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There has been a slight delay in articles going up due to my family being away for half term. We actually went to Devon to the region that beavers have just been given the right to remain.

Due to the fact that they are largely nocturnal, we did not actually see the animals (we did not take our night vision equipment), however something that we did have success with was finding beaver dams.

One of the most significant groups of people who have been constantly against beaver reintroduction has been farmers. Thankfully, there are some loud voices coming from the farming industry who are fighting against the scientific lies being spouted, suggesting that a native mammal would destroy our countryside..

The dams we found were all within woodland alongside farmland. Beavers tend to dam streams running into rivers. This behavior retains water within the land, which is hugely beneficial in two ways. The first is locally: by retaining water in the land, it is there for the farm, and the local area, meaning that short droughts have far smaller impacts. The second is more widespread: we have had increasing problems with flash floods over the last few decades, and this can be blamed on a number of issues including housing build on flood plains, however beaver dams greatly slow the rise in floods, because the water takes longer to work into the rivers. This therefore means that the water levels never reach difficult or dangerous levels. The third is environmental: Farms use a large number of chemicals, from pesticides to fertilizers. While these benefit our farmers, allowing them to grow more crops, we do not want these in the food chain. Generally these chemicals will settle to the bottom of water if it is not moving fast, so the dams operate as a sieve, removing things that would be bad for humans to consume further downstream.

One of the things that impressed me the most was the dam flood was fully enclosed within the woodland, so while it is true that farmland was at times only meters from the flooding, it was unaffected. Whats more, this would be the case in the majority of the country. Farmers do not plant crops in areas too close to streams- this is for a simple reason, that know that this land is likely to be waterlogged. Indeed this is why there is often little copses of trees in steep valleys, and these little copses are perfect habitat for beavers. Their presence allows more water to be retained within the farm. It also increases biodiversity making the farm far less likely to suffer loss from the natural world.

To see my pictures of the dams, as well as the photos of beavers from earlier this summer, and indeed to book your own visit to the area please look at the link below.

Noam Chomsky has suggested that Trumps attitude to global warming, could hurt humanity more than Hitler. Now given global warming is likely to change many lives and impact almost all humans on the planet, it is hard to argue with this.

Indeed he argues that the human race is headed for an environmental catastrophe, and without urgent action it will be too late.

He is particularly clear on his dislike for the behavior of the Republican party, as the only conservative organisation around the world.

Perhaps you should think about that for a moment.

Despite the large number of conservative organisations around the world, the United Sates of America Republican party are the only one that tries to suggest that the Science is wrong.

Don’t worry, I am not trying to suggest that their position is remotely sensible or stands even slight critical thinking. Indeed a majority of the individual states in the USA recognizes climate change and the danger that it poses and are trying to do something about it.

It is essential that sane heads triumph and America comes back to the world table, stops coddling up to dictators, and puts large amounts of money on the table to help the world transition to a clean green economy.

For the majority of people around the world, the EPA or Environmental Protection Agency, has a clearly defined mission. Indeed right up until Donald Trump became president it was clear to everyone.

However a number of ex officials of the Trump EPA are saying that at the moment the EPA seems to be at war with the environment. Given trumps continual “I want crystal clear water and air” this seems particularly galling.

Donald Trump has talked about bird collisions as one of the reasons that he hates wind turbines. Indeed, one of the most often used arguments against wind turbines run along the lines of ” do you hate the birds? then why do you want to erect wind turbines?This is a completely false premise, indeed if someone likes birds you are likely to be heavily in favor of wind turbines and other carbon cutting measures, as global warming is likely to wipe out many species.

Nonetheless this belief had not been looked into in enough detail to accept or reject the hypothesis that wind turbines are bad for birds.

Białowieża forest is the last large forest that still stands, as a part of the primeval forests that once forested the majority of Europe.

It was one of the last refuges of the European bison (or Wisent), and the last wild one was shot in 1921. Thankfully, they were reintroduced shortly afterwards, and there are now at least 700 living wild in this forest.

Wolves were intentionally persecuted from 1946, which lead to a successful eradication by 1960. Thankfully, though this forest is close to more forests too the East, so wolves were able to naturally recolonize. Hunting continued, though in a disorganised and not trying to eradicate them, until 1989 when it was strictly banned.

The last bear was killed in 1879, so well outside living memory.

That is why it was so exciting that a bear was caught on a camera trap last year.

This epic journey, like that of a bear traveling from the eastern bear population to meet with wild Spanish bears, shows that these big predators will make epic journeys, especially when dispersing from their birth home range.

It is essential that new roads are all built with underpasses, as well as building underpasses under current roads. Apart from reducing the number of human deaths in the roads, it also allows for larger single populations which can cope with the pressures of disease, poaching hunting and even global warming.

Despite Iceland actually having less ice by far than Greenland (a strange marketing ploy to get people to settle there centuries ago), it is very much arctic nation and and therefore it does occasionally get visits from polar bears.

Polar bears are capable of phenomenally long swims, so if they don’t reach land eventually they will drown. However as Iceland as fall within the Arctic it is not uncommon for ice flows to come within easy reach of the land. While Iceland does not have a permanent population of bears, being as it does not fall within the usual range of arctic sea ice, one of the strange impacts of global warming is that it is in places extending the sea ice- and this appears to be bringing you closer to Iceland which means that these their visits may become more common.

A bear visited in 2016, another one in 2010 and two visited during 2008. Unfortunately ignoring the behavior of the bears completely the Icelandic rules state that any bear should be shot on site. Indeed on several of these occasions not only where the drugs necessary to tranquilize the Bear close at hand but it was argued to this shouldn’t be done anyway.

With polar bears clearly threatened by the loss of the Arctic ice,if global warming is throwing them a lifeline by increasing the ice in parts of the Arctic where it did not exist before, humans must not shoot the bears in areas that they used to not exist. There is a little adjustment that they can make as their ice world disappears, we must not take away any small positive that occurs (even if this is only temporary).

I wrote a while ago about a groups attempt to to put in place a number of programmes in order to avoid future outbreaks of illnesses such as covid-19.

Illnesses such as covid-19 tend to emerge from rainforests and other similar ecosystems. As such their suggestion was to globally spend $20-30 billion dollars a year on 3 activities. 

• Halt deforestation (and replant large recently deforested areas)
• Halt the wildlife trade, particularly bush meat, the main avenue into human population
• Closely watch for emergence of new viruses

As such it is fascinating to see warnings from more scientists along the same lines. A UN summit next month will be told that there is now a clear link between habitat destruction and emergence of new diseases and viruses.

Almost a third of illnesses in the human population of emerge from these places,and it is calculated that perhaps as many as 6 epidemics could hit the world a year if forest destruction continues at the rate it is currently going.

This new report is linked back to the one I talked about above. What is encouraging about this link is that as it is being discussed in the UN it will draw countries attention to it. Furthermore finding $20 to 30 billion from all the countries in the world far is less. It could also be sold to which consumers as a means to halt rainforest destruction and save wildlife species.

Indeed if so right this could potentially be paid for by the the top 50 also wealthiest countries in the world without them really noticing the cost (particularly if pushed now: with these countries reeling from the extraordinary cost of fighting covid-19, 1 billion a year could seem like chicken feed in comparison).

I have written in the past about a fascinating type of bacteria that was found on a Chinese rubbish stump number of years ago.

Plastics are a fantastic material because they breakdown very little, therefore giving strong materials for not much money. The problem is that many of the uses that these plastics have been put to, are single use. Once that use has occurred you can do nothing but out the plastic in the ground, and wait perhaps 100 millennia for it to be broken down.

As such this Chinese bacteria was something that everyone was very excited about. If the bottles can be broken down, perhaps the resulting material can be reused easily and cheaply.

It does appear that this is the case. With the adjustments made this happens on a timescale that is financially acceptable.

One of the problems that his been a continual issue with recycling, is the need to have very pure resources: if someone fails to split up rubbish properly, an entire batch of rubbish maybe unrecyclable.

But this problem maybe it’s an end with this method as it works effectively amongst mixed sources of rubbish.

We’re getting closer to to being able to recycle plastic fully which should save huge amounts of oil from ever being needed. While this process is not yet ready for mainstream, it should be in the next few years so keep an eye out for progress in this field.

I will hopefully right on this again as we move forwards, but I hope that this discovery is not leveraged in to billion to dollars, it will stop this discovery must not spread slowly- it must appear almost around the world in one go, and importantly this must not miss out Africa. if this Discovery has the magnitude that is expected it must be allowed to have the impact that is necessary in the space of a decade not a lifetime.