A recent Parliamentary debate in the House of Commons on the future of the UK water sector saw calls for the water companies in England to be based on the Scottish Water public sector model or the Welsh Water ownership model with “democratic public ownership” via new consumer and employee trusts. Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) […]
£67.4 million Ipswich tidal flood barrier officially opened The new flood scheme will protect 1,600 homes and 400 businesses in Ipswich over the next century. Environment Agency: 8th Feb: The Environment Agency’s new tidal flood defence barrier for Ipswich has been officially opened by Floods Minister, Dr Thérèse Coffey, ensuring more than 1,600 homes and […]
Two articles: Also see Planetary Boundaries Stockholm Resilience Institute This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown IPPR – Institute for Public Policy Research ‘Mainstream political and policy debates have failed to recognise that human impacts on the environment have reached a critical stage, potentially eroding the conditions upon which socioeconomic […]
Reduce flood risk with the Woodlands for Water scheme – The pioneering project run by the Forestry Commission and Environment Agency is once again being offered in the North East and Yorkshire. Forestry Commission and Environment Agency – Published 11 February 2019 Expert advice on creating woodlands that will reduce flood risk and improve water quality is […]
Lauren Mattingley Science Officer Salmon & Trout Conservation ‘Whichever way you look at it, our rivers and coastal waters are inextricably linked. A plastic bottle casually tossed away in the middle of the country, blown on the breeze into a river tributary will make its way, over time to open water, by which time it’ll […]
Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers Abstract Journal of Biological Conservation: Biodiversity of insects is threatened worldwide. Here, we present a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers. Our work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to […]
Guardian ‘Lords say government failing to act as industry blames non-compliance on ‘flawed design’ About 1.7m tonnes of fish are discarded across the EU every year, because fleets catch fish for which they do not have a quota. Public backing for a ban on discarding edible fish at sea has been thwarted by the reluctance of the […]
Guardian: ‘The backers of a pioneering project to harness energy from the tides off the Welsh coast have rebooted the scheme and believe they can build it without the help of government. With the recent failure of two major nuclear projects, attention has turned to alternatives to fill the low-carbon power gap, with developers of windfarms and […]