Environmental campaigner & author, The Lie of the Land (William Collins, Sept 2024), The Lost Rainforests of Britain, & Who Owns England? Agent: @JMLockhart2
2/ The letter concerns Derek Thomas MP’s Bill, tabled last month, which would strip Natural England of its power to designate SSSIs.
2/ Here’s the Bill in question – it’s due for its second reading on 26th April: hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-0…
2/ In July 2023, United Utilities announced it would be ending grouse shooting on its moorland estates when the current licenses expire.
2/ When the next UK Govt takes office after the 2024 election, it won’t have long to tackle the nature crisis.
2/ Two years ago there was no prospect of Govt publishing a temperate rainforests strategy. 
2/ Just this past weekend, David Attenborough discussed Britain’s temperate rainforests for the first time, in his #WildIsles series:
Bodmin Moor has an oceanic climate conducive to temperate rainforest (the moor is circled in red in the map below, from map.lostrainforestsofbritain.org) 
2/n EPIPHYTES IN ART & LITERATURE:
2/n The sheer number of Investment Zone sites proposed by some councils is staggering: 21 by East Riding, 20 by Norfolk, 20 by Kent... @SimonClarkeMP has boasted of 'hundreds' of sites being submitted. But what will the cost to the Exchequer be in lost tax revenues? @Jeremy_Hunt
LOST RAINFORESTS BOOK TOUR 🧵:
2/n New Expression of Interest form for councils simply asks whether proposed Investment Zones would be on land which is in a National Park, SSSI etc
The existing Countryside & Rights of Way Act (2000) gives the public a Right to Roam over mountains, moorland, heaths & downland. 
On Dartmoor’s eastern edge, north of Sampford Spiney, is a hidden valley. Here, veteran hazel trees grow like no other hazel you’ve seen: thick-boughed and gnarled, encrusted with mosses and lichens. Nothing like the coppiced hazels we're used to in hedgerows. 2/n 
2/n Ecologist Ian Rotherham has pioneered the study of ‘ghost woods’ – places where trees have gone but other indicator species still grow: like wood sorrel, bluebells and bracken
2/n King’s Wood nr Buckfastleigh was once an ancient woodland, dating back to 1600 or earlier. OS maps from the late 19th century show it as overwhelmingly deciduous. Today it’s classed as a Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site (PAWS). 
The Duke of Somerset owns the 2,800-acre Berry Pomeroy Estate in Devon. A small part of this land was recently sold for housing. The woods to the north have a permissive footpath through them, but the bulk are off-limits to the public – cos they’re a pheasant shoot. 2/n 
There is no public access to Dean Wood: no Right to Roam, no footpaths, no permissive paths; a padlocked gate, barbed wire & PRIVATE signs.
You can read more about land owned by councils - and how Sheffield Council came to buy up some of the Peak District - here: whoownsengland.org/2020/05/04/wha…