Simon Geikie

Show Your Stripes Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

Saturday was Show your Stripes day. The stripes show annual average temperatures relative to a longer term average.

showyourstripes.info/c/europe/uni...

‘A tree zoo’: endangered conifers a living legacy of Kent pinetum’s centenary Bedgebury national pinetum has become a vital ark for rare evergreen trees, which are often unfairly maligned

‘The took all the trees, and put them in a tree museum’

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Britain’s favourite fish at risk of wipeout within decades, predicts report Brown trout unlikely to survive in most rivers at height of summer by 2080, says Environment Agency

We have to change how we think about nature in our country. By 2080 around 90% of our current ‘priority habitats’ are likely to have been significantly altered by climate change and its interaction with other factors in the landscape. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Two hundred UK companies sign up for permanent four-day working week More than 5,000 workers to benefit from reduced hours with no loss of pay

Finally it’s starting to happen . When all those years ago we were told that technology would mean better lifestyles and shorter working weeks! www.theguardian.com/money/2025/j...

Gritters stopped by 200 cars double parked on Peak District road, says council Derbyshire council says crews blocked from gritting roads on Saturday due to double parking at walking spots near Edale

Oh well.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The insanity of being a fire ecologist in the epicenter of a major fire event, bags packed and ready to evacuate, watching active fire from my window, while taking media requests and explaining to the public, for the 100,000th time how climate change is largely responsible for this

Good advice, always remember to avoid the bites ends!

The Best Guitarist I know.... John Goldie YouTube video by Guitar Made Easy By Tony

I’ve had the goi fortune to spend a bit of time in John Goldie’s company at Ullapool Guitar Festival. One if the nicest people I have ever met and the person who introduced me to three finger chords! An endlessly versatile guitarist. youtu.be/Zk0NkehP3uA?...

Back from the dead: the ‘zombie’ ponds repumping nature into Essex farmland A conservation project is helping identify and restore wildlife-rich sites previously degraded and dried up

Patch based approaches to landscape scale nature recovery. Simple and inexpensive but effective. Funny how ‘Priority Habitats’ is appearing in more comms now! www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Mapping habitats in the Peak District National Park

This is bigger than just SSSI. We need to know feature distribution and condition at landscape scales. We have tools to support this. We must use these to understand the effectiveness of past actions and set new objectives which allow adaptation to a warmer world.

www.turing.ac.uk/about-us/imp...

The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions: Patterns, causes, ecological consequences and implications for ecosystem management in the Anthropocene | Cambridge Prisms: Extinction | Cambridge Core The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions: Patterns, causes, ecological consequences and implications for ecosystem management in the Anthropocene - Volume 2

Big debate for a long while about the causes of megafauna extinctions. This paper confirms the central role of humans. Of 57 mammal species over 1000kg that roamed the Earth during the late Pleistocene, 11 remain now (Elephants/Rhino etc).

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Fig and almond trees thriving in UK thanks to fewer frosts, RHS says Society to retire plants no longer suited to UK’s changing climate after 14% fewer days of ground frost recorded

Canaries in the mine! I have thought for some time that we need to start thinking very differently about our source stock for conservation planting. Part of moving away from historically fixed conservation objectives which are questionable in a warming world. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Nice. The last two points are the most significant I think.’empirical work on trophic rewilding’ ‘via large, well-designed experiments’ And study of ‘trophic rewilding in context of novel ecosystems due to anthropogenic climate change’ ‘species introductions’ & ‘human environmental transformations’

Developing habitat patches in farmed landscapes is so crucial to increasing and sustaining biodiversity. Creating OECM/Sotoyama Landscape approaches to 30x30 relies on them. www.cbd.int/sustainable/...

Radio 4 - Listen Live - BBC Sounds Listen live to BBC Radio 4 on BBC Sounds

Scroll to 13:28 to hear our very own Peak District National Park CEO Phil Mulligan on World at 1. Nine more features from other Park CEO’s to come over the next week apparently!
@peakdistrict.bsky.social
@jayneyb.bsky.social

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Peak District trail to close on weekdays for tree works Fencing will also be installed along a stretch of

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

English wildlife ‘could be disappearing in the dark’ due to lack of scrutiny Conservationists issue warning as figures show three-quarters of SSSI sites have had no recent assessments

Understanding the condition of features, factors affecting them and the scope to control them are critical steps in management planning. If we are to adapt of our long protected sites to a warmer world we must know current condition. Monitoring isn’t optional. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

As I often tell my team. I’ll never forget all the colouring in we did on A0 sheets at the Manor Gatehouse in Dartford! GIS is a wonderful thing!

‘When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor’: the architect viewing the West Midlands as a national park — The Guardian Birmingham City University thinktank imagines new approach to urban areas and land use across the region

This is what we tried with the Green Grid project in the Thames Gateway back in the early 2000’s. Creating and executing policy for urban/urban fringe/green belt and wider countryside around urban areas that regards them as as connected landscapes with multiple functions. apple.news/AuPFmcTtqQHC...

Lovely, if rather too warm, walk today. Clouds and clouds of what I assume to be chironomid midges at Linacre reservoir dams on our Boxing Day walk. Hard to get a good shot!

This looks rather useful to those of us interested in protected area management. Combined with Climate Smart Adaptive Management and Climate Change Vulnerability the basis of a modern approach to where limited resources are best placed and where new ££ are critical -nice! jncc.gov.uk/our-work/spa...

Defra scraps England deadline to register thousands of miles of rights of way Campaigners jubilant after government heeded warning 2031 cutoff would mean loss of precious footpaths

Extending the deadline is good news. Within protected landscapes our path networks are in a poor state due to over a decade of cuts. Access is a major factor when managing sites and landscapes and needs a significant boost in resource’s so we can get it right. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

With new national park purposes around the corner. A bit of light reading in my stocking!

These need redrafting for UK CAT5. Philosophically useful in understanding areas where we may be able to effectively manage nature conservation features & hence identify 30x30 OECM. Question is will the new purposes enable the use of this principal at landscape scales for all features inc heritage?

For #WorldSoilDay 2024 we are sharing news of how funding from Defra’s Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme is helping a farmer in the
#NorthPenninesNationalLandscape
to improve soil structure by enhancing rotational grazing practices on his land. bit.ly/3Worldsoilday24
#soil #farming #waders

National treasures Explore the past, present and future of Britain’s national parks

75 years ago legislation to create Britain’s National Parks was passed - and now government needs to show the same vision & commitment so our protected areas can realise their true potential. @campaign4parks.bsky.social @ramblersgb.bsky.social
@jayneyb.bsky.social @campaignerkate.bsky.social

Natural history GCSE on hold as qualification seen as ‘Tory initiative’, claims campaigner New GCSE was announced under previous government in 2022 but now ‘sitting in limbo’, says Mary Colwell, one of its architects

Natural history GCSE on hold. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Pedents   Foot soldiers in the War on Error, They’re here to save us from ourselves, With Fowler’s Modern English Usage (first edition, nineteen twelve).   They scrutinise each word we write For typos, gaffes, et cetera, Correcting all our dumb mistakes To make our grammar betterer.   They sigh and tut and tell us off For the rules we have forsaken And chart this nation’s steep decline By the care we should of taken.   Custodians of the King’s English, They merely serve to keep it pure And restrict, they hope, the ignorant To three mistakes or less.   In doing so, they hold no fear they will deprive a thing of life: for it’s not important what is said, what matters is that its right. Brian Bilston

Today’s poem is dedicated to all those who have taken it upon themselves to correct the grammar or spelling in my poems over the last few weeks.

It’s called ‘Pedents’.

Scientists sound alarm about terrifying ocean event that could bring global devastation — The Independent The collapse of critical ocean circulation could bring major droughts and freezing temperatures across Europe

apple.news/AsGj0po3GSDa...

I spend a fair bit of time trying to find good ways of communicating the effects of climate change. Last year I worked out where the Peak District was moving to based on 1950’s climates. Now some clever people have come up with a twins website. Doesn’t project AMOC! fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/