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@RobGMacfarlane
.@WildFishCons is legally challenging government’s new & woefully inadequate Storm Overflow Reduction Strategy, which will allow water companies to continue dumping raw sewage in rivers & seas for the next…28 years.
Pls follow & RT/support their challenge.
Cc @WildJustice_org twitter.com/WildFishCons/s…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Xavi Buo's astonishing 'Ornithography' photographs use collage-imagery to track the flight-paths of different birds (Raven, Alpine Swift & Starling below).
Swoops, loops, braids & scribbles: what dreamwork!
More here in this @lottielimb interview with him.
euronews.com/green/2022/08/…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Hello—as my followers tally hit 200k this morning, thought I’d send a note of thanks to you all for the generous, community-making conversations, sharing & debates that happen here.
Twitter doesn’t have to be a cesspit, even if our rivers are rn…
Here’s to kindness & long views.
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@RobGMacfarlane
Rare conservation #goodnewsstory: 119 hen harrier chicks have fledged this year in England.
In 2013, the figure was 0.
Fragile, hard-won progress for these beautiful, sky-dancing raptors. theguardian.com/environment/20…
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@RobGMacfarlane
“Rarer than coral reefs, about 85% of the world’s chalk streams are in southern England & we are killing each & every one them”
@Feargal_Sharkey, furious & fabulous, on the catastrophe of our rivers—& how to fix it.
@OfwatChiefExec theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Wandering a medieval churchyard today—& found the yew trees had performed their own form of brass-rubbing on weather-worn graves, picking out the engraved lines with their dropped needles.
A dog, a cross, a name & a life made visible again by this chance-made needle-work.
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@RobGMacfarlane
Hello there: River—a film I wrote about the lives & deaths of the world’s rivers, & how our future flows with theirs, dir. @jenpeedom, narrated by Willem Dafoe, w/ music by Radiohead & @JnnyG—has now gone up on @BBCiPlayer, in case you fancy it.
Here: bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…
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@RobGMacfarlane
The Minister for Access to Nature, Richard Benyon, owns a 12,000-acre private estate, & oversaw the quashing of the Agnew Review into increased access to green space.🤔
So today @Right_2Roam campaigners led a peaceful mass trespass onto his land...
theguardian.com/environment/20…
👇👇
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@RobGMacfarlane
Please make time to read/share this vital, brilliant piece by @OliverBullough abt the tragic, slow, dirty death of our rivers, after decades of improvement: what we know, why it’s happening, who’s fighting it, & why criminality is being so richly rewarded.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
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@RobGMacfarlane
“Once inside a wood, you walk on something very like a seabed, looking up at the canopy as if it were the surface of the water, filtering the descending shafts of sunlight…”
(Roger Deakin, Wildwood,
2007) twitter.com/KHefferon/stat…
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@RobGMacfarlane
UK on its own has the political leverage to begin to bring this annual atrocity to an end, by moving to suspend the Faroe Islands Free Trade Agreement until cetacean slaughter ends.
The UK FTA is worth 20% of FI total global trade.
@trussliz? @RishiSunak? twitter.com/seashepherd_uk…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Thinking today abt the “hunger stones” I discussed in Underland; carved marker stones along Central European rivers that are exposed at times of extreme drought.
The most famous, on the Elbe, reads
“Wenn du mich siehst, dann wiene”;
“If you see me, weep.”
cp.copernicus.org/articles/16/18…
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@RobGMacfarlane
“Only some 70 parliamentarians turned up to last week’s presentation on climate change led by Sir Patrick Vallance and other scientific officials. None of the Tory leadership candidates was among them…”. theguardian.com/environment/20…
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@RobGMacfarlane
I’m writing a new book.
It’s called Is A River Alive? & it’s about the Rights of Nature & the beinghood of rivers, forests & mountains; about animism & activism — & the new-old idea that the world is far more alive than is often allowed.
More here: davidhigham.co.uk/books-dh/is-a-…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Have any of the candidates for PM yet made any reference in their stump-pitches to nature/the living world/the biodiversity & climate crises?
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@RobGMacfarlane
The long-established right to wild camp on Dartmoor is under threat:
theguardian.com/environment/20…
@Right_2Roam & I want to crowd-source memories, photos etc. from those who've camped up there (10 Tors, DofE...), to show what stands to be lost.
Pls RT––& share thoughts etc in replies.
67
@RobGMacfarlane
Happy Midsummer Day.
Summer solstice; Latin “sol” & “stitium”—stilled sun.
Hinge of the year, turn of light’s tide; northern day of longest light & shortest shadow.
I always feel a slight slump in the spirit, knowing the darkness rises from here. You too?
📸 charloisporto
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@RobGMacfarlane
An open letter to @iberojetair_es @privilege757 @TitanAirways @ukhomeoffice
The UK-Rwanda deportation deal is re-traumatising, racist, & must be cancelled immediately.
Our message to airlines: rule yourselves out of the Government’s dodgy cash for refugees deal #StopTheFlights
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@RobGMacfarlane
The state of England's rivers is a disgrace.
@WildJustice_org is taking the regulator @Ofwat to court for its perceived failure to monitor & act on sewage discharges.
There's a fundraiser underway to support this. 👇
Pls spread the word, follow @WildJustice_org
Change must come. twitter.com/WildJustice_or…
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@RobGMacfarlane
With Ai Weiwei, Alan Bennett & Tamsin Greig, I’m part of Drawn To War, dir. @MargyKinmonth, a film abt Eric Ravilious (1903-42), whose art transformed perceptions of English landscape.
He died too young, serving as a war artist in Iceland.
Out this month: details @raviliousfilm
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@RobGMacfarlane
Last year the "controlled burning" of peatland deeper than 40cm was banned in England.
@GreenpeaceUK & @Natures_Voice show illegal burning ongoing on shooting estates.
Blanket ban on burning all moorland peat needs to be introduced.
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…
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@RobGMacfarlane
A quiet avian flu catastrophe is unfolding among wild birds.
Details & advice here:
“Anyone who finds a dead or dying wild bird, which they suspect might have the disease, should not touch it. Immediately report to Defra’s helpline – 03459 335577.” theguardian.com/environment/20…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Used this beautiful river as a path for a few hours today.
Along the way saw a kingfisher, a water-vole, a huge striped pike fanning over a gravel-bed, and…an otter.
The full-house of a chalk-stream in wonderful health.
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@RobGMacfarlane
“There is a power that has been since all eternity, and that force and potentiality is ‘viriditas’, the greening.”
(Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179)
Send green…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Big plans to “re-wild” London: redshank & lapwing back along Thames, beavers in the marshes, nature corridors, micro-parks…
A reminder of how biodiverse cities are & can be, esp. with more blue & green space.
Good for humans, good for other-than-humans. theguardian.com/environment/20…
@RobGMacfarlane
Books: Is A River Alive? (WIP) Underland, The Lost Words, The Old Ways, etc. | Films: River, Mountain, Upstream | Nature, climate, people | Prof @Cambridge_uni