DDT was used an insecticide at the onset of WW2, with great success in terms of controlling malaria and typhus among civilians and troops. After the war, it was available as an agricultural insecticide.  However, within a few years, there were warning signs that not all was well and in 1946, the Soil Association journal read as follows "By the wholesale use of powerful insecticides of which far too little is yet known, we may well be upsetting the whole balance of Nature. We are like schoolboys rat-hunting in a munition dump with a flame-thrower." Some years later (in 1962),  Rachel Carson published ‘Silent Spring’ – which seriously questioned the use of organochlorines, such as DDT and warned of the dangers of the indiscriminate use of insecticides.  The use of these chemicals continued Read more...

There are six species of deer to be found in the U.K. – two of which are considered native – Roe Deer and Red Deer.  The other species, Sika, Chinese Water Deer and Muntjac have been introduced in the last 150 years – and the Fallow deer is often accepted as part of our natural heritage as it was introduced back in the 11th Century. The range of Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) has extended considerably in the last 40 years, as have the numbers of Roe Deer.   The natural predator of the Roe Deer is the lynx, but this does not exist in the wild in the U.K – so the population has had one control on its numbers removed.  Read more...

In every wood there is moss and leaf litter, and inhabiting these are multitudes of microscopic creatures. Many of these are mites (Acari).  Mites are arthropods - literally animals with pairs of jointed legs and a hard exoskeleton (cuticle).  The main groups of arthropods are the  insects the crustaceans the myriapods and  the arachnids The Acari or mites (and ticks) belong with with the spiders - as arachnids. The arachnids have two main regions (or tagmata) to the body - the cephalothorax and the abdomen but these regions are difficult to distinguish in the mites - the head end is known as the gnathosoma and the posterior part as the idiosoma.  They usually (but not always) have 4 pairs of jointed legs.  The Acari probably outnumber all other arthropods is the soil / humus complex.  Read more...

British politicians almost never discuss issues around land use and land ownership.  "The Land" is a magazine which breaks that taboo and is dedicated to land issues and to getting people more involved in active management of the countryside/land.  Based in Bridport in Dorset, the magazine is a low cost, high quality publication that comes out a couple of times a year.  I always look forward to getting my copy and think it's an absolute bargain at £5 per copy including postage - for 72 pages of thought-provoking pieces.  If you want to economise, though, you can read the material at: www.thelandmagazine.org.uk The Land Magazine has discussions on big issues of land ownership, access and land use, but it is also full of practical articles such as Cathy Ashley's article on the practicalities of buying land and "why solicitors might be useful after all".  On the more political side there are articles supporting small scale and organic agriculture - one of them envisages a world where labelling is reversed - the "chemical-mongers" would have to alert food buyers to their activities with the default assumption that unlabelled packets mean that food is organic. Read more...