We rarely publish unsolicited press releases but this is an important insight into the challenges farmers face. Truss or Sunak? When it comes to food, farming and the environment –what should be the top policy priority for the next PM? The race to become the UK’s next Prime Minister is almost over. As the two […]
Dear West Country Voices, We have beautiful beaches in East Devon; Weston Mouth, in particular, is very special to me: pristine, crystal-clear water and I have enjoyed swimming there all through the year. I am very sad that since sewage has been pumped into the sea; ALL of the beaches in Lyme Bay are now […]
Today, July 11, the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, will brief MPs on the climate and ecological emergency, the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced – making this arguably Westminster’s most-important-ever briefing. So I was dismayed to learn that my MP Anthony Mangnall will not be attending, owing to a clash with a Conservative […]
Sometimes a small issue can cast a big shadow. It just depends how much light you shine on it. A small story can act as a signpost to much larger concerns. This is certainly one of those. In June 2022 a team of demolition vehicles entered a small village wood in Highcliffe, Dorset. They arrived […]
The contrast was dramatic and instructive. Only a day after walking around the deer park at Petworth House, I took a footpath through the grounds of Knepp Castle, a pioneering ‘rewilding’ project in the heart of Sussex. The two estates are less than half an hour apart by car, but a world apart in terms […]
A Bill led by Baroness Jenny Jones through the House of Lords received strong cross-party support at its second reading today and holds out a real opportunity to save tens of thousands of lives every year, while greatly improving the quality of life in towns and cities across the country – including the South West. […]
With our oceans quickly filling up with plastic and fish stocks dwindling, it’s time to start talking about the massive whale in the room: ghost gear. An enormous environmental problem caused by commercial fishing and fuelled by our ever-growing appetite for seafood. Kristy Westlake talks to some of the heroes on the ocean’s frontline and […]
Ocean Rebellion (Torbay & South Devon) will be hosting an action “Our rivers are dying” at Steamer Quay Totnes, Saturday 11 June 15:30 to 17:00. The purpose of the action is to promote public awareness that UK rivers are in rapid decline and rivers globally are in poor biological health. Ocean Rebellion also intend to call […]
Unfortunately, it will do this all too literally, by driving up new oil and gas extraction while doing far too little to address the acute poverty that now faces millions. Tom Scott lays bare the shocking truth. The U-turn in government policy that everyone was expecting finally arrived today, when Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a […]
So many towns and villages across our region desperately need more funding to support the poor, the elderly and the young. Levelling Up funds strike many of us as a bit of pump-priming disguised as an ideological commitment to close the growing, yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots (the consequence of twelve years […]
Moral and economic madness? That is the charge being laid at the door of Dorset Council, by local environmental activists, who question whether the Council understands the realities of the climate crisis. Just six months ago, the UK hosted the UN Climate Change Conference (‘COP26’) in Glasgow, in November 2021. That conference concluded with a […]
Upcycle Kernow, a Portreath-based community interest company, has raised more than £2,000 by collecting “unrecyclable” waste from the community to be recycled. The waste collected includes cheese packaging, bread bags, personal care and beauty products and packaging, oral care products, home cleaning products and packaging, biscuit and snack wrappers and much more. This waste is not included […]
I interviewed Stroud-based printmaker and artist Nat Morley about her unique processes, her protest art and her time spent with Barrel Well Aboriginal Community, Australia. Nat was a prize-winning geographer at Oxford University, sings with Tewkesbury Abbey choir, and her artwork is on permanent display at the Cotswold Craftsmen Gallery in Nailsworth. Leslie: What are the main artistic medium/areas you work in? […]
Earlier this month, the UN expert panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a major report detailing the impacts of the crisis. Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Program, told us that ‘climate change isn’t around the corner waiting to pounce – it is already upon us raining down blows on billions of people’. […]
It would have been much cheaper to fly, particularly as the UK government had recently reduced air passenger duty on internal flights, but John Potter and I took the train to Glasgow for COP 26. We didn’t have passes, or any kind of access to the conference, but wanted to see what ideas and […]
We are addicted to fossil fuels, so the news that European oil and gas supplies may be interrupted by the current global geopolitical situation linked to the unravelling humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is focusing minds. ‘Something must be done’ before the lights go out and the home fires stop burning. However, in a myopia we […]
I keep thinking about this. It’s extraordinary that the Mail on Sunday is allowing self-declared Putin admirer Nigel Farage to be given space to talk about anything, let alone to embark on such a poisonous and dangerous agenda. This is a man who declared his admiration for Putin longer after Grozny had happened. Long after […]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest report this week. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, described it as an “atlas of human suffering”. Alice Bell, co-director at the climate change charity Possible, wrote in the Guardian: “The key findings are bleak, if familiar. Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly; many of the […]
Climate activists from Extinction Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall gathered with Plymothians today to stage a symbolic silent funeral procession through Plymouth to Barclays bank. This was part of a “Better Without Barclays” campaign, a UK-wide movement calling out the investments that Barclays make in the fossil fuel industry. The funeral march, complete with coffin, […]
Climate activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) staged a protest today [Friday 25 February] outside Devon County Hall in Exeter to highlight the county council’s continued investment in fossil fuels through its pension fund. XR rebels scaled scaffolding above the entrance to County Hall and lowered a huge banner emblazoned with “Stop Funding Fossil Fuels”. The […]
I’ve learned through teaching and writing for children and young adults that we ‘grown-ups’ underestimate the young at our peril. Many of them are more clued up, more engaged and more inclined to mobilise than many an adult. Anya Haywood is a great example. She’s eight and fighting to save a stretch of countryside that […]
You might have read about the government’s commitment to safeguarding wildlife and conserving the environment which is, according to Defra’s newly-published road map, to be “the cornerstone of the government’s new agricultural policy, based on the principle of paying public money for public goods, such as clean air and water, thriving wildlife, engagement with the […]
The charity Climate Action Taunton was founded in August 2021 to set up a climate emergency centre in the county town. This vibrant town centre hub will act as the focal point for sharing information and nurturing partnerships, to inspire and support action at individual and community level to tackle the climate and ecological emergencies. […]
Yes, it’s called the Big Garden Birdwatch, but you don’t have to have a garden to join in, so please do! Nearly everyone can take part if they want to: in a park, on a walk somewhere – especially a place where there are trees and hedges, or in a supermarket car park: anywhere there […]
The CPTPP Pacific Trade Deal is throwing the environment and British farming under the bus in a desperate bid to justify Brexit, argues Simon Oldridge. I just listened to my MP, Anthony Mangnall, singing the praises of the Trans-Pacific trade deal (CPTPP) without a single mention of environment or climate in the entire 35 minute podcast. […]
At the heart of Bournemouth and Poole lies Talbot Heath Nature Reserve – an extraordinary 37-hectare fragment of the once ‘Great Heath’ that stretched uninterrupted from the Purbeck hills to the New Forest. Since 1800, 80 per cent of heathland has been lost worldwide, and today the UK is the custodian of 20 per cent […]
It started with a throwaway remark. At an early, virtual meeting of the Westbury Sub Mendip parish tree group someone wondered aloud about whether it might be possible to start a tree nursery. One member left the Zoom call and returned after five minutes. He had consulted his wife and they were happy for us […]
Various reasons are given for the Liberal Democrats’ stunning by-election win in Leave-voting North Shropshire on 16 December. In Helen Morgan, they had a strong, local candidate who fought a vibrant, positive campaign and was able to inspire tactical voting by members of other progressive parties, notably Labour. The Conservative candidate, impressive on paper, was […]
Dear Anthony. This week, we’ve read that the Antarctic Thwaites Glacier could collapse within 5 years. It’s the size of Great Britain, and will wreak havoc, raising sea levels by 65cm – not immediately, but far faster than thought. What does that mean for the Hope Cove sea wall or our only rail connection east? […]
Extinction Rebellion activists from Totnes and surrounding areas staged a peaceful sit-in outside Barclays Bank in Newton Abbot to raise awareness of the bank’s ongoing support for fossil fuels. The bank was due to close its doors for good at noon. XR’s protest was designed to bring that forward by half an hour, though customers […]