who are resident or citizens. There are quite a few hot topics in the US and I doubt people there would be pleased if "foreign people", pretended to live there to influence decisions.


Chris

 

[daveO]

You may aswell start buying chocolate teapots. There about as much use as signing petitions.

Normally I'd agree (although I still back petitions that are at least likely to get to parliamentary debate level) but in this case the backing of 50 organisations who have quite a lot of influence and have a vested interest in seeing this policy followed through to some degree does add a lot of thermal resilience to the chocolate. A restoration of habitats and expansion of woodlands etc can only be of benefit to those who love the outdoors which is why I've posted this here.

 

[mimozine]

signed it.
dont believe it will help but ***

 

[slowworm]

Normally I'd agree (although I still back petitions that are at least likely to get to parliamentary debate level) but in this case the backing of 50 organisations who have quite a lot of influence and have a vested interest in seeing this policy followed through to some degree does add a lot of thermal resilience to the chocolate. A restoration of habitats and expansion of woodlands etc can only be of benefit to those who love the outdoors which is why I've posted this here.

Perhaps the 50+ LINK organisations could take a look at themselves whilst they're at it. I note some are against the controlling of grey squirrels for example. At least down here in Devon one of the main reasons for not planting native broadleaves is the damage done by grey squirrels. I.e. not lack of funding or lack of an unwieldy government department.

 

[daveO]

That's a whole big debate in itself but I saw an article about it recently which looked interesting. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55817385
My only worry is that with rabbit and hare populations in decline as well a large drop in squirrel numbers would reduce the available prey for certain animals, including some that are being reintroduced like pine martins and goshawks. You'd have to totally wipe out the greys before the reds could start to make a comeback and that seems impossible. The birth control idea seems great for managing local populations while woodland recovers but I'd hope that after that the predator numbers will get a boost too which means letting the squirrels get on with it and hoping things balance out.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Mod hat on.
Clem, Kav, posts deleted. No transatlantic political baiting / personal jibes. I was hoping that you would manage to clean things up on your own, but it was taking too long and going in the wrong direction.

If either of you want to talk about it, drop me a PM.

Thank you for your understanding.

Chris

 

[slowworm]

That's a whole big debate in itself but I saw an article about it recently which looked interesting. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55817385

It's something that shows why I don't think there needs to be much funding from the government or law changes to see real change in the countryside. One of the main things preventing the control of grey squirrels is public opinion that they're cute and shouldn't be touched. Whereas there's a huge amount of evidence they're very destructive and do 100s of millions of pounds of damage.

I'm not talking about reintroducing reds (I would like to see that), I'm talking purely about the damage greys do to trees. They damage even mature trees so I don't think reducing the numbers for a while is much help. Food for pine martins also seems a red herring, there's plenty of their natural food about.

As I said, it would help if many of the organisations sorted themselves out rather than creating petitions.