Just over a week ago the Thames estuary in general and the Isle of Grain in North Kent in particular, were propelled into the media as the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, tried to stack the odds in favour of a Thames Estuary Airport in the forthcoming strategic review of aviation.

Here’s a flavour of the media last week in the Telegraph and Guardian.

The analysis has continued, revealing the array of issues that…

Helen Byron is a regular contributor to this blog, here she gives us the latest on her work to save the Tana River Delta in Kenya.

I’ve got a unique job working closely with some of our BirdLife International Partners on their campaigns to save their special places.    Our aim is always constructive engagement with developers and decision-makers to get workable solutions. But sadly this isn’t always possible, so some…

The landscape is changing. I don’t mean the landscape you can physically see from your window, but the way in which we plan for that landscape, its people, places and wildlife.

Where I live in Cambridgeshire, there used to be a strategic plan for the county, and then a more detailed, local plan for the district. In some parts of the country, mostly in the larger urban areas, these were combined in a single, ‘unitary…

I’m posting this at the end of long day in which the rhetoric around building a four runway airport smack bang in the Thames Estuary has gone up a couple of notches.

It sounds like the story blurted out into the media – with overtones of posturing around the elections for the Mayor of London. Dastardly politics, some might say, seeking to wreck chunks of Kent – who’s residents can’t vote for the Mayor of London…

Two posts have appeared today on other blogs and in a spirit of cross pollination I thought I would bring them to your attention.

Firstly, in Suffolk, we are working hard to ensure woodlands in Suffolk are not slashed in two by a proposed electricity line.  There are alternatives, so plenty to fight for.

Here’s the blog and here’s an article in the East Anglian Daily Times.

São Tomé is one of those places…

The Tana River Delta has featured a lot in this blog, but not recently. I’ve received an update from Helen Byron who, as the RSPB’s Senior International Site Casework Officer, has been working closely with our partners, BirdLife Kenya in their campaign to save the Delta.

I’ve reported on the Tana River Delta, Kenya including on the plight of the villagers who were forcibly evicted from Gamba village…

With the coalition Government’s announcement, today, that High Speed 2 is to get the go ahead, the lines are much more clearly drawn. Here's a link to the full documentation and background to the case here.

Parliament will debate the pros and cons and will hold the ring on the benefits of new rail infrastructure (in terms of transport, business and climate they could be considerable) versus the route that will…

The river Nene goes through a transformation as it flows from the English Midlands to the East ... refer to the ‘Neen’ in  Northamptonshire and you will raise eyebrows – you are in river ‘Nen’ territory!

The water carried from the heart of England towards the sea used to feed the Fens – once England’s Everglades. Now only carefully managed fragments remain, the RSPB’s N…

Happy new year.

Slightly belated, as we are already well into 2012.

If your definition of a special place is the sheer wealth of wildlife it supports – then tropical forests are going to be top of many lists. Here at the RSPB we’re proud of our contribution to some notable tropical forest success stories, we’ve been in it for the long haul, over 20 years and counting in West Africa.

You can find out…