BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Civilised England, what remains of it, makes a sound, and it does not. The sound it makes is weather, the clink of china, the murmur of a nation waiting its turn, and, when pushed past all endurance, the sharp, righteous crack of incivility, delivered once and never unnecessarily repeated. The sound it does not make is the horn. Watch a country road. … Continue reading The Quietest Virtue
BY BERT BURNETT The Conservatives’ vow to scrap Natural England and the Environment Agency and bring their powers back under direct ministerial control has set the cat among the pigeons at Defra. Victoria Atkins, the shadow Defra secretary, announced at the NFU breakfast briefing at the party conference that a Tory government would “restructure Defra completely” and abolish both quangos as the first stage of … Continue reading Quangos Out, Accountability In
BY ALEXIA JAMES Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (pictured), Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Nature no less, awakes at 3am in a cold sweat. The nightmare is always the same: a pub. A pint of Adnams. A black Labrador. A fox hunt in the background. She reaches for her phone and drafts a conference speech. It was a quiet Monday in Liverpool when the Labour Party gathered to … Continue reading Beware the Black Lab
BY LIZ HODGKINSON After the Piddington outcry comes the Diddington debacle. No, not for migrants this time, but for something equally unwelcome to locals: a vast solar farm. Plans have recently been approved to build a solar farm which will spread across 111 acres of farmland, equivalent to 63 football pitches, just outside this tiny Cambridgeshire village. Diddington is a one-street, dead-end hamlet just off … Continue reading After Piddington Comes Diddington
BY LIZZIE PEAKE When planning policy spirals, what’s left of our green spaces? Labour’s planning reforms are the most radical in a generation. The revised National Planning Policy Framework, which came into force in August 2026, introduces “automatic planning permission” around station hubs and weakens the ability of local authorities to refuse development. The new “grey belt” designation opens up swathes of green belt land … Continue reading Ascot: Green Today, Gone Tomorrow?
BY NICK PEARCE The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has introduced a ticket-only parking restriction at its Snettisham reserve in Norfolk for the Wader Spectacular days. Visitors must now book a parking space in advance on the RSPB website and pay a fee—including paid-up members. The Wader Spectacular is a natural phenomenon where tens of thousands of waders swirl in the skies … Continue reading RSPB Greed?
BY NIGEL MANN Reform UK is making a determined pitch to rural Britain, positioning itself as the champion of a countryside it claims has been neglected and “scapegoated” by Westminster elites. Its platform, focused on backing farmers, cutting red tape, and scrapping “net zero” targets, directly targets a constituency that feels increasingly invisible. However, this strategy is fraught with internal contradictions, exemplified by the recent … Continue reading Reform UK’s Countryside Dilemma
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The English countryside does not shout. It simply is. Consider the hedge. Not the clipped suburban thing, but the ancient wall of hawthorn and bramble, wild rose and blackthorn, woven against wind and time. The hedge-layer knows what we have forgotten. He bends the long whips nearly to the ground, wounds them so they send up thicker shoots. Strength lies not in … Continue reading The Wisdom of Entanglement
BY CALUM CAMPBELL Last week, we examined the RSPB’s catastrophic mismanagement of the Abernethy reserve and their shameful treatment of experienced gamekeepers who turned up to help fight the wildfires ravaging the Cairngorms. In the interests of balance, the RSPB were given the opportunity to air their response through their official channels. They have since published an article titled “Wildfires and Conservation”, promising to “separate … Continue reading The Welcome That Says it All
BY CALUM CAMPBELL It is a scene that has become all too familiar. The Cairngorms, one of Scotland’s most cherished landscapes, is ablaze. As firefighters spend another night on the hill near Ryvoan Bothy, and as families are evacuated from their homes in Glenmore, a difficult question hangs in the smoke: how did we get here? The answer, for many, lies not in the weather, … Continue reading Arrogance Fuels the Flames
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a silence that falls over a Devon wood in high summer. Not an absence of noise, but an absence of argument. The oaks on the Taw Valley do not hold referenda on whether to unfurl their leaves. The badgers on Dartmoor do not form working groups to reconsider the velocity of their digging. The River Exe does not consult a … Continue reading Nature’s Unwritten Constitution
BY BERT BURNETT RSPB, We Warned You As the smoke continues to drift across the A9 and the acrid smell of scorched Caledonian pinewood lingers in the glens, we must take stock of the reality that has unfolded in the Cairngorms over the past week. Over 10 square kilometres of one of our most fragile and treasured habitats has been reduced to ash. More than … Continue reading Burning Questions
BY NICK PEARCE For those of us who have long cherished the British countryside, the past two decades have been a trial of patience. We have watched our rolling hills, ancient meadows, and quiet valleys gradually transformed into industrial landscapes dressed in green rhetoric. The wind turbines that now punctuate our skylines and the solar farms that blanket our fields are not, as we are … Continue reading A Sensible Case for Small Nuclear Reactors
BY BERT BURNETT Why Gamekeepers Are Refusing to Endorse the New Muirburn Code Scotland’s gamekeepers have issued a stark warning: they will not endorse the Scottish Government’s new Muirburn Code, a decision they claim is born not of defiance, but of a desperate need to prevent catastrophic wildfires. They argue that the new regulations, designed to protect peatlands, will ironically create a tinderbox, stripping them … Continue reading The Burning Question
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a moment, in the deep June of the West Country, when the sun ceases to be a mere astronomical body and becomes a benediction. It slants through the leaves of the apple trees, dappling the long grass with pennies of light, and warms the stone of old farm walls with a patience that cities have long forgotten. It is in … Continue reading The Patience of the Apple
BY ALEC SWAN There is a peculiar frustration known only to those who love the British countryside: the sight of three different conservationists offering three contradictory solutions to the same patch of land. You see it everywhere, from the Peaks to the Broads. But here, in a quiet corner of Norfolk, drawn from the pragmatic wisdom of a wildlife conservation trust, I have found a … Continue reading How Norfolk’s Sheep Are Saving the Heather
BY ALEXIA JAMES A Masterclass in Urban Ignorance, Donor Servitude, and Moral Inversion There is a special kind of foolishness that can only be achieved when metropolitan prejudice marries political cowardice. The Labour government’s proposed ban on trail hunting is that rare policy that manages to be simultaneously cruel, stupid, and dishonest. It punishes no one who harms animals. It harms no one who protects … Continue reading The Trail Hunting Ban
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN For more than 3,500 years, Dartmoor’s semi-wild ponies have roamed the moor, managed by commoners whose families have worked this land for generations. But now, under new proposals from Natural England and Defra, these endangered ponies face near-extinction, with potential culls of up to 93 per cent, as bureaucratic eco-rules count them alongside commercial livestock for the first time. Campaigners warn that … Continue reading The Moor Knows BestÂ
BY ALEXIA JAMES A £550,000 Wake-Up Call on a Failed Crusade The atmosphere at the Dartmoor Tors Festival in Ashburton this past Sunday was one of cautious optimism. On the panel discussing nature recovery on the moor sat people with genuine skin in the game: Richard Drysdale from the National Park, commoner and Dartmoor Commoners’ Council Chair Tracy May, and Tony Whitehead from the Dartmoor … Continue reading The Wild Justice Dartmoor Fiasco
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The town thinks the British farmer was born to be ruled. They imagine him touching his forelock. They see him shuffling aside for the lord’s carriage. Nothing could be further from the truth. The British farmer did not inherit the land. He won it. And he has had to win it again in every century since the first plough bit the soil. … Continue reading The Farm
