Category: Ecology and animal protection

People need wild spaces and green spaces and other species need them too. Sharing our world with other species is part of the joy of being alive, when we cage and abuse them, or destroy their habitat, we demean ourselves in the process

Jenny works to increase green spaces and protect animals and wild space

Read on to see her latest posts on this these topics

Environment Bill Day 2 – Plastic: the new asbestos

Published on by jonesjb

I suspect that not very far in the future, we will think of plastic as the new asbestos. We have known for a long time that plastic takes hundreds of thousands of years to break down, but only recently we have understood how bad that is. Plastic only breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces; it does not actually ever go away. We now see that microplastics are present almost everywhere, including in our own bodies. Plastics accumulate in the food that we eat, moving up the food chain until it reaches its highest concentration in our bodies and, most concerningly, in mothers’ breast milk. When microplastics get very small, they are referred to as nanoplastics. They are so small that they can cross cellular membranes and actually work their way into our individual cells. We are currently clueless about what that means for our health and the environment.

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Environment Bill – the reduction of meat and dairy consumption

Published on by jonesjb

Farming accounts for 12% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. Changing the way we use our land is critical to delivering the UK’s Net Zero target. It is time for the Government to start facing up to this reality. The Prime Minister should use his political capital to begin this conversation and start this road to a more sustainable diet.  I would like to set him a challenge: persuading the public that modifying our diets is an important step towards net zero. Continue reading “Environment Bill – the reduction of meat and dairy consumption” →

Environment Bill: Water pollution amendment

Published on by jonesjb

This is not just about chemicals that we should not drink going in; that is only a tiny part of the picture. The River Thames floods with human sewage multiple times a week and also has some of the highest recorded levels of microplastics in the world. It is long overdue for the Government to get a grip on water pollution.

Sewage and water companies make a lot of money and they should be clearing up their own mess. If they cannot take on these contracts, they should not take them on. When it comes to cost, we should look at the businesses that make money out of our rivers and our sewage, and we should make them pay. Continue reading “Environment Bill: Water pollution amendment” →

Environment Bill Day 1 – purpose and potential

Published on by jonesjb

Without these amendments the Bill risks falling far short of what it needs to achieve. Without these amendments, setting out the clear purpose, there will be a danger of policymakers and the courts interpreting this legislation far too narrowly. Without these amendments, there is very little to bind the decisions made under the Bill.

Then there is the requirement for the Prime Minister to declare a climate and ecological emergency. Why has he not done so already? This must happen before COP 26. It is impossible for the United Kingdom to give any type of leadership at COP 26 without this declaration. It should form the very foundation of COP and be the basis for negotiations there.

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Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill

Published on by jonesjb

We all know that the EU’s animal sentience protocol changed the way that animals were treated across the continent. This Bill is the Government pretending to do something about animal sentience, because they know that the general public really care. It is a PR exercise, and it will not prove adequate for the situation we face. The Minister said that this was a robust Bill. It is not. There is a lot that needs to be improved in this Bill, but it almost feels like wasted effort, because I know that the whole premise of the Bill is designed to make it completely ineffective. Continue reading “Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill” →

The Environment Bill finally reaches the Lords

Published on by jonesjb

I am not going to argue that we have an environmental or ecological crisis, or a nature or planetary crisis, because for me those things are absolutely self-evident. What we have is a political crisis. The Government are creating a new system of environmental law that is almost undeserving of being called law because it is so full of loopholes and get-out clauses and allows unlawful acts to carry on unimpeded. We have to be absolutely sure that what we are doing is the safest way forward. The Government simply do not understand that the environment encompasses everything. It is not an issue on its own; it encompasses the economy, transport, education and social well-being. It is absolutely everything, and this Bill is our one opportunity to get it right.
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5th Day of Debate on the Queen’s Speech

Published on by jonesjb

There are some important pieces of legislation tucked into the Speech, but I feel that those are the ones that will fall through the cracks and that we will probably not get around to. This is very distressing because it will be the most regressive laws that come through and that the Government support. This is really appealing to the darkest parts of human nature and it is not good for our collective psyche, not just here in the House but in the wider society. As such, I promise you strong and relentless opposition.

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Time to declare a Biodiversity Emergency

Published on by jonesjb

We have passed legislation in the past year at the most incredible rate; a year ago, we would have said that it was impossible, unconstitutional or just plain ridiculous, so Parliament and the Government have shown that they can act fast in an emergency. Targets are great, and I welcome better and higher targets, but they are not met without a plan. It is not enough to talk. We must act. The Dasgupta Review and the Climate Change Committee’s sixth carbon budget have given us a pathway to doing exactly that—to declaring a biodiversity and climate emergency, acting on it and reducing our impact on the natural world.

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Tackling animal cruelty

Published on by jonesjb

The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill has finally reached Second Reading. The Government first proposed this legislation in 2017, along with protections for animal sentience, but then dropped the animal sentience bit. It was June 2019 before the Government brought in this Bill, but with all their shenanigans of shutting down Parliament and then using the Queen’s Speech as a party-political broadcast before holding a general election, the Bill fell twice in as many months. Now, with only a few weeks left of the fourth Parliament since the Government first promised this legislation, we are either going to have to rush the Bill through, pass a carry-over Motion or lose the Bill yet again.

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Prince Philip was one of the pioneers who started to highlight the links between people and planet

Published on by jonesjb

A big debt is owed to Prince Philip and that whole generation of environmentalists of which he was a part and which he promoted through his work. But I cannot speak about one death, however momentous, without speaking of the 127,087 other deaths over the past year due to coronavirus. Many of those deaths will have been premature, with people of all ages dying before their time and leaving many more people – hundreds of thousands of them – grieving. Continue reading “Prince Philip was one of the pioneers who started to highlight the links between people and planet” →