Wildlife Circus

'Share your adventure' says the board. So, I thought I would share mine. When I visited today, I noticed that the Public Rights of Way (PROW) signs were missing/destroyed/smashed/pointing in the wrong direction. If you look carefully, there is a small blue faded sticker, which might actually say, ' Chessington Countryside Walk '. If you look on the ground, the waymarker stating 'Public Footpath', is long dead. In the Summer months, its quite intimidating gauntlet to run, as streaming hoards cross the path from the Goliath or Macaw car parks, and you are summoned to produce tickets.   Small blue sticker on the post, might attest to 'Chessington Countryside Walk', and a long  dead waymarker on the ground perpendicular to the broken style For this reason, it is a little difficult to find your way without a map. Not surprisingly therefore, you might find yourself completely lost and looking into a construction site.           ...

    Natural Capital accounting is based on what biodiversity does for us. It is a keystone tenet of the forthcoming Environment Bill. "Self - serving nonsense cooked up by governments and their advisors, such as "natural capital accounting and biodiversity net gain," treat one habitat or feature as exchangeable for another. Don't lament the twisted old oak we are felling, we'll plant 10 more in plastic tubes and call it a net gain", writes George Monbiot in  Noble Rot (August, 21). Biodiversity net gain As the Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) metric meets its third iteration, it's time for greater public scrutiny and the  Community Planning Alliance which has 500 member groups, hosted a webinar last week. Among the speakers were Sophus zu Ermgassen from Kent University, and Max Heaver from DEFRA, who is on the BNG design team. Their YouTube channel with the talk is here: CPA Webinars Sophus expounded the research undertaken by Kent University and concluded...

  Biodiversity Net Gain at the Ice Centre? Posted on 31 May 2021 by Save Lea Marshes                Linked post: waterworks-meadow Last autumn the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority submitted a planning application to the London Borough of Waltham Forest to double the size of the Ice Centre on the Lea Bridge Road.  This site is Metropolitan Open Land (MOL), so the Authority needed to have very compelling arguments amounting to ‘Very Special Circumstances’ to support the application.  Foremost among these arguments was the claim that the development would produce a large “biodiversity net gain” (BNG). Paragraph 170 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF, 2019) states that Planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by … providing net gains for biodiversity. This is interpreted to me...

  A review of "Biodiversity Net Gain" reveals it is "unlikely to improve biodiversity in an ecologically meaningful sense": leads to decrease in total natural areas, low value habitat creation & lack of connectivity, no monitoring or enforcement... https://www.wcl.org.uk  or see the full article from the British Ecological Society Mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain may not deliver the desired outcomes for nature 16 December 2020 By BES Press Office England’s  proposed  mandatory  Biodiversity Net Gain  requirement  for new developments   might not  deliver on  promises to increase  biodiversity ,   according to research being presented at British Ecological Society’s Festival of Ecology.   A   research  t eam at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent,  analysed ecological changes   occurring under Bi...