Ours is the sunlight – ours is the morning – ours is the marsh country down by the river #Thames #DefendNature
Farthing Wall on Cliffe Marshes on
#acoldandfrostymorning
Category: Thames Estuary
Urgent! Email your MEP today to #DefendNature LAWS!
URGENT! Email your MEPs today!
Its their turn to #DefendNature LAWS that defend the nature we love!
Environment Ministers from across the EU have sent a clear signal that the Nature Directives are vital and should be properly implemented, not weakened, and now we need our MEPs to do the same.
In the first week of February the whole European Parliament will vote on a key report on what still needs to be done to halt and reverse the loss of our wildlife by 2020. It’s the same topic that UK Environment Minister Rory Stewart went to discuss with other countries’ Ministers in December.
This is our MEPs’ first opportunity to stand up for the Nature Directives – legislation vital to the protection of vulnerable habitats and species – and a crucial moment to send a crystal clear political message that they will defend the laws that protect our wildlife too.
RSPB have set up a quick and straightforward action to help you e-mail your MEPs.
Email your MEP here
Why the Nature Directives are so important to our community & the special places we love #DefendNature
RSPB Conservation Director Martin Harper’s blog
Today I am delighted to welcome Gill Moore from the Friends of North Kent Marshes – a local campaign group – to talk about why the Nature Directives are so important to her local community, and the special places they love. Gill is pictured below (on the right) with former MP Mark Reckless and another of the driving forces behind FONKM, Joan Darwell. Together with George Crozer, Gill and Joan have formed a formidable team.
The Greater Thames Estuary is protected under local, national and international law – with the Nature Directives being the strongest laws of all. It is a spectacular wetland of global importance, extremely rich in wildlife. There are tens of thousands of birds that live here, as well as hundreds of thousands of overwintering and migratory birds that travel here annually along the East Atlantic flyway from as far away as the Arctic in the North and Africa in the South. 
Set in a landscape that inspired Charles Dickens to write the opening scene of his novel ‘Great Expectations’ is RSPB Cliffe Pools. The reserve contains 10% of the UK’s saline lagoons, a very rare habitat, where you can watch huge flocks of thousands of birds such as dunlin and black-tailed godwits as they wheel in the skies. The grasslands are great places to watch marsh harriers, merlins, peregrines and owls hunting. In spring you can listen to the song of the nightingale and the call of the cuckoo. These protected habitats are vitally important for lots of other wildlife too, such as harbour porpoise, harbour seals, grey seals, bottlenose dolphins, sea horses, rare bumblebees, the scarce emerald damsel fly and the water vole.
We are passionate about the wild places on our doorstep, and determined that they will be protected for future generations. For the North Kent Marshes, and for many other internationally important wildlife sites across Europe, that protection is delivered by the Directives. We are keenly aware of the strength of the EU Nature Directives and why that strength must be upheld, because we have witnessed first-hand their ability to protect the wildlife and habitats we hold dear. These laws were instrumental in stopping an airport at Cliffe in 2003 and, more recently, in September 2014, when the UK Airports Commission ruled out building an airport anywhere in the Greater Thames Estuary or on the Hoo Peninsula.
Indeed, when Sir Howard Davies delivered the Airports Commission Final Report on the 1st July this year he said that a Thames estuary airport ‘was not a plausible option’ that ‘there was a whole series of reasons why an estuary airport simply did not stack up’ and that ‘there were very serious environmental obstacles to constructing an airport in the Thames estuary. There are important breeding sites for birds, you would have to provide an alternative to them. The European Directives say that you can only take away that habitat if it’s the only place you can build an airport and we don’t think we could claim that that was the case’
We were appalled when EU President Juncker said the Nature Directives were old and must be “overhauled and modernised”, because alongside many experts we felt this would simply lead to them being weakened. The fact is that the Nature Directives form the very foundation of modern nature conservation, and politicians should not be trying to weaken them. Instead, they should be celebrating what they have achieved, and focussing on what they can achieve in the future.
Any weakening of these laws could put our most important wildlife sites in the Thames, Medway and Swale estuaries in peril. The Nature Directives are in place to protect our world class natural heritage and we must not sit idly by and allow this protection to be eroded. If it were it would be an ecological catastrophe!
We urge everyone to respond to this important consultation to show massive support for these nature laws. It is imperative that we do this now, because without strong laws to protect it – your nature, our nature, our children’s nature, could all be gone in the blink of an eye.
Gill Moore
You can find us on twitter @fonkm
on facebook Say No Estuary Airport
To read Martin Harpers blog in full please click here
North Kent Marshes self guided Heritage Trails around Cliffe
The Charnel House Project – protecting our heritage
Set in a Hoo Peninsula landscape that inspired Charles Dickens to write ‘Great Expectations’ and overlooking globally important wetlands lies the village of Cliffe and this photograph from Friends of the North Marshes Flickr photostream shows the opening of the restored Charnel House on the 28th June 2008 – one of only three in the whole of Kent – located in the north west corner of St Helens churchyard.
The Charnel House was restored with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, Groundwork Kent & Medway and St Helens PCC. Friends of the North Kent Marshes were proud to be a part of this wonderful project.
Many visitors come to this historic village and as part of the project Friends of the North Kent Marshes produced some free self guided trails around Cliffe to promote and celebrate the natural and cultural heritage of this unique area.
Cliffe Heritage Buildings Trail FoNKM
Cliffe Literary Heritage Trail pdf FoNKM
Cliffe Military Heritage Trail FoNKM
Cliffe Industrial Heritage Trail FoNKM pdf
Cliffe Farming Heritage Trail FoNKM
Cliffe Wildlife Heritage Trail
The restoration process can be seen on the interpretation boards outside of the building.
Above photograph by Slaunger (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Urgent! Defend Nature now! The laws that protect it are under threat!
We need you to speak up to save nature. The EU Nature Directives have provided the highest level of protection to vulnerable habitats and species for the past 30 years – but they’re under threat!
European leaders are considering rolling back decades of progress by revising the Directives in the mistaken belief that weaker protection for wildlife is good for business. In reality, this would be bad for business, and a disaster for wildlife. We urgently need you to add your voice to thousands of others below and defend nature. Without a massive demonstration of public support for the Directives, it will be very hard to prevent them being weakened.
Gill Moore, a spokesperson for the Friends of North Kent Marshes, explained that the marshes would not exist without the Nature Directives.
She said: “Our marshland landscapes inspired Charles Dickens to write Great Expectations, and hold a world-class natural heritage so important that it is protected under local, national and international law. The strongest of these laws are the Nature Directives, which protect our globally important wetlands from inappropriate and damaging development.
“These laws were instrumental in stopping an airport at Cliffe in 2003 and, more recently, in September 2014, when the UK Airports Commission ruled out building an airport anywhere in the Greater Thames Estuary or on the Hoo Peninsula. Any weakening of these laws could put our most important wildlife sites in peril. We must now join together to fight any and all attempts to water them down.”
TAKE ACTION NOW! http://www.rspb.org.uk/joinandhelp/campaignwithus/defendnature/
#DefendNature #RSPB #Natura2000
Black-winged stilts arrive at RSPB Cliffe Pools
Black-winged stilts arrive at RSPB Cliffe Pools
A mini influx of black-winged stilts has brought a touch of the Mediterranean to southern England, as two pairs of these exotic-looking wading birds are attempting to nest at RSPB sites in West Sussex and Kent.
It is thought that a dry spell in southern Spain has displaced these wetland birds to southern Britain. And it is believed that a changing climate may bring these birds to Britain more regularly in future. The only times black-winged stilts have bred successfully in the UK was in Norfolk in 1987 and Nottinghamshire in 1945.
One pair is nesting on the RSPB’s newest reserve in West Sussex, Medmerry, the other pair at the RSPB reserve at Cliffe Pools on the north Kent marshes.
“This is really exciting news and the first time we have had black-winged stilts breeding on the reserve here at Cliffe Pools,” said Warden Andy Daw. “They have visited before and a pair was seen about seven years ago on the reserve but they did not produce any young.
Yet another great reason to protect this special place for wildlife and say #jeThames #noestuaryairport
How you can help say No Estuary Airport with the RSPB
Say NO Estuary Airport with the RSPB
With 300,000 birds visiting every year we know the Thames is amazing, but we are concerned that the Airports Commission haven’t yet had the chance to really understand how special it is. With all this focus on the Estuary as an airport location, it would be easy to lose sight of the Greater Thames as a place that’s home to six million people. A place that has been at the heart of our country’s economy for centuries, as a base for commercial shipping, intensive farming, heavy industry, power generation but yet is still one of the most important places for nature in the UK.
And a place that we want future generations to be able to enjoy too.
The Commission is currently examining all the technical evidence for and against an airport in the Estuary and they will be consulting on their conclusions later in the summer. But until then, please help us remind them of what is at stake.
Please go to RSPB Thames Estuary online actions ‘How you can help’
5 Inner Thames Estuary Airport Options Are Still on the Table!
The UK Airports Commission are currently calling for evidence and studying 5 inner estuary airport options on the Hoo Peninsula. These options were studied in the run up to the Airports Commission Interim Report announcement in December 2013 when they were published alongside many other documents which can be found here
The five options are
Foster Partners Thames Hub Airport 46 Foster Sift 2 FINAL
Mayor of London Inner Estuary Airport 51 Mayor of London – Isle of Grain Sift 2 FINAL
IAAG Cliffe Airport 47 IAAG Sift 2 FINAL
Thames Reach airport 48 Metrotidal – Thames Reach Airport Sift 2 FINAL
Airports Commission own airport option based on a combination of the above which has sought to minimise cost, environmental impact and avoid relocation of the existing LNG facility 67 Isle of Grain Sift 3 FINAL
We believe that the idea of a Thames estuary airport is deeply flawed on every level
Here are some useful links to help you respond
RSPB are vehemently opposed to the construction of an airport in the Thames Estuary
Medway Council case against a Thames Estuary airport
CPRE Protect Kent is utterly opposed to any new airport anywhere in the Thames Estuary
FoNKM – Great Expectations and Profound Concerns
Say No Estuary Airport facebook
Please respond to this important consultation – the call for evidence closes on the 23rd May
The Marsh Country
It was a great pleasure for us to spend time with author Julian Hoffman when he came to visit us here on the Hoo Peninsula ~ Ours IS the marsh country down by the river and we will fight with the utmost vigour to protect it ~ No Thames estuary airport ever!
“Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea.”
~ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861
“Large terminals, operational buildings, offices, roads and car parks will interrupt the broad open scale of the marsh landscape… The network of ditches and creeks running through the marshes will be severely affected or destroyed…Existing open views out over the Estuary will be lost and replaced by terminal buildings, aircraft hangers and extensive areas of paving…The low hills of the Hoo Peninsula rising out of the surrounding marshland will be lost entirely.”
~ Foster + Partners, Thames Hub AirportProposal to the Airports Commission, 2013
The Hoo…
View original post 3,265 more words
Ours is the marsh country down by the river... 