Thousands of people are expected to rally at noon on Haytor on Dartmoor this bank holiday Monday (26 May) to call on the government to pass a new Right to Roam Act. The rally comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict upholding the right to wild camp on Dartmoor, quashing a long-running […]
This is Piles Copse, the largest remaining fragment of high-ground temperate rainforest on Dartmoor. It’s a tiny speck of green in a dismal, human-made desert. Prepare yourselves for a story of breath-taking perversity. Even in fairly recent history, it used to be much bigger, to judge by two lines of evidence: a few surviving oaks […]
Let’s take a look at the recycling of aluminium cans. Did you know that it takes 95 per cent less energy to recycle aluminium cans than it does to make new ones? Making them from raw materials (bauxite) is an energy-intensive process, using the same amount of energy to make one new can as it […]
Nature-rich peatland habitats are to be better protected under plans set out by the Government today (Monday 31 March), which would ban burning on peat in the uplands, improving health and wellbeing of people in nearby communities. This is a very welcome statement from the government today. It recognises the value of our precious peatlands […]
The irony meter must be peaking like one of South West Water’s storm overflow monitors. Former East Devon Conservative MP Simon Jupp, who was an outspoken critic of the utility firm, has taken a job with its parent company, Pennon, advising on community engagement. During his time as an MP Mr Jupp did plenty of […]
Environmental groups, local organisations and concerned residents, demonstrated on April 3, 2025, outside Bournemouth’s Civic Centre where the Planning Committee were meeting, to oppose the granting of planning permission for a waste incinerator in Canford. The demonstrators held placards, signs and banners which showed their opposition to the incinerator. There were also drummers and singing. […]
“Wherever it is found, hunger highlights the fault lines of inequality that run through that society.” In our society, that could indicate the effects of political austerity measures, including the latest benefit cuts. On a global level, it could point to the people in the world’s poorest nations whose crops are being destroyed by the […]
On Saturday, March 29, 2025, Extinction Rebellion Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (XR BCP) and Extinction Rebellion Wimborne (XRW) joined forces in a powerful protest at Poole Quay, marking the second anniversary of the Poole Harbour oil spill caused by French oil company Perenco. The demonstration featured the rhythmic beats of XR BCP’s drumming band, striking […]
Hi there, my name is May and I’m a 17-year-old from East Devon who’s passionate about finding solutions to the climate crisis. On 12 March, I was a panellist alongside Natalie Whitehead (one of the Founders and Directors of Exeter Science Centre) and Regan Mudhar (PhD) at a film screening and panel discussion event organised […]
I’m incandescent, furious, overflowing with rage at Dartington Trust’s ability to continually make the wrong decisions, decisions that show they are out of touch with pretty much everything. In particular, it has just been announced that they plan to revoke the wonderful Agroforestry Research Trust’s lease on their extraordinary temperate forest garden on the Dartington […]
UPDATE: The latest from Martin. Not great. “This afternoon our landlords have released a public statement (https://www.dartington.org/forest-garden-update/) which contain a number of misleading statements which we feel we have to correct. “We have had constructive and productive discussions with Martin over the past week.” No, we had one meeting on Weds 19th March when positive noises […]
President Trump intends to unleash a timber cutting spree within the U.S. and has already given oil companies permission to continue ravaging our environment with the instruction “Drill, Baby, Drill”. These follow the worst wildfires in U.S history with an estimated $250bn in damages in California. This was the gold medal crisis – 26 other recent events in […]
Let’s face it, amid the winter gloom, of which there has been plenty lately, planning a holiday is a lovely distraction. Something to look forward to if we are fortunate enough to be able to go. However, there are things to consider so that our breakaways don’t impact hugely on the earth. It is reported […]
Greenpeace Bournemouth and Poole is inviting the local community to an eye-opening exhibition that puts a human face on the climate crisis. Taking place for one day only on Saturday March 22, 2025, the event will be held in the downstairs function room of the Triangle Taproom (formerly Poole Hill Brewery), with doors open from […]
There are books read in childhood that, over time, are elevated to mythic status, as memory seeks to preserve that embodied sensation of the newly discovered miracle of reading which grants agile, hungry imaginations a licence to fly. One such book is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I don’t know exactly how old […]
“We watched as the beaches emptied, and the car parks emptied, and there was a sense of ‘this cannot keep happening’.” It was the worst possible time for yet another serious sewage pollution incident in Exmouth. On Wednesday, 14 August 2024 – right in the middle of the summer tourist season – a sewage pipe […]
The aviation industry’s reliance on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) as its medium-term decarbonisation strategy is under increasing scrutiny. While the UK government is targeting 1.2 million tonnes of SAF production by 2030, evidence suggests this strategy risks delaying urgent climate action. HIGH-LEVEL SUMMARY CURRENT CONTEXTGlobal aviation emissions are growing, and the UK is one of […]
“To members of the judiciary: you are all climate judges now… Lawyers have a responsibility to adopt a climate-conscious, not climate-blind, approach in daily legal practice”, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen told the UK Bar Council in 2021. While some lawyers and judges took her words to heart, others didn’t. Climate campaigners have won some […]
A record-breaking 74 Tiverton Tree Team volunteers turned up on February 8, 2025, to help create a new wildlife recovery zone on the banks of the river Exe just outside Tiverton. At the top of the site, running parallel to the existing Devon hedge, a 200 metre line of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, dogwood, elderberry, dog […]
Campaigners from Devon were among around 1,000 people who staged a peaceful protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Thursday 30 January. The Strand was closed to traffic as a 90-minute mass sit-in took place, patrolled by large numbers of police officers. Inside the building, judges were hearing an appeal against the […]
When numerous small plastic pellets were spotted littering the beach at Charmouth in west Dorset, a diverse group of people, united by their love of this special place, began to delve in to the problem. After a tortuous investigation, two kinds of pellet were identified on the beach at Charmouth: nurdles, the pre-production raw material […]
Extinction Rebellion Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (XR BCP) have put up the plaques in nature reserves, green spaces and popular dog-walking spots to highlight the plight of many of the UK’s most iconic species. The message the group wants to send to locals is that it is not too late for us to turn things […]
Editor’s note: We are reproducing this briefing sent to MPs so that you can see and share the information they have been given. One of MP Watch‘s aims is to counter disinformation and misinformation, which has a nasty habit of sticking in minds more than the facts. We face crises on numerous fronts as a […]
Do you remember way back when a storm like Eowyn was something of a freak event? It was , in fact, so unusual that a certain weatherman blithely denied the threat back in October 1987. Storms did not even get names until 2015, when the Met Office and Met Eireann started a joint initiative to […]
Local residents joined Extinction Rebellion (XR) Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (BCP) and XR Wimborne, who once again gathered outside Bournemouth’s Civic Centre to demonstrate against the building of waste incinerators in the area. They are concerned about the detrimental effect of the proposed incinerators on local residents’ health, the local environment and increased global warming. […]
May Puckey is a 17-year-old from East Devon who is passionate about the environment and politics. We are very keen to encourage young citizen journalists, so please get in touch if you want to have your writing considered for publication. Happy New Year! This year, I have pledged to be flight-free for the sixth year in a […]
How are the plans for ‘decking’ your house for Christmas going? With 125,000 tonnes of decorations and 68,000 plus miles of Christmas lights going to landfill or incineration each year, maybe we need to re-examine our seemingly insatiable desire for all things sparkly and glittery. Who doesn’t love a bit of twinkle? However, so much […]
May Puckey is a 17-year-old from East Devon who is passionate about the environment and politics. We are very keen to encourage young citizen journalists, so please get in touch if you want to have your writing considered for publication. The media has focused on what Donald Trump’s second term of office as president will mean […]
Use paper straws! Turn out your lights! Don’t run the tap while brushing your teeth! So I have such an impact on the environment? If I died tomorrow I wouldn’t even save the equivalent CO2 emissions across my lifetime that the private jets flown into the latest COP conference produced – but god forbid I […]
We’re all familiar with the concept by now: a day of frenzied shopping, with the odd fist fight thrown in! Around the early two-thousands, the last Friday in November became the season’s busiest shopping day, taking over from the Saturday before Christmas. This import from the US is now firmly fixed in our calendar, along […]