| Blair told 'hurry up with green
farming reforms' |
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The Prime Minister is being told
to speed up moves towards to switch food production subsidies
into support for greener farming methods. The campaign is being
led by 15 environment and consumer organisations. Members are
writing to Tony Blair urging him to forge ahead with the changes
recommended by the Curry Commission on Farming and Food. It
comes as Whitehall departments negotiate with the Treasury for
increases in their budgets under the 2002 Spending Review. Campaigners
are worried the initial enthusiasm with which the Government
greeted the recommendations in the wake of the foot-and-mouth
epidemic, is fading. An RSPB spokesman said: "The Curry report
opened up new thinking and approaches to agriculture policy.
What we need to do now is make it happen." |
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More information -
Ananova
farmgate
Times
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| Environment in a
spin |
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Despite the pressures on farming,
the countryside is in better shape than it has been for some
years. Over 1 million hectares are now managed under government
conservation schemes. More hedges are being planted than removed
and over 15,000 hectares of field margins are maintained by
farmers to provide habitat for birds, animals and insects. |
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More information - Guardian
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| Canadians plan limits
on greenhouse gas emissions |
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Canada has indicated support for
ratifying the Kyoto Protocol that limits greenhouse gas emissions.
The government has a discussion document that outlines four
options for meeting the treaty's requirements. Environment Minister
David Anderson, a proponent of ratifying the 1997 agreement
that the United States has rejected as too costly to the economy,
said the options presented by Canada all meet Kyoto's limits.
Mr Anderson also said economic harm would be relatively minor
under any of the options. No jobs would be lost, but growth
would be reduced over the next 10 years. |
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More information - Ananova
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| Europe to invest
200-300 bln euros in green power |
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European firms will need to invest
between 200 billion and 300 billion euros in green power over
the next 10 years if the European Union is to meet its target
of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, an energy company said
yesterday. "The renewable sector finally looks as like it will
make it to the big time," Gareth Brett, managing director of
Entergy Europe, told an energy conference. |
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More information - Planet
Ark
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| EU launches study
on "gender bending" chemicals |
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Europe's leading researchers on the
impact of endocrine disrupters on human health and wildlife
are to be brought together under a new research 'cluster' supported
by 20 million euro of funding from the European Commission.
Endocrine disruptors cause changes in the endocrine system of
humans and wildlife by interfering with the production, secretion
or action of natural hormones in the body, leading in some cases
to sterility or sex changes in animals. |
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More information -
EUBusiness
Planet
Ark
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Naturenet
Countryside
management and nature conservation
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here
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/gg /nn /pp /cc /ee /aa
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| The global warning
Bush must heed - Meacher |
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The latest scientific evidence already
suggests that the impact of climate change on the UK could be
sharper and faster than was previously thought. Already 1.8m
residential properties in England and Wales are currently at
risk from flooding, as are 1.4m hectares of agricultural land.
And if we don't build climate change into our flood defence
plans, we can expect a 65% increase in river flooding and a
four-fold increase in coastal flooding in the second half of
this century. But what is not realised is that the process of
climate change may turn out to be much more unpredictable and
unstable, with potentially catastrophic consequences in the
long run. |
| More information - Guardian
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| Planet is running
out of time, says Meacher |
| |
Britain will today launch its strongest
attack on George Bush's rejection of the Kyoto climate protocol,
as the government warns that Washington's actions threaten to
make the planet "uninhabitable". Angered by the US government's
decision to rule out signing up to Kyoto for the next 10 years,
the environment minister, Michael Meacher, writes in today's
Guardian that the world is running out of time. "We do not have
much time and we do not have any serious option. If we do not
act quickly to minimise runaway feedback effects [from global
warming] we run the risk of making this planet, our home, uninhabitable."
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More information - EducationGuardian
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| Biotech firm takes
UK govt to court |
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Biotech firm Aventis CropScience,
in a joint action with an industry group, said it will take
Britain's pesticide regulatory body to court yesterday over
the agency's decision to release data on one of its products.
Britain's Pesticide Safety Directorate (PSD) said it would release
the commercially sensitive data used during the approval process
for the herbicide glufosinate-ammonium, after a request from
environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth. The data
was supplied to the government by Aventis to back an application
for the chemical to be sprayed on winter oilseed rape being
grown as part of government field trials of gene-spliced crops.
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More information - Planet
Ark
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| New conservation
trust to protect island wildlife |
|
Alderney, the most northerly Channel
Island, will today form a new conservation trust by joining
The Wildlife Trusts partnership as its 47th member. Under the
agreement a wide variety of wildlife, including the world’s
only population of blonde hedgehogs, basking sharks, grey seals,
dolphins, and a host of birds, such as hoopoe, puffin and peregrine
falcon will become the responsibility of The Wildlife Trusts.
The fledgling Alderney Wildlife Trust will be dedicated to the
identification and cataloguing of the island’s ecological resources
and to the creation of an island-wide program of environmental
management and education. |
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More information - The
Wildlife Trusts
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| West Cornwall badger
group keeps up pressure over cull |
| |
A giant badger braved 'Defra's death
squads' on Saturday, to stage a vigil for his brothers in the
centre of Penzance 'Brock' - the mascot of the West Cornwall
Badger Group - joined up with other anti cull campaigners, to
raise public awareness about the cull through a 'vigil' at the
bottom of Causewayhead. West Cornwall Badger Group spokeswoman
Pamela Priske told The Cornishman: "Badgers are being slaughtered
now in the latest round of the Krebs experiment in West Penwith.
In the next few days Defra's death squads will have trapped
and shot every badger they can lay hands on, so that science
can establish whether there is a link between them and the bovine
TB outbreak which is affecting the Westcountry." |
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More information - This
is Cornwall
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