The Waterfall Built of Rock

I first went toCyprus, the place of birth of my father in 1961, when I was twelve years old. I was struck by the arid and rocky landscape, compared withGreece. We visited the village of my father, Amiandos, which is over a thousand metres above sea level in the Troodos mountains. On one mountain side of the village was what looked to me like a waterfall built of rock.

Have you seen the Butterflies of Snowdon?

It must have been in 1965 that my geography teacher and another school teacher took about thirty of us children to Barmouth in what was then called Merionethshire in North Wales. We went to study geography, with clip boards and strong shoes, out of Poplar into the Welsh countryside. As part of the fun we climbed up (or rather I should say strolled up) Wales’ second largest mountain, Cader Idris, and from there and from other parts of our journey around the county we saw Wales’ highest peak, Snowdon which in Welsh is called Yr Wyddfa and which means “tumulus”.

The Elephant in the Room, not the Bush

When it comes to managing its environment properly Australia has been a spectacular failure. When you arrive you are given a list of prohibited foodstuffs that you cannot import because to do so may harm the Australian environment or Australian businesses. Unfortunately the rules seem to be about protecting the status of an environment that has already been wrecked by the immigration that started when Britain first settled the island continent hundreds of years ago.

Tree Hugging

Timber is big business. In all places in the world where trees grow humanity has cropped the trees for fuel, for shelter for furniture and for the luxuries of life. When humanity was species that was few in number tree cutting had little effect, although some think that many of the great deserts of the world have been created or expanded by whole tree cutting. In my lifetime the extent of trees has shrunk on the map of the world, particularly in the Amazon basin and in equatorial Africa.

Farming the Common Carp

In 1986 I visited what was then known as Czechoslovakia at Christmas time. In Wenceslas  Square in Prague there were huge concrete bowls which were empty when I arrived. The next day they were full of water and full of living carp, a traditional Christmas Eve food in central Europe. People arrived to buy the freshest of carp, choosing their living fish, taking it home and some, like my cousin kept it alive until Christmas Eve in the bathtub. Then he could not bring himself to kill the fish, so he gave it to his neighbours.

Biomass Power Plant Madness

There are fifteen biomass power plants approved in the United Kingdom. Three years ago the first application for a biomass power plant was being made in Port Talbot; I was against this project then and I am dismayed that so many additional power plants designed to generate electricity by burning wood have been approved. There are dozens more biomass power plants being proposed.

Sale of English Woodland suspended

The Coalition government of the United Kingdom has decided to abandon its policy of a large scale sale of the forests owned by the government quango, the Forestry Commission.  Many people regard this as good news because access to forests for the public will be secured. I think that there is a more important issue than public access.

If we do not care for the environment, the environment will not care for us

The world’s environmental problems grow with the numbers of humanity. The quality of the air is getting poorer, there is less fresh water to go round, biodiversity is being lost; the forests are being chopped down; the climate appears to be changing quite rapidly as a result of human caused emissions of greenhouse gases and there are fewer and fewer fish in the seas.

Burdening future generations

When talking about the budget cuts and tax increases Mr Cameron made a valid point of principle. He said that one reason to impose this austerity was that it would be unfair to burden future generations with debt spent on propping up the income and benefits of the present generation.

Kudzu – a greenhouse gas producing weed

If you do not live in southern Japan, southeast China or the South Eastern States of the United States of America, you might not have heard of kudzu. Kudzu (pueraria lobata) sounds like a character Captain may ,meet but in fact is an oriental vine which has found (for it) a very satisfactory home in an area to the south and east of Texas to West Virginia. It is the classic weed- an unwanted plant in an unwanted place.