A GOOD MORNING FROM LEGAL JUSTICE

 Good morning! Good news on general licences in Northern Ireland and also some updates on other issues.

 

Northern Ireland: new general licences which permit killing of a variety of birds are now published - click here.  The new licences are much improved: fewer species are listed and the lists make a lot more biological sense. For a bit more detail see our blog - click here.

 

These licences are now much closer in line with those in England (where we have taken successful legal challenges), Wales (where we took the former licences to court and although we lost the case, the changes that followed were what we had asked for) and Scotland (where changes have happened in response to those elsewhere in the UK and without us having to intervene, as yet). In particular, the slimmed down version of the 'conservation' licence, TPG3, only applies during the breeding season and only includes a couple of corvid species.  In addition, the licences are much better and more tightly worded than before.  

 

It has taken a long time, and quite a lot of effort, and quite a lot of money spent on legal fees, to get these changes but they wouldn't have happened without Wild Justice. And by Wild Justice we mean you, our supporters too because many of you responded to the consultations (one aborted and one completed) that the Northern Ireland authorities launched.  And, of course, you funded all the legal challenges across the UK. You helped get this change - thank you.

 

 

 

Sewage challenge: we now know the date for our appeal on refusal of permission for judicial review - a week today, 12 January.

 

Lead levels in game meat: the National Game Dealers Association website still maintains that their members are selling lead-free game meat - this simply isn't true - click here.

 

Petitions: 

• Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife, 102,616 signatures, will be debated in Westminster Hall on Monday, 9 January - click here.
• Our own, Limit the shooting season of Woodcock, 104,100 signatures, is still live until 25 January and is still gathering signatures. See here for the top-performing constituencies - click here -  and click here - for the petition itself.
• We support this petition, Make swift bricks compulsory in new housing to help red-listed birds, 40,426 signatures - please see if you can support it and maybe help it get to 100,000 signatures too - click here.

 

If you like what we do and would like to make a general donation which will be used across our range of work, then please consider donating through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post - see details here.

 

That's it for now. Thank you so much for your support throughout 2022.We couldn't do any of this without you.    

 

Thank you,

 

Wild Justice (Directors: Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay).

 

 

 

This is the 131st Wild Justice newsletter.