Time lapse film of woodland plants (video)

 Time-lapse of woodland plant emergence

Just for fun - and to remind you of the wonder of nature- from BBC's 'Private Life of Plants' (1.5 mins)

'The Green Economy'; a smokescreen for destruction (online)

The “Green Economy”: giving immunity to criminals

For over a decade, international policy debate has been re-defining forests as providers of “ecosystem services”. Promotional videos, slogans and attractive brochures promoting a “Green Economy”, repeat how forests and biodiversity are essential for the “services” they provide to humanity. This reinforces the colonial understanding of “nature” as a collection of species, undisturbed by human interaction, denying the role of forest peoples in shaping nature, and putting “nature” at the service of the same economy that continues to destroy it. The result is a re-definition that reduces the underlying causes of the destruction of forests and other territories into an issue of numbers. These discourses silence the crucial issues of power relations, including the underlying causes of forest destruction and violation of forest communities’ rights. People, cultures, traditions, interconnections are not even considered as co-existing and inseparable with forests.

A detailed report that provides a damning analysis of one 'biodiversity offset' project can be found here.

Why we should conserve carnivores (book)

The Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving North America's Predators

What would it be like to live in a world with no predators roaming our landscapes? Would their elimination, which humans have sought with ever greater urgency in recent times, bring about a pastoral, peaceful human civilization? Or in fact is their existence critical to our own, and do we need to be doing more to assure their health and the health of the landscapes they need to thrive?

Introduction to urban wildlife gardening (online)

Creating a Healthy Apartment or Townhouse

Even if you live in an apartment, townhouse, or condominium development without much space for landscaping, the right mix of ingredients on a balcony, patio, terrace, or rooftop can be an oasis that provides food and rest for wildlife in an urban concrete desert. Coordinated efforts by neighbors can transform an entire multi-unit building or complex into a thriving urban habitat that is part of a larger living landscape. This leaflet shows you how.

Trees help farmers manage drought (report)

Managing the drought: A review of the evidence of the benefits of native trees species for shelter on the water regime of pasture and arable crops

This review assesses the benefits of native tree species for shelter on the water regime of pasture and crops. It draws on evidence from the UK, Europe and other temperate zones. Before the evidence is presented overviews are given of evapotranspiration, shelterbelt design and crop micro-climate. The evidence in the review suggests that under the right conditions native tree shelterbelts could enable UK crops to use water more efficiently. Shelterbelts can be viewed as an insurance policy. They may not provide yield increases every year, but they can buffer crop production when extreme weather events strike.

RSPB State of the UK's Birds 2013 (report)

The State of the UK's Birds 2013 (RSPB)

Permaculture Research Digest

This is the 14th The state of the UK’s birds report. It contains results from annual, periodic and one-off surveys and studies from as recently as 2012 to give an up-to-date overview of the health of bird populations in the UK and its Overseas Territories. It draws on the Bird Atlas 2007-11, perhaps the most ambitious bird-monitoring project ever attempted in Britain, to give new maps of the distribution of all regular breeding and wintering birds.