Unusually in business there is actually a service where
prices are falling. The cost of newt fencing has dropped by around 20% in the
last 3 years as competition in the market has increased and materials have
become cheaper.
Friday, 12 December 2014
People, Ponds and Water Project
Pond protection in England and Wales is to get a
welcome level of support after a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)
totalling £1,344,500 to conduct the UK’s largest and most ambitious freshwater
monitoring and protection project to date: the ’People, Ponds and Water Project’.
The three year project will train thousands of volunteers across the country as
‘citizen scientists’
Diffuse pollution by agriculture
The UK Government has produced a briefing paper on the
diffuse pollution of water by agriculture and has summarized measures that have
the potential to reduce the effects on waterbodies by agricultural
activities. This can be found here:
In summary: ‘Surface, coastal and ground waters in England
suffer from significant pollution problems: 78% of surface and groundwater bodies
fail to meet the ‘good’ ecological status prescribed by the EU Water Frameworks
Directive. Pollution increases water treatment costs and adversely affects
wildlife. Compared to treatment, preventing water pollution at source can have
a cost-benefit ratio as high as 1:65.
Tuesday, 11 November 2014
CABI releases rust fungus to control invasive Himalayan balsam
 |
| Himalayan Balsam (image courtesy of CABI) |
Himalayan Balsam Rust fungus released
Himalayan Balsam is the bane of many a river
managers life, with often the only effective treatment being hand pulling over
a number of years. Now a new agent is
possibly coming to the rescue of reducing the impact of this pernicious
non-native in the form of a fungus that is host specific.
On the 23 July 2014, the
Himalayan balsam rust was approved for release by Defra Ministers making this
the first fungal biological control agent to be released against a weed in the
European Union. The release was co-ordinated
by CABI under licence from Natural England
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