Dara Sands

Green to Grey – How Europe is squandering the little nature it has left Green to Grey is a pioneering collaboration between journalists and scientists counting every green space lost in Europe between January 2018 and December 2023.

It’s not unspoken, it’s the central message of this piece and the project. The #GreenToGrey website highlights western consumerism as a key driver and the way “wealthy countries develop not only essential things, but unnecessary things, from golf courses to artificial ski slopes.”

greentogrey.eu

The findings from the #GreenToGrey project have been leading the news in Norway today. Yet, Ireland isn’t far behind when it comes to converting nature and farmland per capita to make way for construction, housing, roads, luxury developments, etc. Has this been getting much coverage back home?

Waiting to hear back about job applications feels like...

Nice to be back at @uninmbu.bsky.social this week as a guest lecturer on the Master's course "Green transformations in theory and practice".

The campus has changed a lot over the last few years, but there are still a few reminders that this place used to be the Norwegian Agricultural University 🐑

Just back from a few days in Norway’s oldest national park, Rondane, doing visitor surveys for the "Sounds like Norway" project.

A key takeaway was that natural sounds (wind, water, birds etc) and, in particular, quiet really matter for how people enjoy and connect with the outdoors.

"It is insulting that the commitment to the term rewilding is stronger than the commitment to reconciliation & truth-telling...At a time when we need empowerment, the label of rewilding does nothing but strip it from us."

Thought-provoking piece by Michael-Shawn Fletcher in @consletters.bsky.social

If economic growth and a healthy environment truly go hand in hand, why are N. Ireland’s land, air, and water in such poor condition? It’s time to stop repeating win-win myths and start acknowledging the trade-offs between pursuing growth, protecting the environment, and ensuring social well-being.

Agree with most of Ray’s piece. But I’d argue the real challenge isn’t shifting from research to scaled-up restoration efforts. Restoration practices should be guided by research and knowledge that, ideally, is co-produced with local communities to ensure their needs and interests are centred.

Trudde dette var rev - no er jegeren dømd til fengsel Mannen erkjenner at han burde ha sjekka betre før han fyrte av.

A hunter in Norway received a 45-day prison sentence for shooting a lynx he mistook for a fox.

What stands out about this story isn’t the rare conviction for a wildlife crime, it’s that the hunter turned himself in - an even rarer act of accountability in today’s world.

www.tv2.no/nyheter/inne...

Unveiling pervasive assumptions: moving beyond the poverty-biodiversity loss association in conservation This paper reflects on the continued persistence of the idea in conservation research and practice that poverty drives biodiversity loss (the poverty-…

This is a really important & useful paper: the persistence of the idea that poverty causes biodiversity decline inhibits just and effective conservation. @upascual.bsky.social @estherturnhout.bsky.social @pettorelli.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Yes, and some prominent ecologists have also been making similar arguments for even longer - hence the importance of mutual respect, which was somewhat difficult to detect in the rather dismissive initial comment.

Should Ecology be more proactive & vocal on one of the key issues of our times? What systemic & institutional changes are needed for the ecological community to be at the forefront of the response? If these are questions that speak to you, this new paper may be of interest lnkd.in/eXfXG4xM

The authors rightly emphasize the need for greater engagement between ecologists and political ecologists, though this is not a new insight. However, productive interdisciplinary engagement requires mutual care and respect, so the tone of this particular remark strikes me as being counterproductive.

Agree that the actual *impacts* (livestock depredations, attacks on people etc) of wolves in Europe are relatively minimal.

However, as the evidence clearly shows, conflicts over wolves is a very different story.

Really enjoyed this one, particularly the discussion about the different ways people engage with nature. This is often neglected or simplified in debates about conservation and rewilding, when it should be central given how they increasingly shape and frame how people interact with nature.

That’s quite a bold statement. Are there examples of wolf reintroductions that resulted in minimal human-wildlife conflict?

First male white-tailed eagle to breed in Ireland in over a century found dead in Co Clare While white-tailed eagles don’t often die from poisoning, a ‘disturbing’ increase in poisonings has been observed over the last three to five years.

1. All eagle deaths, esp in a small population, are a loss but some are harder to take than most. Sadly, our 1st breeding male, released in 2008, was recently picked up dead. This bird deserves a proper obituary to put his life (and death) in context

www.thejournal.ie/investigatio...

Extractive emissions for Norway are approximately 4,200 higher than emissions avoided by domestic EV use

"We will explore more, find more and extract more"

Norway announces its largest ever expansion of fossil fuel extraction. We don't get to claim we're climate heroes while we aggressively and almost anxiously seek to increase supply of the stuff that causes it.

Thanks Fintan. I think the wolf’s conservation status in the bio regions is based on data from 2013-2018, so I wonder if it’s still reliable given the latest population data (2017-2023) shows a 35% increase in the overall population and positive trends for 7 of the 9 sub-populations?

Are there any circumstances where conservation NGOs might consider it reasonable to lower the wolf’s protection status in Europe?

The European conservation movement’s disappointment with the shift in wolf management policy is understandable. However, for the reasons outlined below - particularly the empowerment of rural communities - a more flexible and adaptive approach to wolf management could help to foster coexistence.

“What many of us are now realizing is that coexistence is more of a process than a solution, and that this process must begin by consulting with people closer to the ground, especially those who are being asked to share space with large carnivores and other wildlife.”

A shifting baseline theory of debates over potential lynx and wolf reintroductions to Scotland - Ambio In Scotland, efforts to reintroduce extirpated species have been marred by guerrilla rewilding and social conflicts. We ask whether these conflicts could at least in part be the product of shifting ba...

🚨 New paper! 🚨

The #lynx and #wolf have been extinct in #Scotland for over 400 years. Could divisions over their #reintroduction, linked to #rewilding, be in part the product of shifting baseline syndrome? 🐺

Check out this new paper to find out 👇

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Desert Island Discs - Professor Carl Jones, conservation biologist - BBC Sounds Professor Carl Jones, biologist, shares the soundtrack of his life with Lauren Laverne.

Big fan of Desert Island Discs, so I really enjoyed this interview with conservation biologist and rewilding pioneer Carl Jones about his life’s work saving species and rebuilding ecosystems.

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

Perhaps they wouldn’t be particularly good or memorable ones, but they’d still be stories.

Curtailing people’s ability to read widely and carefully, to locate, assess, and compare different sources for themselves, and to write in their own voice about what they find and what it means, is arguably more effective than censorship. It is also one of the most obvious effects of generative AI.

Speaking to my dad earlier, he told me of a family near Rostrevor nearly burned out by the recent Mourne fires. Told to evacuate, the woman of the house took to sprinkling holy water round the garden. The flames came within metres of the house - then turned. Luck, faith, or the land minding its own?

Fed up of the sheer numbers of journalists & media outlets that are losing it over de-extinction & giving uncritical PR to Colossal. Stupidity or collusion? They ought to be asking better & tougher questions on the underlying purposes of this. Spoiler: it’s not about conservation or the animals.

With wildfires impacting people and nature in Scotland, Norway, and the Mourne Mountains in NI over the last few days, this is a timely new paper exploring the complex role of fire in rewilding.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Irish flax in resilient food systems Two farmers are regrowing the Irish linen industry while restoring wildlife, reconnecting communities, and regenerating food systems.

As everyone is talking about Ireland this St Patrick's Day...

theecologist.org/2025/mar/17/...

"Two farmers are regrowing the Irish linen industry while restoring wildlife, reconnecting communities, and regenerating food systems."

theecologist.org/2025/mar/17/...