This post is by Matthew Spencer, global director of landscapes at IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative.
All carbon pollution is equal: this is a founding assumption of the UN Climate Convention, because the atmospheric effect of a tonne of carbon dioxide emitted from a smoking tropical tree in Mato Grosso is no different from a tonne billowing from a coal power station in Missouri.
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This post is by Gareth Cunningham, RSPB’s principle marine policy officer
The Isles of Scilly are internationally important for seabirds, and one of only two places in England where Manx shearwater and storm petrel breed. Over the past decade a huge amount of work has been done to boost the numbers of these two burrow nesting species through the eradication of rats on the islands of St Agnes and Gugh.
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This post is by Sarah Olney MP, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the climate emergency, business & energy and transport
I recently visited Dose of Nature, a charity in Kew established to promote the mental and physical health benefits of engaging with the natural world. Through educative activities and hands on experience, the charity’s work feeds into popular narratives of natural settings as places of refuge and comfort in times of psychological distress that can inspire wonder, serenity and peace.
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This post is by Alice Groom, senior policy officer at the RSPB.
Work done by farmers will be central to bringing back wildlife and protecting our most cherished landscapes. And business as usual is not an option, as we are losing our wildlife and our pollinators at an alarming rate, our soil is eroding away and most of our rivers are in a terrible condition.
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This post is by David Walsh, public affairs adviser for WWF UK and a contributor to Greener UK’s work on the Agriculture Bill.
The Agriculture Bill has finally completed its long, and at times tortuous, passage through parliament. For the past year, we’ve seen the debate focus on the effect of trade on agriculture, with millions of people signing petitions, tweeting and writing to their MPs. But, amongst this noise, it is important not to forget the fundamental principle of the bill: that public money should pay farmers to deliver public goods, which has remained at the heart of our future agriculture policy.
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This post is by Emma Rose, director of Unchecked UK.
The government has set out strong ambitions with respect to the environment, alongside welcome assurances that both Brexit and the Covid-19 crisis will lead to a strengthening, not a weakening, of environmental standards.
However, robust rhetoric will only get us so far. Ambitious polices and regulations are only as good as the enforcement which underpins them. Now, new research into the UK’s regulatory infrastructure reveals the sorry state of the regulators which enforce our most important environmental laws.
Along with the natural ecosystems that underpin it, our food system is a complex web of parts working to grow, manufacture and deliver food all over the world. In a previous blog I looked at the potential of digital technologies to link up these different parts to redirect surplus food and avoid waste. But could they also improve communication throughout the supply chain to prevent waste occurring in the first place? Read more
The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis sparked an explosion of global action in support of Black Lives Matter. People of all races have congregated to protest in many countries, including the UK, expressing their frustration that, despite centuries of campaigning, racism is still evident throughout society. Read more
More than once in the past few months, I have come across two adjacent headlines describing the effects of Covid-19 on the UK’s food system: one describes the risk (or reality) of huge amounts of food waste, and the other highlights unprecedented demand at food banks across the country. Read more
This post is by Emma Rose, director of Unchecked UK.
Over the past eight weeks we have learnt a lot about what British people think is important. We have learnt that the public see compassion as a desirable response in a crisis. We have seen how much people care about the wellbeing of others in their communities. And we have learnt that citizens can – and do – change their behaviour when they understand the reasons for doing so, when these reasons chime with their own interests, and when rules are seen to fairly apply to all. Read more
