Help plant trees

The Church of England disputed the Friends of the Earth analysis, and said its tree cover was much higher than the 3-4% that the report suggested. A spokesperson for the Church Commissioners for England said: “We do not recognise the data that is presented, as it is incomplete and does not show the full picture. At the end of December, the commissioners owned 102,000 acres of forest land. The Commissioners planted over 2.6m trees in 2019.” … [Read more...] about England’s biggest landowners not growing enough trees – report

Woodfin Jones said: “Lundy is home to a host of rare and ecologically significant plants and animals, including nationally important seabird colonies, endemic plants and insects and endangered marine life. Every donation we receive will safeguard the island’s future, protect its wildlife and ensure specific conservation projects which have progressed over the past 50 years are not undone.” … [Read more...] about Lockdown puts wildlife conservation on Devon’s Lundy Island at risk

In the early 1990s, I remember seeing television reports about the BSE scandal and hearing talk about the perils of eating beef. But I was a teenager. I had more important things to worry about. But in 2001, the foot and mouth disaster unfolded across the UK, with its burning cattle pyres and “no entry” signs erected across the countryside. This time I paid attention. The whole episode – devastated farmers, a rural economy in tatters, millions of farm animals culled, political wrangling and endless debates about who or what was to blame – highlighted somehow that something had gone wrong with the way we were farming and producing food. … [Read more...] about ‘One thing I’ve learned about modern farming – we shouldn’t do it like this’

The jury's winning statement described the home as a celebration of 'a simple life and the capacity of modest architecture to impact significantly on the way we live'.  … [Read more...] about Inside the renovated ‘ramshackle beach shack’ that has been crowned the BEST house in Australia – complete with a dreamy bathroom retreat and relaxing courtyards flooded with natural sunlight

I met Adrian Bell towards the end of his life, and I was a close friend of John Nash for much of my life, so Men and the Fields (1939), their collaboration of words and pictures, has long been one of those books which seem to me to spell out the language of landscape. The fields in the title lie between Bottengoms Farm, John's house, and Creems, Adrian's house, with the river Stour glinting through them. But during summers in the 1930s they lived less than a mile apart: John rented the Thatch and Adrian had managed to purchase Creems, lovely, dilapidated old places which had stared across the wide shallow valley for centuries. Adrian's wife, Marjorie, described its fascination for artists, it having been painted by Gainsborough and Constable. In August 1935 she wrote: … [Read more...] about Soil on their boots