Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
While Sicily is the largest island lying in the Mediterranean, it is less than 10,000 square miles, and as such it is quite amazing to find that Sicily played host to two different species of elephant in the last few hundred thousand years.
Wolves returned to the Czech republic after a centuries absence in 2014. Why is this of interest? Well, there are areas across the USA which have been missing the wolf for one hundred years, so it is worth watching to see how they adjust. The Czech republic does still have forest cover of around 34% meaning that there is plenty of territory.
In the 7 years since, wolves have done well with the population currently estimated at 50-80.
They are currently generally accepted back, as they bring in significant money from tourism.
Now the Czech republic is not a small country, but wolves were pushed to extinction and this despite large areas of forest.
In a similar way, bears were wiped out. Sightings have become more common, and if hunting pressure is reduced they are likely to recolonize. There is a stable population of 600-800 in Slovakia.
I hope to add places to stay, as tourism with greatly help in encouraging this country that it is financially worth it, to have these animals close by.
A recent trial, by the police have suggested that a tesla model three may well be a better car for police work, despite many doubters suggesting that it would never be able to handle work like this.
The average blue light run lasts between 7-15 minutes, yet the tesla model 3 has been able to take part in runs over 4 hours on active deployment, and it is thought to be possible to do more than 200 miles of blue light advanced driving on one charge.
Continue reading “UK police looking at changing their cars to tesla model threes – paramedic and fire cars may follow”We have an extensive train network. We also have an extensive motorway network. With all the check in and the traveling to and from airports which are usually some distance outside cities, many domestic flights take longer than their train or car equivalent.
More importantly, these other methods have a fraction of the carbon footprint. This was also after signing a net zero emissions target. Importantly, this does not include travel to Northern Ireland as this is more easy to justify.
34 of these flights were by the minister themselves.
This only came to light through a freedom of information request from the shadow minister for green transport.
In the 6 months after the 2050 net zero target was signed into law the department took 395 domestic flights.
These all happened in the run up to us hosting a conference on cutting emissions.
We can only hope that now the COP26 has happened, the government starts to practice what it preaches.
Extraction of peat, generally means that it dries up and then releases its huge store of carbon back into the air.
There are vast areas of peat in places like Indonesia, and the DRC, however there are also large areas of peat in Scotland. Peat is full of nutrients and so it is valued by gardeners. Peat will be used by professional gardeners until 2028.
In the UK Peat is our largest carbon store, trapping as much as a tropical rainforest per hectare. They are also important habitats and protect those further down stream from flooding.
This has been known as an issue that the british government has needed to address for some time. In the end, it seems that they failed to address this with the urgency that it requires.
Most of the peat in the UK is imported from Ireland. However, they have banned it so this is soon to dry up. A ban is thought likely to cut emissions over the next 2 decades by at least 4 million tonnes.
It is a good start, but we also need to restore those peats that have already been part extracted. This could keep much of the carbon in the ground if we act fast.
The UK is known as a democracy around the world. This is why there is increasingly alarmed commentary on a new bill working its way through parliament. The Police and crime bill like many bills is a large complicated piece of work. I am sure that it has some positive things inside it, but there are significant numbers of negative ones which will cause issues for many of the subjects that this website addresses.
On new years day Priti Patel announced that she was going to concentrate on cracking down on Eco protestors during 2022. The bill contains all sorts of astounding bits. Police will be able to stop or constrain protest – they will even be able to fine protesters for inadvertent breaches of restrictions that the “ought” to know.
Why is this a problem? Well, because as a world we are facing joint problems with the climate crisis, and the extinction crisis.
In neither field is the government pulling its weight! We are a wealthy country, yet we are doing little to help in either respect.
It is particularly concerning, that this law is being pushed through on the understanding that police need to be protected from violence – even though in most instances, the violence is both started by and mostly done by the police to the protesters. Upping stress levels in the protestors is also a regular method, which often naturally leads to violence -then blamed on the protestors. One such method is kettling where large numbers of people are forced into a small area and then not let out.
Delegitimising protest at this time is an afront to British freedoms. If the police (and the law) start viewing all protest as illegitimate it changes how they police it.
Currently, there are two substantial threats to a healthy planet earth. The first is climate change and the second is extinction rebellion. Extinction rebellion has on many occasions done things that are extremely disruptive, however, to basically give the police the power to delegitimize protest is far to large a step in the other direction for a free country.
What has the UK done to fight climate change?
Now we may well have done better than some other countries, however, look at the increase in emissions from imports. Last March it was announced that we had reduced our carbon footprint by 51% excluding aviation and the carbon footprint of our imports. We live in a global world- if we cut our emissions in the UK, but increase them abroad by getting other countries to make what we use, the impact is identical.
This strikes me as a perfect example of a government which needs to be challenged. Yet protests against the governments inaction will become illegal without approval – by definition not freedom.
Extinction rebellion has likewise caused many problems. Now like many of you, I have been inconvenienced by their actions in the past however they are raise an important issue. The more of the natural world we loose the worse it is for us. The natural world should be valued far more simply for being wild, yet there are huge services that the natural world supplies for us anyway. Rainforest loss will likely turn vast areas to desert, and cause large areas to be come incapable of growing crops. What untold medicines lie undiscovered in the last great rainforests -destined to be cut down before they unveil their secrets.
With politics as it is, it is often not in the interests of an elected government to do things that will only come to fruition in decades time, they need to be re-elected every 5 years. A democracy, particularly at times like this, must allow demonstrators. On these two issues the government is not acting with enough urgency
We must not be silenced! Now, I say this writing in a blog. The last time I looked, this blog is usually read at least a few thousand times. It is unfortunately far easier for the government to ignore these sorts of media.
Will Boris Johnson survive? Who knows, though it is clear that he should not. Labour is currently far ahead in the polls. However, as the Conservatives do not need to face the public in an election for another 3 years, it is not something that they need to worry about at the moment. For my British readers, do write to you MP! it is an alarmingly authoritarian step, and it must be stopped if we are to be able to pressure our government to act to save our planet from the worst of the potential damage.
I have written on the situation with the British governments attempt to put in an outright ban on trophies from hunting being imported into the UK (though bizarrely they continue to support hunting in the UK).
I strongly disagree with this situation.
While the idea of hunting is relatively repugnant, and I far prefer the excitement of walking in the presence of these animals, but then leaving with them continuing to get on with their lives. I should add in this vein, that during my families trip to the Kruger later this year, I will be going on a 3 day 2 night wilderness trail. This will mean my going to a very small remote camp, and then walking for the 3 days – the likelihood of close encounters with many animals is relatively high.
Anyway, this group of conservationists have just written to the government to get them to reconsider their position.
There are many activities that should be banned outright. Canned lion (or any other animal) hunts should cease to exist. Going into a relatively small area, to kill an animal that in many cases has not been living wild for more than 6 months is not what I call brave, but I would say its disgusting. Another behaviour I dislike, is where a hunting outfit buys a small area on the side of a reserve, then as animals walk out of the reserve onto this hunting area they can be shot. Hunting outfits, should only be able to hunt animals which can fit on their land.
One prime example is the Selous: the largest hunting reserve in the world. Here, they protect an area of land large enough to have a lion population of 5000 or so Lions. From this they kill perhaps 50 out of the estimated population (about 1%) of course this relies on their estimate being accurate. Brink et all (2012) estimated the lion population was about 4300, with the range from 1900 up to 6900. though they admit this was extrapolated from a survey of only 1%. Other surveys have put the number between475 (absolute lower bound) up to 4953. This means that even with hunters wanting to kill the big adult males (deaths of pride leading males almost always lead to deaths as a new male tries to take over, firstly all young cubs are likely to be killed so the new male can sire his own offspring, and then often several mothers who try to defend their cub – 1 male killed might lead to 5-10 deaths as a result).
Never-the-less the Selous does not look like its lions are in danger of extinction. A different place to look at is the WAP complex. This includes 10200 square miles spread out across an area of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Benin. It includes 5 national parks and 14 hunting reserves. Given the lion population is 400 here, and the west lion (recently found to be the same subspecies as the indian lion) is so endangered, having a healthy take here is far harder. It is hard to find sensible numbers on hinting here, but a take of more than 4 per year would be very foolish.
In conclusion, while I would prefer that no one in the world ever went hunting animals for sport (generally all the meat is given to local communities, though this is not the reason for the hunt) there are some places which are so hard to reach or infested with unpleasant parasites (the Selous has an insect that carries something called sleeping sickness), I will accept it with clear documentation from places that can support it. This is because often a hunt will bring in so much money for local communities. However (and this is a big proviso) I believe that there are very few places where this is truly the case: The Selous is one, there are probably areas within the KAZA park that are similarly alright. Similarly in Europe, while I would never wish to hunt a wolf myself, the Sierra de culebra has provided a refuge where the wolf would not be exterminated – specifically because a handful of wolves were killed each year. This new rule that the government is bringing in is too simple, it does not take into account the unique situation in each country. My suggestion would be that each hunting organiser needs to get their hunt approved- perhaps some sort of hunting body, but for now in the UK the government would have to employ someone. That person would have to analyse the whole hunt plan, check that the area has a viable population of the animal in question and any other details. This would enforce far higher standards, so that we could be sure when the wealthy go to hunt that they arent going to create the extinction of a species.
To much fanfare, the British government decided to ban the sale of Ivory 3 years ago. This is certainly a good thing. Unfortunately, they have just delayed its introduction again – and we are already 3 years after this law was supposed to come into effect. Admittedly, this time the delay is only supposed to be for 2 months, but it sends the wrong message.
Forest and Savannah elephant populations across west and east Africa have been decimated over the last decade or two.
Ministers claim that background work has not been carried out, but given they have had 3 years this is inexcusable. Someone should be fired for this.
At the moment elephants are being killed at the rate of one every 15-25 minutes or 50-100 a day. The UK is the largest exporter of Ivory. Also much ivory from recently poached animals is passed off as antique – avoiding the rules.
The EU is now considering acting on this pressing issue. Our original advance has been destroyed, and we now look like we are incompetent.
It is currently down to issues creating the technical standards for exempting legal ivory.
My proposal would be to ban all ivory sale until this system was in place. This would put pressure on people to finish it quickly (and I would be surprised if it wasn’t solved very fast).
Lord Goldsmith wrote in a letter that he committed to enacting the bill by the end of 2022, though similar things were said 3 years ago.
In the UK (and I am sure in plenty of other countries) as the grid has cleaned, there have been a whole host of firms that have sprung up as a middleman – buying green electricity and providing it to their customers. There is nothing particularly unusual about this – we get our electricity from Octopus on a similar scheme. With many of these firms, they supply the electricity and gas, but often have few holdings themselves.
Octopus is busily investing in all sorts of green electricity generators, but the problem exists that if you do not own any of the electricity generation, then in tough times this can be your undoing.
Now, many of these claim to be fully green, but are not necessarily. The reputable ones match each unit used to a unit of renewable generation that went into the grid (Ofgems renewable energy guarantee of origin REGO). Alongside this, the reputable ones also invest in renewable generation.
So was Bulb as green as it suggested? Well the complaint came from the fact that only 5% of its power came directly from renewable energy projects, the rest was bought on the open markets through the aforementioned REGO. The point is, the electricity grid does not consist of electricity traveling like emails to specific places – it is supplied everywhere jointly by all the producers. This means that provided a supplier is paying for enough green electricity to cover all its customers uses (and has the REGO certificates to prove it) by definition, it is fully green.
Would it be better if the company had some green generation of its own? probably, but provided the scheme works it does not have to. It allows green electrical generation to be used as it is created – by who ever needs it, exactly as our grid is designed.
This problem has arisen because the government allows green electricity and the certificate of it being green to separate people. However, provided the certificates only cover the amount of green electricity that is being created, it is not counted twice it is merely worth more to the creator.
What is wrong with this? If creators of green energy are aware that they can make more money than those burning gas, many will switch. This still does what is needed, and provided green electricity certification is accurate it wont be double counted.
Possibly, the last nail bulbs coffin, was caused by the government setting out plans to make this loophole smaller. These so called pale green energy tariffs – where green energy was not bought directly from a renewable energy project are supposed to be eliminated.
I think the British government needs to be careful here. It is quite possible that in the near future, these providers will not be necessary as all the electricity in the grid will be green. However, for the time being it is worth continuing to offer this premium to green electricity creators and the ability for suppliers to make sure they have covered their promises.
Now in the case of Octopus they are also replanting and rejuvenating a section of the Amazon rainforest to offset any gas emissions. It is currently unfortunately true that it is far cheaper to heat using gas – heat pumps are likely to greatly change this, as they are 300% or greater efficient (in terms of electricity in, and heat out) however for now gas is used. A reforestation scheme can be guaranteed to suck up the carbon it is promised to capture.
Our guaranteed green electricity and offset gas monthly cost is roughly £5 more than the best price on the market, and for us £60 a year to know that our electricity and gas use is not increasing the problems of global warming. Having said that, we are still trying to reduce our use through: Smart devices, added insulation and when we get them installed – solar panels and thermal solar panels. The other advantage with a scheme like this, is it guarantees you a price for you exported electricity – so if you have solar, and are currently not being paid for anything that you export perhaps now is the time to switch. This essentially means that you can use Octopus as a battery.
If you are interested in transferring to this or another Octopus scheme please click on the link. This will give you a £50 credit on your account, as well as on ours – thereby supporting the site, without costing you a penny
Uganda has suffered during lockdown. As much as 7% of the countries population works in tourism, a sector which has been either totally shut down, or greatly reduced over the last few years. Several other countries like Tanzania have suffered in a similar way.
How can we expect countries to protect huge ecosystems if the income to protect them can dry up with no warning?
Continue reading “Lockdown has shown the perils of overreliance on tourism: what to do”