101
@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
102
@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
103
@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.
104
@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?
105
@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-…
106
@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…
107
@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…
108
@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…
109
@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…
110
@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…
111
@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…
👇👇
112
@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…
113
@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.
114
@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/…
115
@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…
116
@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.
117
@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/…
118
@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…
119
@RobGMacfarlane
“We're deep in ‘salt-water syndrome’: the things we’re using to cure our hunger & thirst are making us hungrier & thirstier."
Richard Powers––writer of The Overstory & so much more––is fascinating as ever in this new interview with @india_bourke.
newstatesman.com/encounter/2022…
120
@RobGMacfarlane
The near-future of many of the world’s forests will be decided in the next 48 hrs by MEPs.
It’s utter madness to think of forest biomass burning as carbon-zero.
Forest biomass must be removed from the renewable energy directive.
👇👇👇
theguardian.com/world/commenti…
121
@RobGMacfarlane
A few years ago I wrote a poem called “Heartwood” for the people of Sheffield, during the tree wars in that city.
Artist Tim Chalk has just beautifully lettered a couple of lines from the poem into this split trunk (heartwood is the darker central core, sapwood the paler outer).
122
@RobGMacfarlane
Questioned for holding up a blank piece of paper; would be arrested for expressing polite public dissent from the (absurd, oppressive) principle of hereditary monarchy.
WTAF? There is *so* much wrong here. twitter.com/paulpowlesland…
123
@RobGMacfarlane
Hello parents, teachers, children—to mark #NationalPoetryDay there’s a Lost Words spell-poem writing competition launching today.🖋🪄
I’ll be judging the entries.
Open to 7-12 yos.
Enter! Spread the word! Write on!
Details here & below:
nationalpoetryday.co.uk/the-lost-words…
124
@RobGMacfarlane
“What the Government has proposed potentially tears up the most fundamental legal protections our remaining wildlife has.”
Please, please read & share this @RSPBEngland thread about the huge intensification of the war on nature that’s beginning under Truss. twitter.com/RSPBEngland/st…
125
@RobGMacfarlane
Good news is hard to find rn.
Here’s some: the Elk, Beaver, Wolf, Brown Bear, Bearded Vulture & even Humpback Whale are making strong comebacks across Europe’s land/seas.
Meanwhile, our new gov. plans further devastation of our shattered biodiversity.
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