Sue Everett
@suesustainable
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Retired: ecologist, land man adviser, nature news columnist. Trying to make sense of a mad world, nature & planetary breakdown. Pottering cyclist.
Somerset, England
Joined January 2011
Looking for a holiday read? Like espionage thrillers? Then try #CraigThomasThrillers . 16 are now available as Kindle editions, some as pbk. 2 more coming soon.
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A quote from a refuse collector:.“In the past 2 weeks, we have seen a 30% increase in Food Waste collected from households, the additional weight is mainly fresh food that has gone out of date and was never even touched, some still in wrappers.
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Please add sky lanterns into that bill.
Disposable barbecues are a menace I am planning to table a bill on such a ban this week!.
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Spain's globally important wetland, bone dry. Water stolen for strawberry and blueberry farms, plus dry springs. The end. Ecotourism will also dry up. #Andalucía.
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Some people should not be allowed to own or control land. Another river wrecked. It never ends. #LandAbuse @NicolaCutcher @RiverActionUK.
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I'm thinking there was a huge emergence of small white #Butterflies today. Stopped in a lay-bye in North Hampshire and saw this. Several groups, on damp ground.
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At last I now have a second loo in the house. Combined with sink to save water!
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All this political posturing on trees is missing the point. Hedges should be our first focus. No one managing hedges like this should be in receipt if exchequer £. Get hedges sorted, now! @WoodlandTrust @kernowbeaver @LabGND @TheGreenParty @Conservatives @LibDems
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This pasture was herb poor just four years ago. I scattered a little bit of wild harvested meadow seed onto cowpats, molehills and a few small bare patches. It is already transformed. Lots of wild red clover and plantain now. Grazed spring and summer in rotation.
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This is one step away from violent assaults and murder of environmentalists. It's anarchy by people who don't like playing by the rules. And want business as usual, taking taxpayers money and carry on damaging the environment.
French farmers pour manure on the office of the biodiversity agency in Cleracq in the department of Lo and Garonne.
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Heavy rain, pile of poultry manure, runoff on way to a trib of the Wye. Knackered soil on this field. Lots of soil erosion when cultivated. Knackered land. Hedges removed. Woolhope. @SaveTheWye @WUFoundation @GeorgeMonbiot @RiverActionUK
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I was with a farmer yesterday who was completely on side with the environmental vandal Price who destroyed over a mile of the Lugg. "Rivers need to be dredged". Mindset completely on transmit, not receive, despite my best attempts to explain why dredging is not the way.
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@wmdore_images Only someone who has lost a child knows how you must be feeling. Devastating. I'm in that unenviable club, but he was lost from a life-challenging condition (17). I can imagine the shock from an unexpected death must be even greater. Take bereavement support when you are ready.
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Another major slurry spill into our river tonight. The river hasn't fully recovered from the last one. Similar point of entry, via a tributary south of town. Compound fertiliser spread into the river there in spring. @forfrome @BristolAvonRT @theriverstrust @AnglingTrust
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About time pheasant farming was clocked. Mad that smallholders have had to lock up their two chickens when shoots have released many millions of reared birds into the wild with no restrictions. #avianflu.
‘Pheasant shoots scaled back across UK after bird flu import bans’. With 50 million non-native pheasants released into the British countryside every year, they’re a huge reservoir for bird flu. Time for a pheasant phase-out!
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Raw sewage discharges into the Somerset River Frome at Beckington, a small village just north of #Frome . Antiquated drainage system spilling 3.5 times as much raw sewage into our river than the town of Frome. This must be ILLEGAL and a priority for @wessexwater to remediate.
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Horrendous soil erosion off this field which had probably been maize last year. It had also had FYM spread on it. In Somerset levels catchment (Brue) at Wanstrow. Colleague just sent me a photo of a guy squirting slurry across a hedge. And farmers want our support!!!
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I cannot go out and enjoy riding my bike or walking without feeling sick in the pit of my stomach looking at the land abuse around me. This one is late harvested maize which has been accessed after harvesting to spread slurry on bare ground. @BristolAvonRT @EnvAgencySW
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I am truly sickened by the way the dairy farms around here operate, to the detriment to nature and rivers. They seem untouchable, and just carry on slopping slurry around because it has to be got rid of, and they have too much. @EnvAgencySW @EmmaHowardBoyd @ExtinctionR.
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@SustainableTall Every new home should have a thermal image survey done AND supplied as part of the information package to potential buyers.
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When there's hundreds of thousands of deer wrecking our countryside and needing culling, why on earth are we importing venison?.
Isn't there enough venison in the UK @waitrose without having to ship it from the other side of the world? I KNOW you can do better.
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Some beaver action from #Somerset and these are fully wild and unenclosed at the head of the Somerset Frome @forfrome @BenGoldsmith @gow_derek
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Big ad for "responsibly sourced salmon" in this weekend's @theipaper . No mention of in 2014 460,000 tonnes of wild-caught fish were used to produce 179,000 tonnes of salmon in Scotland. What's sustainable about that? @rspcaassured @TheGAAIA @SainsburysNews
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Beaver territories, Somerset River Frome and other tribs in Bristol Avon catchment. From 2022 Natural England commissioned survey @forf
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Very disappointed that the @theCCCuk land use report focused on creating hedgerows but not on the quickest win of all: managing existing hedgerows better. There are miles after miles of hedgerows treated badly; should no longer be permitted for any farm receiving public £.
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The sheer ignorance and/or criminality of some farmers near where I live beggars believe. This is beside a (closed) public highway, used by walkers and cyclists. The thing is this is also sheer stupidity and it is clear who dunnit. It has been reported.
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This man is so amazing for standing up against salmon farming. If there's just one thing you can do it is DO NOT EAT farmed salmon. Despite full awareness of its environmental impacts @scotgov continues to promote the salmon farming industry.
"As activists & campaigners it is our moral duty to tell the story. I don't want to be doing this - I'm too old & fat. But if noone else is going to do it then I'm going to do it & I think it's a powerful story to tell. The salmon farmers clearly don't want the story out there"
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Slurry spreading in winter. All over pastoral Britain. Prime polluter. Air and water. Farming system change needed.
Slurry spread on hard ground this morning next to Esthwaite in lakes. Farming is a huge environmental polluter. No real regulatory barriers or meaningful fines to control. It's just shit.
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Maize harvest in full tilt now, usual dire impacts on the environment. Subsidised by government of course. Slurry often follows. Often just before heavy rain. Why I no longer do much walking across Somerset's countryside. It is just too depressing.
Spraying tonight, just four days after harvesting Maze. Why? And this just runs off the fields and into the river. Plus, the birds will be eating the maze bits tomorrow. NFU state 'Farmers are custodians of our land'. #Pollution #savethewye
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Nitrogen fertiliser use is outstripping planetary boundaries two-fold while producing up to 5% of global GHGs: just 30-35% of nitrogen-based fertiliser is taken up by plants
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Flower rich open habitats must not be further disappeared through well-meaning tree planting and rewilding. Lose the flowers, lose more #bees, birds and butterflies.
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Checked out NoFence in action today. I reckon these fenceless systems will be widespread within 5 years. ELMs ought to support. Saves putting permanent fencing up to protect rivers, for example. @JennyPhelpsMBE @JanetHughes
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Good news on Spanish lynx.
Spain’s Iberian lynx population has soared to 1,000, a ten-fold increase over two decades. 414 cubs were born in 2020 alone.
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A primary cause of river pollution in rural catchments across pastoral UK. Slurry from dairy farms and indoor livestock. Time for system change. NB I am not a vegetarian nor vegan. Just in case assumptions are made.
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@theJeremyVine 40 years of banging on about how hedgerows need better management and we still get farmers doing this (my photo). And don't get me on the subject of slurry. Greetings from #slurryset
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@al_chisholm #NaturalFloodManagement interventions on two local farms, plus beaver activity has reduced flood peaks to a local village in Somerset. Dredging the river would have had a reverse effect.
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One would hope that the fuel cost now will mean this senseless use of fuel, labour and machinery wear and tear will stop.
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Farming to the edge, no space for nature. Channel deep, scoured by water pouring off land down field drains. All wetlands gone. Our river. Yours too? Time to #MakeSpaceForNature
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No. 6. I hope we get our water voles back, one day. But plenty more where this one came from. All river groups need to do this. @forfrome
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Predictable. HS2 ‘badly off course’ as damning report accuses government of hiding soaring costs. Stop it, invest in rural broadband, local transport solutions.
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Nardus stricta/Mat Grass/J squarrosus degraded upland grassland associated with historic land abuse. Looks like a smidgin of heather left just above the scree. Being an ecologist can be a curse. We view & judge the landscape not just by its contours.
Morning! If anything brings you some #MondayMotivation this view of walking in the beautiful #Howgills will do ☺️. Were you out and about in the #YorkshireDales this weekend? Let us know and share your photos ⬇️. 📷 Paul Harris
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I despair. Look at the species on this "British' wildlife chart. Six non natives, including N Am mink, the menace that wiped out water voles. No red squirrel, no beaver, no pine marten, no water vole, otter, etc. Poor research, certainly not by an ecologist. @olyduff @gow_derek
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@GeorgeMonbiot Wherever maize has been harvested , the #slurry tankers follow. Today's evidence. Trudoxhill, Somerset. @SoilsAlliance My report gets longer every time I go out. It will be on its way to the @EnvAgencySW by early next week. @ZacGoldsmith - please get on top of this nonsense.
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Another day, another farm pollution incident. This one is a repeat.
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@GeorgeMonbiot Financial institutions have provided $1.6 trillion in loans and underwriting since January 2016 and invested $1.1 trillion in bonds and shares in the 133 companies driving 12 fossil fuel expansion projects studied.
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We've got hedgerows, rivers and streams. Why not focus on these existing features: take farming back from them with bigger buffer zones, one massive network of linear wild habitats for multiple purposes. Reducing flooding, improving biodiversity, sequestering carbon.
NEW UK needs a 'forest of Britain running the length of Britain to mark the Queen's 70 years on the throne' via @Telegraph.
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OK it's done (bar assembling it when I get to the big smoke) . See you all tomorrow at the #PeoplesWalkforWildlife @MilesKing10 @MarkAvery @ChrisGPackham @kevnjcox @mikeClarke
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I met a lovely nature friendly farmer yesterday in Dorset who would love to see beavers back in his local area. Not all farmers are opposed to seeing these ecosystem engineers come back. @NFFNUK.
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@GeorgeMonbiot They were keeping down grey squirrels in local woods (managed for forestry) until the estate decided to run a pheasant shoot- that's now feeding the squirrels & the trees are getting damaged. Driven shoot incompatible with forestry, the biggest income source. @MarkAvery.
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Common anti-parasite treatments used on cattle have devastating impacts on wildlife via @physorg_com.
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Losing a child is something @BenGoldsmith and I have in common. We both sought consolation from #nature . He's written a book about his experience. #bereavement @TCFcharityUK
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Coto Donana internationally important wetland is being sucked dry by #farming soft fruit. Lodger just bought these. Trays the same size on sale in Spanish supermarkets for 3.99E. #NotFoodSecirity #EcologicalCrisis .
An ecological catastrophe is unfolding at one of Europe's most important wetlands where the Far Right government of Andalusia is determined to destroy Doñana to appease illegal growers of strawberries and raspberries.
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River corridors need to be a priority for #rewilding . Mechanisms to support that are needed, urgently. #OurRiverIsShit @BeaverTrust @RewildingB @HealRewilding @BenGoldsmith @ZacGoldsmith @DefraGovUK @BristolAvonRT @theriverstrust.
@Theo_Pike @guyshrubsole @friends_earth @ZacGoldsmith @BenGoldsmith @danny_w_gross @RSBenwell @RewildingB @WoodlandTrust @WT_Darren @WCL_News @TheTreeCouncil Make room by the river. Take fences & farming away from the edge. Let land regenerate naturally, let beavers do their work. This is what we are up against currently (that's arable in that narrow bit above the river on lower rt). Stop talking tree planting. Please. @BeaverTrust
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I have to say I am quite impressed with George E's speech at #OFC22. Inc. point that nature recovery will not displace much food production. There is not a direct correlation between area farmed & output. 60% of output comes from 30% of land.
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Why @LidlGB do you treat customers arriving on #bicycles like this? Loads of empty car parking spaces, so please shove your garden **** in one of those. #cycling @FromeTownTeam @theJeremyVine
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Terrorism in the New Forest. No other word for it. The unacceptable price of being an environmental activist.
TV star Chris Packham car blast attack as Land Rover blown up outside home Either it's the Royals seeing off Chris for his rewilding call, or it's the hunting fraternity. When animal rights groups did this sort of thing it was called terrorism.
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The rot set in 1970s when poorer ag land was converted from grass to arable, and farms went 100% arable on limited rotations to block crop a handful of crops: wheat, rape, barley. @agricology.
Overuse of herbicides costing UK economy £400 million per year. @ScienceDaily.
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Our river is the colour of s*** because that is what it is full of. Slurry tanks full, so being emptied on land where there are no growing crops. So washed into land drains, into ditches and streams and then into our river. @SoilsAlliance @EnvAgencySW @michaelgove @DefraSoils
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@Botanygeek It's not food that is the problem it is the price of property and we have a government that has a vested interest in continually escalating it's cost. That is the real elephant in the room. Reduce the cost of property and people can afford pay the true cost of food.
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I have in my possession, at last, an official report from 1991 exposing the environmental damage from livestock waste. 30 years later our rivers are dying. Who, or what organisation, can use this to effect? I am thinking of legal challenges, big stuff, not a few tweets.
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@IrishRainforest @BenGoldsmith Fact: no basic farm payment for Scrub. Hence farmers get rid of it and have been doing for the last 30 + years. We could change this now. Scrub is still being removed. @DefraGovUK.
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However many rules there are, there is a systemic overproduction of livestock waste. The only way environmental problems related to its disposal will be dealt with is by dealing with the problem at source. Here, doubling up in December. No growing crop. River just below.
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A Norfolk nursery has been told that from 1st Jan any plants exported must be in #Peat only, because of pests & diseases. Assume this is standard? More unjoined policy. #ClimateEmergency @DefraGovUK @Love_plants @IUCNpeat @theCCCuk.
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A @NaturalEngland officer has given me feedback on some of the farms I worked with 10-15 years ago. I harvested & supplied the wild harvested seed from calc grasslands and meadows, and the prescription. Fantastic results for plants and birds. Here's one at #Lambourn
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This is the future otherwise we are seriously ****ed. Keep the faith @herdyshepherd1 @LinesMartin @howemill @pengraiggoch @1GarethWynJones @tomallenstevens @hilltopfarmgirl and the rest of you @NFFNUK.
1000ft up in the wettest bit of the North .No feed.No tractor.No meds.No building .No crop. Just species rich native grassland.Sunshine.Rain.Healthy soil .Long rests.Planned grazing.And native breed environmentally suited cows of the right size
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57,000 ha of maize is grown in England for biogas. What a #waste. Causes major environmental damage, displaces food growing. Must end. Video by @MilesKing10
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Shocking graph on how much European land is used to grow crops (oilseeds & cereals) for livestock, that could be used to grow food for people, i.e. not grassland. Add to this the feed grown on cleared forest & pampas in S America. No doubt that eating less meat has to happen.
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One of the most important restoration actions we can do is to take intensive farming off floodplains and restore diverse floodplain habitats including flower rich floodplain grasslands. Currently nearly all FP grass is just that . Shallow rooted grasses. But . .
Why are Greater Knapweed, Common Knapweed, Field Scabious and many more beautiful wildflowers thriving in this drought without being watered? Because they, and some meadow grasses, have very deep roots! Excellent diagram for @Floodplainmead by @Vicky_Bowskill!
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@DrAseemMalhotra The NHS needs to have a similar process as the airline industry where all mistakes are out in the open to prevent a future airline disaster. A pilot friend told me this as he he has experienced some "almost" accidents that were seconds from disaster (eg copilot error).
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@GeorgeMonbiot It's in my aunts care home, this week, not before but promised kits to test everyone, requested on 12 May haven't materialised. Managers have done their best to keep it at bay. But without the tools it was a matter of time. Hollow promises of this govt.
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RIP Robin Page. He tried so hard to change mindsets regarding hedgerow management + was a fellow campaigner on strawburning. I still have the pocket guide he & Nick Sotherton wrote in 1998. And was an early supporter of the charity he set up @CRTWildlife (now a trustee).
A sad loss to the world. He was a true countryman . One Man And His Dog presenter Robin Page passes away via @MailOnline.
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Another brilliant example of how natural flood management can help protect homes from flooding - this time at Eastbury, West Berkshire. This was one of the villages that was flooded during the storm of 20 July 2007. @PennyPostWB.
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@NaturalEngland @kewgarden Tell us something useful please. Like, promote restoration of priority grassland habitats among landowners and farmers, and share links about how to do that. We won't save meadows by planting a few wildflower seeds in our gardens.
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New Zealand’s government being taken to court, for repeated failures over successive governments to protect the country’s waterways from pollution by the dairy industry.
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So wrong. If you go to some of the large supermarkets you will only see peat based compost. Still. Much of it from Ireland.
We are living in a nature and climate emergency- WHY can you still buy Irish Moss Peat from you local garden centre? @DefraGovUK @michaelgove @BorisJohnson @Number10press
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@Cmmonwealth @SimonLLewis Please don't undermine the role of grasslands. Manage them better, restore priority grassland habitats, produce sustainable beef, dairy and lamb. Ecological emergency, flower rich grasslands most threatened habitat. @RewildingB @PastureForLife @Love_plants @DrTrevorDines
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Latest indicator on farmland birds. Full details on latest report on wild bird indicators is at
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This is one of my the worst examples I have seen. Cannwood Lane, N Brewham, Somerset. Today. When it rains, #soil and water runoff considerable, towards the Brue. Late maize, possiby slurried since. @EnvAgencySW @ewgjones @FWAGSouthWest
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Time to restore rivers and floodplains. Long overdue.
The madness of a wheat field as a #river floodplain. We urgently need to farm back from rivers as well as fixing sewage issues. This river, (Great? Ouse, Bedfordshire) used to have clear water for much of the year. Now, sadly, it has an almost permanent algal bloom
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Urine from animals reared on pasture where white clover grows results in just over half the amount of nitrous oxide previously assumed by scientists to be released. @PastureForLife
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I have just watched #ApocalypseCow on catchup and thought it was very good although constrained by time. Change is going to come fast, like it or not; how will farming adapt? That is the big question. Research is needed now to plan for changes ahead. @DefraGovUK @GeorgeMonbiot.
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Very strong smell of slurry coming from the river in the middle of town today. #Frome Reported to the @EnvAgencySW . So long as there is slurry being produced and poured onto land rivers don't have a friggin chance. @RiverActionUK @GeorgeMonbiot @rivercide_live
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The Countryside Survey has not been repeated since last done in 2007. This was an invaluable record of countryside change using the same plots for repeat surveys and needs to be done again, not dumbed down. @NaturalEngland @DefraGovUK @BenGoldsmith @ZacGoldsmith.
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My followers by now and readers of @britwildlife will now be aware that I have written my final Conservation News column to concentrate on my new role as chair of @CRTWildlife . (Please keep subscribing!) Also for the next few months as a member of the Dartmoor Review Panel.
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#CSOs in #Frome Town centre today. That's raw sewage. In the middle of town. @BristolAvonRT @wessexwater @FromeNubNews @FromeCouncil
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@TheMushyPea I just got my friend back on her bike after a bad accident, a dog not on a lead ran across in front of her and she fell off. There's a recent feature on dogs in @britwildlife . There sure are too many dogs, & far too many off lead, whether in towns, urban fringe or countryside.
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Runoff is affected by soil compaction. Under the surface this #soil is dry under the surface. 😬.
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Now is the time for a UK campaign to eradicate North American mink. A lot of money was spent on the ruddy duck cull to save a Spanish species. Now let's spend to recover water voles and wetland birds. Mink need to go.
Mink are INNS in the UK and have decimated some of our native wildlife. It's not testing they need, it's removal. Why is it why can never find the funding or resources to help our beleaguered wildlife in Wales @JFinchSaunders.
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There it goes again. #soil @SoilsAlliance #Somerset @EnvAgencySW Another day, another maize field. Land abuse.
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It was gov supported draianage that wrecked biodiversity and contributed to flooding. Now we're spending money having to stop up drainage and restore floodplains because of past policies to drain every scrap of land for farming intensification.
@darty_sp I think some form of @DefraGovUK loan for drainage investment would help farmers get over the cash flow issue. on a landscape scale good drainage has many benefits, not just productivity but ⬇️ runoff, ⬇️pollution, ⬇️flooding ⬇️pesticide use @NFUtweets @EnvAgency @TheAHDB.
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After many years our catchment, the Somerset Frome, is in receipt of project funding aiming to improve river quality & farming practices & instigating natural flood management measures.
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About time helium balloons and sky lanterns were banned don't you think? And disposable BBQs of course.
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Precision fermentation for dairy - if this means no more slurry, an end to megadairies, and no more river pollution and the product is equally nutritious, then I am all for it.
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It's not just rivers that are eutrophicated due to farm fertlilser, sewage & livestock waste. Our fragile coastal habitats are also receptors for this #pollution. It's dire. @RiverActionUK.
Look east as you go onto Portsmouth & you'll be treated to a view of the luminous green mudflats of Langstone Harbour at present, choked with a nitrate & sewage algal bloom. We're used to it, but it's an appalling state for a internationally important wetland (SSSI, Ramsar, SPA)
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