Chagos crisis - sign up now!

Since last November, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has been running a consultation on a proposal to set up a marine reserve around the Chagos Islands. The image here is borrowed from the FCO literature.

The consultation is due to close on 12 February 2010.

Greenpeace and others are organising an on line petition to persuade the FCO to set up a reserve. This petition has an endorsement from Professor Callum Roberts.

Two recent news stories add background to the issues. The Guardian on 27 January gives a gallery of images, and includes a piece by Tony Juniper, where he says “Protecting the Chagos archipelago is a rare opportunity for the UK to create a conservation area as important as the Galapagos islands or Great Barrier Reef”. The story also makes clear that the consultation process has excluded the inhabitants of Diego Garcia, evicted by the British to make way for a US air base years ago. The bloggers are making hay discussing the politics and the conservation issues. A lot of heat & only a little light.

However, The Times in an article on 22 January adds another twist, by pointing out that “ A company belonging to the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser is opposing plans to create the world’s biggest marine reserve. His company holds a government contract to manage fishing in the area, which would be banned if the reserve were created”

Murky waters - indeed. It appears that the CSA himself and a whole range of officials cannot see a vested interest, even if it slaps them in the face.

Please sign the petition NOW!

Norwood House - another move

The planning decision last Monday prompted a piece in the Yorkshire Post on 22 Jan (see Shan's Blog). This, in turn, led Radio Humberside to ring us for a quote. I duly obliged.

Revisiting an old stamping ground in this piece the Beverley Guardian published on Friday. Tread carefully, though!

Climate change in Beverley - whatever next?

This could have been drafted better, but we are pleased that the Beverley Guardian published it this week. An incentive to us to organise an event

Norwood House Campaign takes a new twist

Our long running campaign to keep Norwood House as a community resource was helped by the Planning Committee refusing a change of use to offices last Monday, 18 January. The Yorkshire Post followed up the story and latched on to the fact that we have referred the whole matter of the sale to the Ombudsman. The story above was published on Friday 22.

I sent this to the BBC 'send us a story' site today:

The Greens take issue with the Tories’ elitist approach to teaching and learning. Tories, typically, would assume that a good teacher is a commodity: they can be ‘made’ and ‘bought’.

The Greens have a different view. We would say that a good teacher is someone who likes and can communicate with children, and this quality cannot be measured by academic means. A good teacher is not necessarily someone who is ‘academic’.

The assumption that more pay will attract ‘the best’ teachers is also at fault - but this is the attitude we would expect from the Tories. A committed teacher will not be ‘bought’.

What the Tories, and the other ‘grey’ parties fail to understand, is that the aims of ‘education’ need a fundamental rethink. It’s not ‘bad’ or ‘good’ teachers that are the issue, but outdated assumptions underpinning our education system. The Greens advocate education which develops the whole child: learning to be, to do, to know and to live together (as recommended by UNESCO), rather than the ‘jumping through hoops’ style of education which we have all become used to and which causes such havoc.

You can't win them all

Reeling from the news about Norwood House, we went to the budget meeting of the Beverley Town Council. This time it was me making a presentation - attempting to persuade the Council to think again with plans for yet another Armed Forces Day in the summer.

My three minutes did not hit the button (note: learn more about simple rhetoric), and I wasted my breath. £12000 of our money has been voted to support this recruiting effort for the military!

I hear a campaign rumbling.