05 Oct 2017

NCC     ‘The Secretary of State for Defra asked the Natural Capital Committee (NCC) to advise on what the 25 Year Environment Plan should aim to achieve, how it should seek to do so and what the necessary conditions for success are. This note sets out the NCC’s advice and recommendations on what the government should […]

05 Oct 2017

New report reviews role of trees in flood alleviation CEH ‘Further calls for the inclusion of natural solutions in flood alleviation schemes were made following the severe floods in Cumbria, December 2015. Acknowledging ongoing debates around the evidence for tree cover as an effective flood mitigation measure, the UK’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology today […]

05 Oct 2017

Defra: A review of 145 UK projects and initiatives involving private sector investment to improve natural capital has just been published by Defra. The aim was to provide a preliminary oversight of the current state of private sector investment in natural capital and ideas on how this can be scaled up. DEFRA required a rapid review […]

05 Oct 2017

Defra consultation   Water quality: updating the public and private drinking water regulations Defra ‘We want to know what you think about our plans to update the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2016 (‘public regulations’) and the Private Water Supplies (England) Regulations 2016 (‘private regulations’). These changes will only apply to England. The changes will bring […]

05 Oct 2017

Chris Williams NEF: There are some serious problems with the economic approaches used in decision making, both in theory and practice.  This isn’t improved by inaccessible language and the methodology tucked away in technical appendices. For this reason it is often difficult for non-economists and the public to engage in debates and to identify misguided […]

05 Oct 2017

Register to clean up your local river in October’s country-wide clean-up of our rivers. Great River Rescue: The public is invited to help rescue the nation’s waterways during the month of October, by taking part in England’s first national clean-up focused on rivers. Plastic litter is a major issue blighting the nation’s waterways and the […]

02 Oct 2017

Site in Orkney has produced hydrogen from electricity generated by tidal energy for the first time. In a world first for clean energy, researchers in Scotland have generated hydrogen using electricity from tidal arrays. The first ever ‘tidal hydrogen’ was generated at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney at the end of August […]

02 Oct 2017

Bob Earll: Two articles below on the thinking for offshore mussel culture in the south coast of Devon and the changes on biodiversity. The issue is one of scale and there is a huge difference between a small scale operation and one the size of ‘Heathrow airport’. The scale of this development poses a number […]