Tag: Aviva

The Latest Enviro-scam – ‘Celtic Rainforests’

On By JacIn Climate, Colonialism, Environmentalism, Farming, Public Funding30 Comments

I ended last week’s piece on the purchase by Tir Natur of land in the Elenydd, the beautiful ‘wilderness’ between Lampeter and Llanwrtyd, by saying that I was waiting for further information on what was planned to have been the second part of that offering.

Well, I’ve since had a response from the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’, but it’s not entirely satisfactory. More on that in part two. But first . . .

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TIR NATUR AND ‘CELTIC RAINFORESTS’

I pointed out last week that the land bought by Tir Natur, is in the Cwm Doethïe-Mynydd Mallaen Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Which means it is already protected, and in the care of Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

That being so, why does it need ‘rewilding’? Well, I have since learnt that this SSSI is one of four sites in Wales already appearing on the Celtic Rainforests (Wales) website. (Maybe someone should tell them that ‘Snowdonia’ is now Eryri.)

So why isn’t the rainforest aspect mentioned on the Tir Natur website?

Of the others, Eryri is of course a National Park; Elan Valley is owned or managed by Dŵr Cymru; and Cwm Einion (aka ‘Artists Valley’) is another SSSI that runs up behind Ffwrnais in north Ceredigion.

Which means that all four sites so far chosen for restoration to their imagined pristine state of ‘Celtic Rainforest’ are under some form of public agency control. So why can’t the bodies involved do the work themselves?

Perhaps I’ve given the game away in the title to this week’s piece. The Celtic Rainforest baloney is just another way for ‘environmentalists’ to grab land, and for big business to make money.

Checking the background of Celtic Rainforests I ran across this advertisement put up by Wildlife Trusts Wales (WTW). This is the name of a body that abolished itself on 31 March 2021. So it has no official registered or regulated standing

Before that date the individual Welsh Trusts had been represented by WTW in dealings with the Englandandwales Wildlife Trusts (WT). Now they belong directly to WT, just like English county Trusts.

Attributable to the almost complete absence of Welsh involvement in ‘Welsh’ wildlife trusts.

Getting back to the Celtic Rainforests, The manager vacancy was filled by Gethin Davies, who also works for Parc Eryri. Which, if nothing else, explains why the project is based at the Park’s HQ in Penrhyndeudraeth.

Anyway, seeing as this land bought by Tir Natur is already a SSSI, and is to be planted with native trees, how much rewilding will actually happen? Or does planting trees count as rewilding?

To finish this section let me introduce one of Celtic Rainforests volunteers, who believes, ” . . . systemic racism is built into the way we view and use land; how it’s parcelled up and managed.”

For someone I can confidently locate on the political left she’s strangely blind to the class dimension to land ownership. Instead, she prefers a more simplistic, black and white interpretation. Literally! White people bad, everybody else good.

This Rainforests volunteer condemns colonialism but seems blind to a ruling group’s middle class, aligned with corporate capital and serving Globalist aims, working against an indigenous ethno-cultural minority.

Are there any depths of idiocy this anti-white bullshit can’t plumb? Perhaps not; for to believe a US academic this week, drinking cows milk makes you a Nazi.

Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at NYU, criticized The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law on January 14. In a blog post, Caplan claimed that whole milk has been used as a symbol by white supremacists.

As you can guess, I’ve had a gutsful of this nonsense. Despite being difficult to take it seriously at times it’s still racism. It must be called out and defeated.

But of course, in this context, it’s another weapon in the anti-farming arsenal.

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RHOS-FARCH, PENNAL

If the name sounds familiar it’s because I wrote about this farm in July last year, in the piece, ‘Farming’ – The Globalist Way!’. So this is by way of an update.

Last July I told you it was suspected that Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust had bought Rhos-farch, a farm of 625 acres overlooking the historic village of Pennal. Here’s how Savills describes the holding.

And here’s a map to help you further. Rhos-farch is coloured in pink.

I can now confirm that Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust (MWT) received £3,000,000 to buy Rhos-farch. Certainly, that’s what’s suggested in the accounts. The clip below says the money came from Aviva via the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts.

Note “restore it to Celtic Rainforest“. This is the reason for the funding.

But that clip above also says that Rhos-farch will be “open to visitors as a MWT nature reserve“. We can almost guarantee that some visitors will get lost, or think the nature reserve extends over neighbouring farms.

Seeing as Savills had priced the property at £3,500,000 I wondered if MWT had received money from anywhere else. So I wrote to the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’, asking if any money had come from that quarter.

The answer was no. But I was sent copies of email correspondence, from last summer, between interested parties. Despite redactions we can assume the ‘Welsh Government’ was a participant, if only because it was holding the copies.

Other participants that can be clearly identified from the emails are Wildlife Trusts Wales (conduit for the Aviva money), and the Celtic Rainforest Creation Manager (Wales). Confirming that even though Rhos-farch is not mentioned on the Rainforests website it is obviously lined up.

The wildlife trust’s purchase is not welcomed by locals. Certainly not by local farmers.

One reason for that is the farms in the area, including Rhos-farch, benefit from a local shoot, a useful addition to their income. Of course, Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust will not allow shooting, and this will impact negatively on other farms.

The issue even got an airing in Nation.Cymru last year, which reported retirees and good-lifers trying to impose their views on locals. The giveaway was the paragraph beginning, “I was upset when moving here that there seemed to be an us and them atmosphere in the village.”

(Of course it never occurs to these buggers to ask how this division arose.)

Thankfully, the answer came later in the piece:

I and all my family are Pennal born and bred, and it winds me up terribly that incomers want to change our way of life and also tell us what we can and can’t do. If all the anti shooting brigades in the village don’t like what we do in the countryside, maybe they should move back to where they came from.

I find it interesting that Nation.Cymru should run this article around the same time as the emails I’ve mentioned were being exchanged. And perhaps as the Rhos-farch sale was being finalised. But N.C is extremely well connected in Corruption Bay.

Though seeing as Rhos-farch is not mentioned on the Celtic Rainforests website, how many other farms, other sites, are being lined up?

One final thought. Rhos-farch was never in Montgomeryshire, or Powys. It was in the old county of Merioneth, now in Gwynedd. So why was it bought by the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust?

Is it because the vendors, one of them a senior ‘Welsh Government’ civil servant, live in the old county of Montgomeryshire?

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CONCLUSION

If it was simply about preserving and perhaps enhancing rainforests, then I’d be fine with that. We could ban felling, clear the rhododendrons and other invasive species, plant more trees – and then leave it to Nature.

Given that the rainforests I know locally are typically dark, dank places, steep slopes and narrow valleys, no good land would be lost and no one would be inconvenienced.

And the website agrees with me.

You are never far from the sound of cascading water, and with the huge boulders and ravines galore, these forests are an ideal place for adventures.

“Adventures“?

That description also tells us these sites are unsuitable for the grazing that is constantly advocated! Though bear in mind that what these areas might have known in the past was not the right kind of grazing.

For that’s how it works when ‘environmental’ arguments are used against Welsh farming. It starts with dreaming up ways to make money, grab land – and then comes the excuse.

Step 1: Think of imaginative ways to achieve the objective.

Step 2: Dream up a ‘problem’ to justify what you’ve decided on.

Deception is the essence of the ‘climate crisis’; responsible for Net Zero impoverishing the West through ruinous electricity bills that drive industry away and make life more difficult for ordinary people.

Feeding off this prime lunacy are associated disorders such as the ‘threat’ from CO2! All too predictably, this is one of the justifications used for the Celtic Rainforests scheme.

It should go without saying that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is to the fore in connecting trees with corporate money-making.

Pushing the same message on the UK level is the Climate Change Committee. Here’s an extract from a CCC report on Wales published less than a year ago.

“Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere“! Life on Earth depends on carbon dioxide. Remove it, and everything – including we humans – dies.

Seeing as we’re talking of rainforests it’s worth remembering that this all started decades ago, in attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, and the rainforests of south east Asia. But more recently, someone realised it could be brought nearer home and used in the Globalist-environmentalist war on farming.

And remember! “Just 4.3% of the entire rainforest landscape is ancient woodland“, says the State of Wales Rainforest Report (page 8). So plenty of room to expand. Plenty more farms to buy.

And who’ll decide what must be ‘restored’? A fair question – because most of Wales qualifies as “Rainforest Zone”.

The map comes from an article in Nation.Cymru in October 2022. It seems to be attributed to Guy Shrubsole, whose name crops up a lot in such discussions. The article even names the Elenydd.

Shrubsole is said to have founded Right to Roam, a gang of self-entitled narcissists who feel they have the right to traipse wherever they damn well please. Among their number we find the ‘racist countryside’ woman we encountered earlier.

In conclusion . . . I often watch Neil Oliver’s monologues on YouTube. Neil’s persona non grata with the Beeb for challenging Covid, climate change, and all the other lies. He rambles a bit, and he’s not always right, but he’s a sincere guy.

Anyway, and as Neil Oliver always says: “It’s never about what they say it’s about“.

How true that is. Bear it in mind.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Land Of Our Fathers, But Not Our Children

On By JacIn Colonialism, Environmentalism, Farming, Wind Turbines46 Comments

This post is about what’s described as “Wales’ largest rewilding site“. I suspect it’s about more than ‘rewilding’. Because there’s usually big money involved with ‘environmental’ schemes nowadays.

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TIR NATUR: WHO’S WHO?

I’ve written about this outfit a few times in recent years. But to get you started, here’s the Tir Natur website, and here’s the Charity Commission entry.

When I first encountered Tir Natur it seemed to be a very amateurish outfit, but now it appears more professional. (That’s not always a compliment.) And there also seems to have been an almost complete change of personnel.

The name I recall from the beginning was Stephen Jenkins. And he gets a mention on the website, telling us he’d left:

The capture above confirms that Tir Natur was formed in 2021. But not actually registered with the Charity Commission until June of 2022.

The only founding member still with Tir Natur might be Gwenan Jenkins-Jones. She’s had training in how to spot money laundering. Which might come in useful at a ‘rewilding’ charity.

These changes are also reflected in the address given.

For the address now shown with the Charity Commission is Moat Farm, Trimsaran, to the west of Llanelli. Though the old address, Y Beudy, Lanlwyd, Pennant, Ceredigion SY23 5JH, also appears on the website.

The Pontyberem address is perhaps where we’ll find the chair of the trustees, Tatatia ‘Tash(a)’ Reilly; for one of the farm owners is a Lindsey Reilly.

Tatatia was the director of a company called Dashtan Ltd. In the business of ‘Residents property management’, which was formed and folded in less than a year. A phenomenon which, as you know, always gets my antennae twitching.

Her co-director was Bogdan Edward Staniaszek. The company address was given as this property not far from Swansea city centre.

Did this in any way link with Tir Natur’s activities?

I suspect those living at Moat Farm are relative newcomers to Wales. ‘Nice little place in the country’ and all that. Same applies to a number of other Tir Natur trustees. I see two smallholders among them.

Definitely getting a whiff of good-lifers here. Though these are the ‘farmers’ Tir Cymru claims to be working with. None are real farmers.

Then there’s a couple of eco loonies who also come from outside of Wales. James Hitchcock, formerly of Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust, and now Rewilding Britain. And Tim Birch, still looking over his shoulder for the Derbyshire gamekeepers he smeared, and now involved in just about every enviroscam.

Next, Bronwyn Jamie Bunt-Brown, who may be American. And was living in Surrey when she ran this short-lived company. And there was another company that never filed accounts, or seemed to do anything, before being struck off.

Bronwyn became a trustee 25 March, 2025. Someone who joined on the same day was Pamela Louise Noakes. While Bronwyn seems to have moved to Wales Pamela sill lives in London, where she works for M&C Saatchi Group.

This company has worked with Rewilding Britain. Fancy! And is keen to offset its carbon emissions. Noakes’ role is Global Director of Sustainability. Curiously, this day job is not mentioned in her Tir Natur bio. Why would that be, I wonder?

Turning to the ‘Executive Team’, those who run Tir Natur day to day, presents very much the same picture, with the obvious exception of Gwenan Jenkins-Jones. I hope she’s getting well paid, because her mere presence is invaluable to this scam.

To help her provide a Welsh gloss there’s Dr Elen Robert, whose full-time job is as a translator for Natural Resources Wales. Is NRW – that is, us – paying her to do translation work for Tir Natur?

Kilner’s the one on the left, I think

Dan Ward’s day job is with North Star Transition, another interloper organisation.

I could go on, but I’ll just mention David Kilner who, as Development and Programme Lead, might be the top man. Dai is also involved with Climate Cymru, where ‘diversity’ seems to be more important than the climate or the environment.

I say that because you may recall it was the BAME department of Climate Cymru, back in 2024, that called for dogs to be banned from the countryside because they offended a certain group that really should start adapting and integrating.

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MONEY, MONEY, MONEY?

With money from somewhere, Tir Nature has bought (or “secured“) 1195 acres of Ceredigion. Here’s a report on the purchase from the County Times.

And here’s a video put out by Tir Natur.

According to an article last week in Nation.Cymru half of the £2.2m has been raised. Farmers Weekly talks of “a philanthropic bridging loan”

The Charity Commission website shows that over £900,000 appeared from somewhere before the end of June last year. But where?

Less than two years ago Tir Natur was skint. Though there is now at least one active Crowdfunder page. And there seems to have been an earlier Crowdfunding attempt that closed about a year ago after raising £60,000.

With a sizeable donation in match funding coming from Aviva which, as we know, works with BlackRock. Here’s more information on the Aviva Communities Fund, which has donated £28,264, that we know of.

One of the reasons I’m focussing on the money is because there are many examples of ‘rewilding’ projects and the like that have gone financially awry, perhaps taken on burdens that became too heavy.

One example of overreach would be Highlands Rewilding, which may be the model being followed by Tir Natur. This outfit struggled to pay off the bank loan.

If it’s not overreach then ‘rewilding’ is often a front for milking government schemes.

An example of this would be another case from the Highlands. With Aberdeen Investments being honest about the motives behind the company’s interest in ‘rewilding’.

The estate was acquired by abrdn three years ago for £7.5m as a way to offset carbon emissions from its property portfolio.

The Highlands now are over-run with investment funds and asset managers looking for ‘environmentalists’ to front for them so they can rake in the money from carbon capture and other wheezes.

And there are plenty willing to play the acceptable public face of corporate greed. New groups sprout quicker and better than any fungi they claim to grow.

Just yesterday a good contact drew my attention to Wild Cymru, which is rewilding 210 acres of Ceredigion, at Cefn Garthenor, near Tregaron. The farm is owned by Neil Alistair Hughes of Savoir Beds.

The Chair of Wild Cymru is Daniel Gruffydd Jenkins-Jones. Might he be related to Gwenan Jenkins-Jones of Tir Natur?

A few days earlier a different source told me about another outfit also operating in Ceredigion. This is Oxygen Conservation, which now owns the 300 acres of Esgair Arth.

The guy who seems to own the company, Roy Barry Bedlow, has a string of similar companies. And it’s all about investment, not the environment.

A number of his companies carry the ‘L C’ handle, which stands for ‘low carbon’. One of those companies is L C Energy, which supplies woodchip. But don’t worry, this isn’t shipped across the Atlantic, it’s all “sustainably sourced within the UK“.

Biomass is a scam within a scam. Get big grants to plant native hardwood trees, instead plant quick-growing foreign species, grab the grants and subsidies, chop ’em down, flog off the wood as ‘renewable energy’, sell the land, move on to the next scam.

It should go without saying that Roy Barry Bedlow is based in Jersey.

Finally, a worrying possibility raised by someone who knows about these things, is that this Tir Natur project might qualify for payments under the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS), which would not have been the case under the old Basic Payments Scheme.

This would be wrong, and can be avoided if the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ insists that food must be produced for any land or landowner to qualify for SFS payouts. Otherwise, it’s not farming, is it?

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NEIGHBOURS

Let’s take a closer look at the land in question, and its surroundings. Such as the planned windfarms. Didn’t I mention the windfarms! How remiss of me.

The map shows four planned windfarms and the land Tir Natur is claiming. As you can see, they are very, very close. (I am indebted to the group that provided the map.)

The orange access road running south from Bryn Cadwgan goes over National Trust land to the village of Pumsaint. This is the only viable access for the turbine parts and the vast amounts of concrete needed for each turbine base. I covered this issue in November 2023 in The Road To Hell.

Now you might think that the peace and tranquility promised by an area returned to nature doesn’t sit well with an industrial site next door. With work going on for years.

But it doesn’t end there. Word I’m getting from locals says Bute is scouting more land over towards Teifi pools and Pontrhydfendigaid, north east of Tregaron.

And then there are the three farms in the area reportedly bought by the Foresight Group, which has been been busy in recent years buying Welsh farms and planting trees for investors.

But now it gets rather curious. Because I’m told the farms sold to Foresight had not long before been bought by a stranger to the area who’d made his pile in pet cremations! Yes, honestly.

This man, James Uys, is originally from Stroud in Gloucestershire. He played rugby and cricket for the local teams, and is big in sheepdog sales.

His business was almost certainly Limekiln Pet Crematorium, sold to Pet Cremation Services. Pet Cremation Services Ltd is the trading name for Time Right Ltd.

I don’t know how much Uys got for the pet cremation business, but he seems to have sold it in November 2017. And subsequently sold Limekiln Farm in September 2023 for a stated £3,000,000.

Some locals think Uys is a stalking-horse for Foresight, maybe others. Which would be odd, given what he’s on record as saying.

The value of agricultural land is hitting record highs as rich people seek loopholes to avoid inheritance tax, it is being reported.

Wealthy investors who have discovered the legal technicality are snapping up fields – and as a consequence prices are soaring to around £11,000 an acre, making life difficult for farmers. One newspaper reported on the case of a 50-year-old farmer from Gloucestershire who is in the process of selling his hundred-acre estate so he can buy a larger plot elsewhere. James Uys says he hopes to make £3m from the sale.

Did Uys move west, where land is cheaper, to find that “larger plot“. For in addition to what’s discussed here, I’m also told he’s bought a farm near Rhandirmwyn.

Bizarrely, the most recent report I have of Mr Uys is that he is the new tenant of Penlan Farm, Upper Chapel, near Brecon. There were 22 other candidates, including many young locals.

The farm is owned by the Penllergaer Estates in Swansea. Which has an interest in solar farms, as I reported in November 2021. (Scroll to the section ‘Follow the Money’.)

UPDATE: As this section is headed ‘Neighbours’, here’s two of Tir Natur’s supporters talking about the project. One is Jon Moses of Right to Roam. The other is Alasdair Campbell, Executive Director of Somerset Wildlands.

Campbell talks dismissively of “these guys“, who are of course the local farmers. Believing, it would seem, that people like him should have more say about what happens in Wales than local people.

Two arrogant outsiders. Which about sums up ‘rewilding’ in Wales.

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CONCLUSION

Whatever Tir Natur may say, I believe they’re fronting for somebody else. Somebody hoping to make lots of money. I say that for a number of reasons.

First, the land Tir Cymru claims to have acquired is, as the video I linked to tells us, already a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is already protected. For Tir Cymru to want to take it over can only mean they want to make changes.

Perhaps ‘reintroduce’ species like the Eurasian lynx.

‘I’m going to live in Wales’

Second, and in addition to be being an SSSI, the Elenydd is perhaps the last true wilderness in Wales. Consequently, to suggest it needs ‘rewilding’ is absolute bullshit. Like suggesting the Mona Lisa would be improved with a moustache and sunglasses.

Only those with a hidden agenda would insult our intelligence in this way.

But let’s take the claim at face value. If ‘developers’ have their way this ‘rewilded’ area will be surrounded by wind turbines. How will the constant hum and vibration, the flicker, affect wildlife? The lynx and other species will move out.

And the large, slow-moving birds that Tir Natur hopes to attract won’t stand a chance against the blades of the wind turbines.

Going back to the video again, the commentary claims to be “celebrating Welsh history and culture” – while snidely condemning that heritage for the bad farming practices Tir Natur wants to remedy.

Tir Natur promoting themselves as knights in shining green armour coming to save the Welsh environment – from those who have cared for it for over two millennia.

The video talks of bringing in Carneddau ponies. But a contact who knows the farmers that look after these animals says they’ve had no approach from Tir Natur. Which makes me remember a ‘rewilding’ scheme, near Machynlleth, that talked of “reintroducing” Welsh  horses – then they brought in a Polish breed!

Put it all together and you might understand why I’m a wee bit cynical. Why I don’t buy the story that the land Tir Natur has acquired in the Elenydd is just a ‘rewilding’ project, and nothing more.

I believe there’s much more to it.

FOOTNOTE: This week’s piece was to have been in two parts. The second part about a 625 acre farm on the Gwynedd side of Machynlleth bought by Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust with Aviva-Blackrock money. I’m waiting for further information.

But that’s the state of rural Wales today. Those with roots in this land are being elbowed out by recent arrivals and groups serving the Globalists’ anti-human agenda. With many of them funded and supported by the ‘Welsh Government’ to do the elbowing.

It’s a form of Clearance.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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WWF War On Farmers Takes To The Sea!

On By JacIn Colonialism, Environmentalism, Farming, Globalism, World Economic Forum, WWF29 Comments

In a sense, this piece follows on from last week’s post about Plaid Cymru betraying Welsh farmers with absurd claims that agriculture alone is responsible for the pollution in our rivers.

We’ll meet again that Nazi-origined, anti-humanity crew of Globalist schemers in WWF, but also some interesting new faces. First, we head to Pembrokeshire.

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LAVERBREAD TYCOONS

When preparing last week’s piece I was sent information about a company down west in the seaweed business. The name I was given was Câr y Môr. I was told this outfit returned a loss of £278,000 on a turnover of just £600k.

Which my source – with a lifetime in business himself – assured me was unsustainable. How did this company stay afloat? (I shall try to avoid the water-themed analogies, metaphors and allusions.)

So I went digging. Which wasn’t easy. The Companies House website told me it’s registered with the Financial Conduct Authority. By translating the company name into English you turn this up.

Now you’d think it would be a simple matter to go to the FCA website, type in RS008172, and Robert would become your cousin’s father. But no, it’s never that simple on the FCA website.

Through a combination of luck and persistence I eventually found For the love of the sea Ltd Registration Number: 8172. Here are the accounts confirming the parlous financial situation.

That’s despite receiving, as this piece from February 2022 tells us, a £300,000 grant from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. There’s talk of a bridging loan, which may explain the loan in May 2024 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

This big charity was mentioned in last week’s piece as a major donor to the WWF, RSPB, Soil Association, The Rivers Trust, and many others on the eco-shyster merry-go-round.

But then there was another loan taken out this year with NatWest Social & Community Capital.

And it’s difficult to get a handle on exactly who’s involved, and what other companies may be under the Câr y Môr banner, or trading under different names.

For example, I found Solva Seafoods. Which proclaims it’s ‘Part of Câr y Môr’.

This Guardian article from November last year helps explain what’s going on, and why the money is so readily available. The magic words are, “environmental awareness” and “vegan“.

I’ve brought my family here to explore the “seaweed revolution”. A happy combination of increased environmental awareness and more people seeking vegan alternatives has taken seaweed mainstream.

Another company mentioned in the newspaper article was the Pembrokeshire Beach Food Company Ltd. Which also seems to be linked to Câr y Môr.

It’s had a loan from the Development Bank of Wales. Perhaps to buy a pub. For the company is now registered as The Old Point House Ltd and uses that address.

And other funding from the National Lottery Community Fund.

Clearly, seaweed has gone “mainstream” for Guardian writers. And that’s good enough for the readers of that newspaper who infest our political class and major funding bodies.

Which gives us small-scale operations in Pembrokeshire, which may or may not be economically viable, at the front of the queue for funding because they tick the right boxes.

But even though seaweed gets the publicity I can’t help think that the real money may not be in seaweed but in crabs and lobsters. How does lobsters being boiled alive sit with the comrade vegans at the WWF and elsewhere?

Are our crustacean friends expendable in the service of the bigger scam?

But enough from Pembrokeshire – lovely as she is – for I think all this talk of seaweed is drawing bigger fish. (Sorry!).

UPDATE 22.10.2025: Someone directed me to this funding which, although it mentions seaweed, seems to confirm my suspicion that the real business is crabs and lobsters.

This source even suggests that these crustaceans are bought in and sold as local – with a 100% markup!

There have been other grants, one from ‘Welsh Government‘ via the WCVA.

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SEAGRASS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

The article below appeared in last Saturday’s Western Mail. (Here in pdf format.) It’s basically about the threat of pollution to seagrass on the coast of Llŷn.

It’s cleverly written, pushing the right buttons and worded to evoke a positive reaction. There’s psychology applied here. I’m surprised no one takes credit for it.

But maybe we can hazard a guess at the writer. As I hope to explain.

You’ll see I’ve marked it with numbers. So let’s go through them.

1/ “Five-year-old Aled” is a classic way to start an article in order to get the reader on your side. What hard-hearted bastard would not be receptive to what follows an intro like that?

2/ “Climate change“. The foundation scam upon which the superstructure of further lies, sleaze, political capture, corporate greed and behavioural control is built.

3/ Who calculates these ‘losses’? Answer: The same enviro-shysters seeking to profit from putting them right.

4/ Cymru Can is yet another dollop of Future Generations bullshit.

5/ The ubiquitous Derek Walker, Future Generation Commissioner for Wales. He featured in last week’s piece. His predecessor Sophie Howe is now on the books at Bute Energy, paving the way for wind turbines, pylons, and God knows what else.

6/ The Future Generations legislation is now a decade old. Yet no other country on Earth has decided to follow the lead. Strange, that. Or maybe not.

7/ It was inevitable that we’d encounter WWF Cymru, which also had a big part in last week’s presentation on Plaid Cymru betraying Welsh farmers.

8/ North Wales Wildlife Trust has received £328,850 from ‘Welsh Government’ contracts in the past 5 years; £10.73m in grants.

9/ Project Seagrass is new to me. I shall have more to say anon.

10/ Lottery funding, another feature we saw in last week’s piece.

11/ ‘Welsh Government’ – i.e. thee and me – will be paying for a seagrass project officer.

12/ Article mentions ” . . . nutrient run-off from agriculture and sewage“.

13/ But the WWF spokesperson, Penny Nelson, believes it’s solely due to, not just farming, but “intensive agriculture“. Yeah, lay it on thick, girl. The same lie we heard from the stage at the Plaid Cymru conference, and I reported in last’s week’s offering. She’s also a trustee at another coastal charity – in sea-girt Leicestershire.

14/ Colouring books from Uncle Carl! What next – drag shows?

15/ “Spreading stories“. When I was a boy, this meant fibbing. Making things up. And this is certainly what environmentalists do.

16/ Where exactly are these “disadvantaged coastal areas“?

17/ “More funding“. How much do you want? Because Wales is a rich country, and we have no pressing priorities.

18/ Did we mention “future generations“?’

19/ Here’s Derek Walker, again.

20/ Ah! the “climate emergency“. (See 2 above.)

21/ In case you missed it – the “climate emergency!”

Clearly, WWF Cymru, with seagrass and ‘the marine environment’, and with ‘Welsh Government’ support, is opening another front in the war against Welsh farmers. This time for polluting our coastal waters.

And yet . . . we earlier read about a thriving aquaculture in Pembrokeshire, which is a largely rural county, with a lengthy coastline, and many, many farms. Strange, that.

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SEAGRASS NEEDS INVESTORS

So what is this Project Seagrass? Here’s the website. To start with, it’s a registered charity. It was launched in 2015 but only since 2020 has the money rolled in.

Which coincides with the arrival as a trustee of Rosslyn Barr. Here’s her Linkedin profile. (Where she’s Rosslyn Clowe.) We see she’s Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Despite claiming to be active in countries around the world I was surprised to see that Seagrass Project’s given address is on the Brackla Industrial Estate, Bridgend. How long has it been there, I wonder? And who’s paying the rent?

Project Seagrass is of course a non-political organisation . . . well, until you see that it doesn’t use the X (Twitter) social media platform. Which tells you a lot.

Here’s a fuller profile of Rosslyn Barr-Clowe from the Project Seagrass website. But none of what we’ve read so far tells us her day job. Did she retire early? Win the Lottery?

Was she working in Malta for 6 years with Sharklab Malta?

If you scroll down on Linkedin you’ll see that the last ‘day job’ was with Royal London, where she worked for over 10 years, until eight years ago. Her last post was Head of Change Transformation (Intermediary).

But did she really leave the Royal London Group? I ask because I found this in a search, dated May this year. It links Rosslyn Barr with the Royal London Group. I found it on the Emphasis website, a company that helps people improve their writing skills, offering various courses, one shown below.

Is / was she a tutor with Emphasis? Did she write the piece that appeared in last Saturday’s Western Mail?

Like all big companies Royal London is into making money from pretending to be more altruistic, and the way to do that nowadays is to make people think your only motivation is to save the planet.

Royal London has gone in big. Just last year it splashed out £260m buying 21,000 acres of farmland. As Head of Property for Royal London Asset Management, Mark Evans, put it:

Working alongside South Yorkshire Pension Authority to invest into the largest farming transaction by capital value in the UK has provided an exceptional opportunity to launch our natural capital strategy.

Yeah, ‘natural capital’. Monetise everything.

Then, last month, Rosslyn Barr-Clowe joined another coastal protection outfit. This one being the Protected Areas Foundation, registered as a charity 29 November last year.

Interestingly, the two founding trustees are Suresh Nalin Weerasinghe, a lawyer with Aviva, which works with BlackRock. The other founder trustee is Patrick Peter Joseph Hargreaves, CEO at AKO Capital LLP. Director at AKO Capital Management Ltd. Portfolio Manager of the AKO Global Fund.

So the woman who is lead trustee at Project Seagrass, so busy around the Welsh coast at the moment, has just joined another coastal protection charity, where the two other trustees are most definitely from asset management and investments.

But we’re expected to believe it’s all about the quality of the water?

The Protected Areas Foundation (The PAF) is a UK charity dedicated to developing the capacity and skills of coastal communities, mobilising sustainable finance, and enabling co-governance to effectively manage marine protected areas.

Ah! Sustainable finance. What that really means is financial institutions capitalising on ‘sustainability’, often using mechanisms of their own invention and their own definition of what qualifies as sustainable.

And note how ‘Community’ is used again, as if it’s locals who’re going to benefit. In the WM piece I linked to earlier ‘community’ or ‘communities’ appeared no less than 5 times. Like I said, clever writing.

And before I forget, there’s yet another coastal charity with which Rosslyn Barr-Clowe is involved. Though this seems confined to Scotland, at the moment. It’s the Coastal Communities Network. And she’s been an Advisory Group Member since June 2021.

How many of these ‘coastal’ groups are there?

◊

HIDING BEHIND YOUNG ALED

Spare a thought for young Aled, because so many depend on him and others like him, but he just thinks he’s playing on the seashore.

Immediately behind him are the left wing, Globalist, anti humanity, vegan ‘environmental’ groups and NGOs. Breaking ground for those who follow.

Used as a distraction, hoping we’ll think this is the only money involved, are the National Lottery, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and other donors.

Demanding credit for ‘saving the planet’, are the clowns in Corruption Bay. All they’re doing is obeying orders from above.

Slightly further back we find the investment houses, the asset managers, looking for opportunities created by those mentioned in the previous paragraphs. The real money.

Back in the shadows, often controlling the ‘investors’, you’ll discern BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and other Globalist corporations.

At the very back, behind the curtain, setting the rules, are the supranational bodies like the UN, WEF, EU.

Thankfully, Aled is only a five-year-old boy, and his shadow isn’t big enough for all these bastards to hide in.

We see you!

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

‘Farming’ – The Globalist Way!

On By JacIn Environmentalism, Farming, Globalism25 Comments

Let me stress that the blog is not back, as such, not up and running as in days of yore. I’m just putting out the occasional piece.

This one because it complements last week’s offering about Globalists who dreamed up the ‘climate crisis’ now profiting from measures introduced to combat that fantasy.

And as with last week’s piece, we’ll see asset management funds, fund managers and the rest, staying in the background, operating through intermediaries.

◊

WHERE WE AT?

The farm in question is Rhos-farch, above Pennal. South-facing land overlooking the Dyfi and rising up to Tarren Hendre, the highest point in the immediate area (633m), shown in pink on the maps below.

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The consensus is that the farm’s been bought by Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust. There’s even a suggestion it’s been “gifted“.

Either way, the rumours talk of money provided by Aviva, the insurance company, which often fronts for BlackRock; which uses bodies like WWF, and Wildlife Trusts, to disguise the origin of the funding.

Nothing surprising there, because Aviva is working with other wildlife trusts in Wales, sometimes as part of the temperate rainforests restoration project.

Here’s estate agent Savills’ information for Rhos-farch. We see it covers 625 acres, and the asking price is £3,500,000. The property offers . . .

Diverse leisure, sporting, tree planting and environmental opportunities.

Strangely, there’s no mention of farming.

A1 Overview suggests the farm has done well from ‘Welsh Government’ or Natural Resources Wales funding over the past decade.

The farm participates in Welsh Government schemes like the Woodland Creation and Woodland Restoration Schemes. 

Farmers Weekly hints at further goodies available from tree planting.

The woodland includes coniferous and deciduous varieties and there is potential for further planting as identified by a recent feasibility survey carried out by Natural Resources Wales.

Though I’m struggling with this because the FW article is dated February 6, 2024, while what I assume to be the relevant document, the Machynlleth Forest Resource Plan, wasn’t approved until April.

Did somebody have a crystal ball?

The reference further confused by the fact Rhos-farch doesn’t seem to figure in the maps provided in the document.

◊

OTHERS INVOLVED

Scrolling down the estate agent’s literature we see that the solicitor listed (presumably acting for the vendor) is Agri Advisor. A Welsh company that’s expanded considerably in recent years, and now has branches everywhere.

There’s no branch in Cardiff itself, but there is one at Henstaff Court, just off the M4, south of Creigiau.

In cases like this, I like to get my bearings, but in this case Google Maps couldn’t take me beyond the entrance. Yet what I saw there was intriguing.

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Now you’re wondering why I highlighted the names of Agri Advisor and RSK ADAS.

Some may remember that RSK ADAS has appeared on this blog before. First, in Snake Oil And Land Grabs (December 2023), then More From Ireland Moor (October 2024).

In the first piece linked to, I said:

Tracing the ownership of RSK ADAS eventually gets us to Los Angeles and “global alternative investment manager” the Ares Management Corporation. You may not be surprised to learn that among the largest of Ares’ shareholders we find both BlackRock and Vanguard.

Agri Advisor and RSK ADAS being on the same board could be pure coincidence. But there are already too many worrying linkages and connections in this story to allow for any more coincidences.

Agri Advisor presents itself as the friend of the farmer, run by solicitors from Welsh-speaking farming families, a pukka Welsh organisation. Yet I have some doubts.

I feel it’s got increasingly close to the ‘Welsh Government, perhaps through Farming Connect, the state-run body for ‘good’ farmers.

Another source of confusion is the website, which has the company “Established in 2011“. But Companies House says Agri Advisor Ltd was formed in February 2013, Agri Advisor Holdings Ltd in May 2015, and Agri Advisor Legal LLP in February 2016.

The first two have always filed as dormant, the LLP is the operational company.

Then there’s the fact that AA has worked with wind farm companies. One I’m sure of is Belltower of Bristol, where the ownership trail takes us back to Foresight Group Holdings Ltd of Guernsey.

And if the name ‘Foresight’ rings a bell, it’s because this outfit has been buying up Welsh farms for distant investors to greenwash away their sins by planting trees.

Foresight is well in with the ‘Welsh Government’, and is no longer limiting its activities to wind turbines and trees. Its new Cardiff office seems to be run by former Development Bank of Wales staff.

So maybe Agri Advisors is now telling farmers they have to ‘adapt’, to give up land for renewables, ‘carbon capture’, rewilding, and all the other bollocks that serve no purpose except to further enrich the Globalists who dreamed up the ‘climate crisis’ scam.

All in all, it increasingly looks as if Agri Advisor is running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.

To conclude. Rhos-farch has either been bought by the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust with money from Aviva, Foresight, or possibly the ‘Welsh Government’; or it’s been bought by one of these and handed over, with strings, to the Trust.

Could we be looking at another Gilestone?

◊

CONCERNS

Rhos-farch has been sold by a couple I won’t name, but I cannot ignore the fact that the wife is a very senior civil servant with the ‘Welsh Government’.

I might have ignored her if she was in education, health, transport, or some other area, but here’s a clip from her Linkedin profile.

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And then I found this, referring to the husband:

. . . before acquiring his own holding and further acreage, taking his holding to 1200 acres, increasing the sheep and suckler cow numbers along with diversifying into tourism, letting residential properties and renewable energy and timber production.

This all refers to land and property in Montgomeryshire, not to Rhos-farch.

After reading it I was drawn back to what Savills said in its sales blurb:

 The current woodland is within both a Woodland Creation Scheme and Woodland Restoration Scheme regulated by Natural Resources Wales and with a number of years remaining on the contracts.

The unavoidable question is: have this couple’s land holdings and other assets benefitted from ‘Welsh Government’ decisions with which the wife was involved?

◊

SOCIALISM AND FARMING

Socialists have been hostile towards farmers since the Tolpuddle Martyrs were shipped off to Oz in 1834, and it was reinforced a century later by Stalin’s war on the kulaks for starving the workers and peasants. (Famine that had nothing to do with ‘Uncle Joe’ and collectivisation.)

When such attitudes became passé after the fall of Communism, socialists’ animus was revived by the Globalists and their buddies in various supranational bodies inventing the ‘climate crisis’. This also gave the Left a new excuse to target another old foe – capitalism.

But while many of the bruvvers still thought in terms of the caricature capitalist with top hat, big cigar, and dark satanic mills, the twenty-first century variety makes nothing, and is in fact pulling their strings.

And so the comrades’ new crusade was to save a planet being destroyed by farting cows and people who make things. In other words – destroy agriculture and de-industrialise the West. The Globalist agenda.

Which results in the industry with the highest percentage of Welsh speakers, the ‘glue’ holding together many rural communities, being destroyed by lying bastards who claim they want a million Welsh speakers by 2050.

◊

AND FINALLY . . .

To understand how Globalism operates, look no further than the UK Online Safety Act. Said to be protecting children from online harm but, in reality, censoring views that challenge or expose the Globalist agenda.

Globalist greed, and the desire to control, is filtered through captured politicians and a bought media, and either hides behind a ‘Who-could-object-to-that?‘ smokescreen, or else is premised on a lie.

On the plus side . . . the Globalist project is faltering; its Leftist and Muslim foot-soldiers are seen for what they are, its liberal useful idiots are ridiculed, Woke is dying, and no one is going to fight WWIII for Zelensky and his crooked friends.

Reducing the Globalists to open, blanket censorship and ever more obvious lies.

All-out confrontation can’t be far away.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

Commoners, Toffs, Envirogrifters

On By JacIn Colonialism, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Farming, Greens82 Comments

This week’s tale comes from Powys. It’s an old story with a modern twist. Local farmers and others up against those with more money and political clout, with the twist being the environmental angle.

The Crown Estate is involved, and we also encounter that ultimate expression of the environmental scam – ‘natural capital’, which puts a price tag (in the form of grants and subsidies expected) on every blade of grass.

◊

ON THE BLACK HILL

The area we’re going to focus on is roughly halfway between Builth and the border, an area containing Glascwm Hill (pinned) and the Black Hill. There are quite a few grouse butts in the vicinity.

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For reasons I didn’t query, the area is known as Ireland Moor. This contribution from the Ramblers confirms that and gives a little more information.

We’ll begin with establishing ownership of the land. And we start with a company called Ireland Moor Ltd (IM), registered in Jersey. Below is a clip from the Jersey companies registry.

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This company was wound up early in 2018, perhaps because it had been superseded by Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd (IMC), formed in July 2015. For more information, let’s turn to the new company.

The founding director was William Andrew Lewis Duff Gordon, and he was joined on June 6, 2016, by his three brothers. But Tom, the banker, left after just one day. He is with crypto outfit Coinbase.

Let’s turn to the charges for IMC, see who’s owed money.

I assume the first charge is for the purchase of Ireland Moor. The two creditors named are the Jersey-registered Ireland Moor Ltd, and Edward Warren Filmer. But if the land was owned by the Jersey company, does that mean the old company loaned the new company the money to buy the land?

UPDATE 16.10.2024: A comment to the blog tells me Filmer’s full name is Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera, and he’s linked with companies registered in Venezuela.

You’ll see four Land Registry title documents shown there, and here they are, in the order listed: WA484809 (no plan available), WA404806 (no plan available), WA667700 (with plan), and CYM427489 (with plan).

I’ve combined the two plans, but it leaves us with a problem.

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What we know is that the total price said to have been paid for the four titles was £1,160,000. (With £600,000 being mentioned as the buyer’s contribution in the legal charge.) But do these two plans cover the four titles, or are there plans missing?

Seeing as the Jersey registry tells us Ireland Moor Ltd is dissolved, then who now holds the debt against Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd? Has it all passed to the other name on the charge, Edward Warren Filmer?

The only company I can find with which Filmer’s involved is CGM Farming Ltd, formed in March 2015, just a few months before IMC.

Though ‘Farming’ is rather misleading, for this company’s in the business of, “Hunting, trapping and related service activities“. So I got to wondering about the name. Might the ‘GM’ stand for grouse moor(s)? And if so, what could the ‘C’ mean?

The Companies House filings give the address of an accountancy firm in Weybridge, Surry for CGM, but tell us Filmer lives in Wales.

There is another title mentioned on that first charge, under ‘Schedule 1’, page 16. This is against William Andrew Lewis Duff Gordon rather than the company.

Though the dates given in Schedule 1 do not tally with those given elsewhere. In fact, the dates given are before Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd was even formed! Something’s not right here.

It relates to “land lying to the south of Cwmpiben barn“. (Though I think that should read ‘Cwm-piban’.) It’s for a trifling £40,000. Here’s the title document and plan. And here it is pinned on the OS map. Not a million miles from Ireland Moor.

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The other outstanding charges against Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd are, first, with Lloyds Bank (December 2016). Another with Lloyds (January 2017), secured against the 7000 acres at Ireland Moor. With a further charge with Lloyds against ‘Gwaithla bungalow’, at Gladestry.

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POWYS MOORLAND PARTNERSHIP

The problem relayed to me is that local farmer-graziers fear there are plans afoot that will adversely affect them, and this explains them being kept out of the loop.

Let’s start with the Powys Moorland Partnership (PMP). I was unable to establish when this outfit began life, but it visited Ireland Moor in September 2017. It’s funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ through the Sustainable Management Scheme.

Where we read . . .

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I’m sure you’ve clocked the £600,000. Is this the same sum we saw earlier, and which I assumed was the contribution made by Ireland Moor Environmental Ltd to the £1,160,000 purchase price of the four titles?

If so, then what I didn’t know then of course was the source of that money.

Though there’s also something odd about PMP. On it’s homepage it describes itself as a “3 year collaborative project“, but we know it’s been running for at least seven years. And in that mission statement there is no mention of the farmers who graze the land.

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So who exactly are the partners in this ‘partnership’?

Also note that the capture above, from the Powys Moorland Partnership website, talks of: “. . . nearly 20,000 acres of moorland stretching from the Llanthony Valley in the south of the county to Beguildy common in the north . . . ”

Which is 43 miles by road, and not a lot less for a fit and adventurous crow. What’s more, Llanthony is not in “the south of the county“, it’s in Sir Fynwy (Monmouthshire).

If we’re talking about just 20,000 acres, over that distance, and we know that 7,000 are accounted for on the Black Hill and Glascwm Hill, then the other 13,000 must be scattered about in disparate parcels.

Though something I noticed about Llanthony on the OS map was the proximity of grouse butts. Is that what the Powys Moorland Partnership is all about?

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Maybe the ‘Welsh Government’, through the Sustainable Management Scheme, and more locally, the Powys Moorland Partnership, has accepted, even encouraged, some kind of alliance between local sporting interests and the environmental lobby.

The Crown Estate may also be involved. The map below, by Guy Shrubsole, was available through WalesOnline. It shows considerable Crown Estate holdings in the area.

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Quite a concentration in a small area. But it all makes sense.

Because it seems the PMP is little more than a vehicle for the Duff Gordons and their circle. Men like Peter Hood who rents the shooting rights on 5000-acre Beacon Hill from the Crown Estate.

Hood of course is one of those listed in the Powys Moorland Partnership’s ‘Who’s Who’, along with his gamekeeper David Thomas. Also there is Will Duff Gordon.

I believe the owners of the uplands we’ve looked at, including the Crown Estate and the Duff Gordons, have reached an understanding with the environmental lobby. The planet savers will turn a blind eye to the killing of grouse and the critters that prey on them to view the whole shebang through green-tinted glasses.

And of course, seeing as some farms might became unviable without their upland grazing the acquisitive interlopers of the local Radnorshire Wildlife Trust (RWT) look forward to more land becoming available.

The RWT has received £1,161,740 from the ‘Welsh Government’ in grants over the past 4 years. And it rises every year! Corruption Bay has no money for farmers, but plenty for those who put farmers out of business, and the scavengers who benefit.

◊

NATURAL CAPITAL

If we go back to the PMP website, we see a tab ‘Natural Capital’, so click on it. The opening paragraph reads:

The term ‘Natural Capital’ refers to the “stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources (e.g. plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people.” (Source: Natural Capital Protocol (2016).

Note the year, 2016. Which ties in perfectly with this document, prepared for the Fifth Assembly (2016 – 2021). Within it we find a contribution by Nia Seaton, asking. ‘Are we neglecting our natural capital?‘

I think it’s reasonable to assume the ‘Natural Capital’ bandwagon started rolling in Wales in or before 2015. Those ‘in the know’, those with contacts, would have had advance warning.

The natural capital report we’re looking at was prepared for PMP by environmental economist Phil Cryle, Duncan Royle, and Ian Dickie of Economics for the Environment Consultancy Ltd (eftec).

With the efforts of their labour reviewed by Dr Rob Tinch, also of eftec. Cosy!

Those involved clearly envision money being made available in the years ahead from exploiting ‘natural capital’. Yes, I know they want us to see it as conservation, but that’s no longer the motive.

The motive now is to put a price on, and thereby capitalise on, just about every square foot of heather, every cubic metre of soil. Even the air we breathe! And the payment won’t be a warm glow, it’ll be hard cash.

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And I’m serious about the air we breathe. For as you can see, it’s projected to be a nice little earner in the years ahead.

◊

CONCLUSION

Yet again, we see politicians and others in Corruption Bay throwing money at anybody who can work the magic words ‘environment’, or ‘habitat’, or ‘conservation’, into their pitch for funding. Or into any other way of making money.

Which explains tax haven company Ireland Moor Ltd rebranding itself to Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd. For public money going to a Jersey-registered company would not look good.

The relationship between those two companies, and more especially the ownership of the original company, needs to be established. As does the identity and the role of Edward Filmer.

Because I couldn’t help but notice that the other projects funded by the Sustainable Management Scheme have as their ‘lead organisation’ a county council, a national park, a wildlife trust, or a Community Interest Company, but with Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd public funding was given to a private limited company with shares.

And those shares are divvied up within a very wealthy family.

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Discussions and planning by the Powys Moorland Partners (aka Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd), and certain other parties, seem to exclude the graziers.

You don’t need a crystal ball to see what’s happening here. And where it’s headed. Grouse shooting can be very profitable. And as we read earlier, the ‘Welsh Government’ is already funding gamekeeper jobs via the PMP.

Finally, let’s not forget natural capital, which can be greatly enhanced by activities such as planting trees. Or, to put it crudely, greenwashing. I’m told Aviva, partner to WWF, has been spoken of favourably, and more than once, by the Duff Gordons.

The graziers are being sold out; they and their sheep are in the way . . . and getting rid of them dovetails perfectly with the ‘Welsh Government’s desire to end livestock farming.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Laundering Offshore Money The Green Way

On By JacIn Business and Commerce, Environmentalism, Globalism, Labour Party35 Comments

This is a theme I’ve dealt with before, the links between corporate funders, politicians, and environmental groups; but this time it comes from a slightly different angle.

Though the message stays the same:

‘Man is destroying the planet, and the only way to save us from the “sixth global mass extinction event” is to end livestock farming and let corporations buy the land for trees, windfarms, and other forms of greenwashing; with the environmentalists who’ve campaigned to bring us to this point given land for ‘rewilding’ and other purposes.’

The losers will of course be 95% of us, certainly in the West. Our energy will be more expensive, as will our food, which will increasingly be made up of factory-produced ‘meat’, and insects. Our movements will be restricted and the private car will be viewed as a selfish and unnecessary luxury from which we must be alienated.

You’ll own nothing, you’ll live in 15-minute neighbourhoods, and you’ll be blissfully unaware of your enslavement (thanks to whatever’s been added to your food).

◊

QUADRATURE CAPITAL

This story starts with the revelation by Open Democracy (Sept 18) that the Labour party received £4m from Quadrature Capital, a somewhat questionable outfit to be found in that bastion of financial probity, the Cayman Islands. Here’s the company website.

The timing is interesting, because in April 2023 the Quadrature Capital shares held by founding directors, Greg Howard Skinner and Suneil Setiya, were transferred to QC Ventures Ltd. Though it took them almost a year to notify Companies House.

It’s often reasonable in such circumstances to assume the change actually took place at the time of notification, and was ‘backdated’. Which could mean that at the time the donation was made to the Labour party Quadrature Capital was still a UK-registered company.

Which might be significant because Open Democracy tells us . . .

Electoral Commission records suggest Labour received the donation in the one-week window between former prime minister Rishi Sunak announcing the general election and the start of the ‘pre-poll reporting period’ in which all political donations over £11,180 had to be published weekly . . . .

The Cayman Islands is of course a British Overseas Territory, one of many offering ‘financial services’ with no questions asked. In fact, these repositories and conduits for dirty money play a vital role in maintaining the pre-eminence of the City of London.

The excellent video below (1:17:52) explains the situation very well. More especially, how and why this system came about. I urge you to watch it.

As I’ve said, the hedge fund that gave Labour £4,000,000 is Quadrature Capital.

But we’tre going to focus on Quadrature Climate Foundation. A semi-detached company registered with Companies House, that’s also a charity, with its own declared annual income of £130m.

The four directors / trustees are, the parent company Quadrature founders, Suneil Setiya and Greg Skinner; then Neil Paul Cosgrove, with a recent recruit being Jennifer Hooke. (Though Ms Hooke had previously been a director.)

The reason I’m telling you this is because a number of Welsh links have emerged. Far too many in my view.

And even though the story of Labour donations is new, the news of Quadrature splashing the cash to environmental groups was first reported in the Guardian in June last year.

Though what seemed to vex the Grauniad was that . . .

Quadrature Capital has stakes worth more than $170m (£135m) in fossil fuel companies

Which is a fraction of Quadrature’s total assets and a lot less than the millions given to pressure groups so they could subvert democracy by influencing governments’ policies behind the voters’ backs.

This generosity was . . .

. . . worth about £175m in 2021 and 2022. They included £4m to the European Climate Foundation . . . £2.7m to the Carbon Tracker Initiative; and more than £3m to the WWF.

The amount given to the European Climate Foundation has increased considerably, as I’ll explain in a minute. Which is why we’ll soon turn to the ECF.

But before that, and to give you some idea of the links between tax haven money, the Labour party, and envirogrifter pressure groups, here are some tweets from journalist Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) last week.

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This refers to Rachel Kyte, Starmer’s climate envoy . . . and also of Quadrature. Here’s Daniel Luhde-Thompson, and here’s who I take to be his wife. She became a director of Friends of the Earth in March.

Though a woman I think is Naomi’s mother, Ursel Luhde, was a FoE director from January 2007 until October 2009. Also a director of Friends of the Earth Charitable Trust in the same period.

I know this is heavy going, so here’s some light relief . . . another journalist, Robert Peston (@Peston), put out this post on X after learning that Quadrature claimed to be paying Corporation Tax!

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All in all, there’s something not right about Quadrature.

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EUROPEAN CLIMATE FOUNDATION (ECF)

Let’s start with the website of this outfit that by my calculations has had $46,127,158 from Quadrature Climate Foundation. Here’s a link to the ‘active grants’ page on the website. And here’s a link to its most recent annual report.

At the top of the ECF website homepage you read pious drivel that includes . . .

Our vision is a greener, more peaceful and democratic Europe made possible by climate action.

This seems to suggest that democracy and peace depend on Europe following the green path. And, by implication, if we deviate from that path of self-righteousness then we imperil democracy and risk war.

But that’s absolute bollocks. Net zero means more people being colder, more people being hungrier, more people being miserable, because they can no longer afford the essentials and the harmless luxuries their parents took for granted.

For the first time in generations living standards in the West are declining. This has nothing to do with a ‘climate crisis’, and everything to do with measures being pursued in response to this mirage, that in reality serve another purpose.

When we consider conflict, then man is no different to other animals. He is less likely to be aggressive when he’s content, when life is good. But net zero means shortages; and competition for scarce resources or produce always leads to conflict.

Well-fed lions loll about in the shade. Hungry lions look for something to kill.

Lower down the ECF homepage we find another gem. Click on ‘read more’ under ‘2023 annual report’, and you’ll see . . .

2023 not only tested our resilience but also underscored the critical importance of our mission, amid heightened political polarisation, a worrying resurgence of populism, and profound geopolitical upheaval.

“A worrying resurgence of populism“. Well it don’t worry this ol’ boy none.

To the ECF ‘populism’ means the long overdue awakening we see across Europe, wrongly limited by a dishonest media to ‘far right’ protests against immigration.

But the planet-savers know ‘populism’ also means people asking why net zero means the de-industrialisation of the West, making life more difficult, and more expensive.

Put it all together and the ECF is the authentic voice of the Globalist-Woke-Green-Left. Dangerously unhinged oligarchs and corporate leaders demanding censorship, and encouraging ‘women with penises’ to push the climate scam on the days when they and the comrades are not demanding open borders and supporting Muslim terrorists.

Yup, the full package (and that is not a reference to ‘transgender women’).

One of the groups funded by the ECF is the Green Finance Institute Ltd. (Formerly Green Finance Initiative Ltd.) Where the CEO is Rhian-Mari Thomas OBE, who is of course Welsh, and you’ll be reading more about her in the next section.

The Green Finance Institute has also donated to Labour.

What I found interesting about Dr Thomas is that her background is in banking, not matters environmental. Dare I suggest that she may be less concerned with saving us from our selfish selves than with using the climate scam to make mountains of moolah for those with whom she normally mixes?

(Slaps self on wrist for ungenerous thought!)

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GREEN FINANCE INSTITUTE & THE WELSH CONNECTIONS

What more can I tell you about Rhian-Mari Thomas, of the Green Finance Institute?

Well, for a start, she’s been accepted at Davos. And she’s a trustee at the World Wildlife Fund.

And this intriguing article from my favourite fish-wrap seems to confirm the suspicions I just aired about who Rhian-Mari represents. Unless of course her friends are offering to save the planet out of the goodness of their corporate hearts.

The chief executive of the Green Finance Institute (GFI) . . . had grown increasingly concerned about Labour’s £28bn green investment pledge.

The party should not have even considered using that much taxpayer cash, Thomas argued. Instead, it should engage with private investors who were already keen to pour money into big green projects.

The Green Finance Institute has received $3,830,267 from Quadrature Climate Foundation. I can’t find if it’s also been funded by the European Climate Foundation.

Ms Thomas is also an advisor to Aviva, which greenwashes investors’ money through wildlife trusts and other shrieker collectives. Seeing as I regularly mention wildlife trusts on this blog I found this interesting.

Another link between ‘ethical'(!) investments and wildlife trusts is Greenpeace veteran, Jocelyn Joseph Talbot Garman, of Bristol, executive director at the ECF. For since January ‘Joss’ has been a trustee of that old favourite, Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.

UPDATE: Through his paternal grandmother Jocelyn belongs to the Dorset branch of the Anglo-Norman (long resident in Ireland) Talbot de Malahide family. His father, David Edmund Talbot Garman, moved to Radnorshire around 1972, and was for many years vice-chair of Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.

A name we encountered earlier was that of Daniel Luhde-Thomson, who’s said to have given Labour £500,000 this year. The woman I believe to be his wife, Naomi Luhde-Thomson, was appointed early in 2022 to the Eryri National Park Authority by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

Another name we ran into was that of Neil Paul Cosgrove. One of the four trustees of the Quadrature Climate Foundation. I did a search, and what I turned up was rather odd, and I’m not sure what to make of it. But it’s yet another Welsh connection with offshore entities.

My search took me to the North Data site, which I find useful as it suggests various links and connections. This is what I found.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The links to the left we know about, they’re Quadrature, but what of the others?

Greendoor Investments Ltd is based in Bermuda. And it links with Beaubridge Energist LLP, which uses an address in Hampshire but is registered with Companies House as an overseas company (OC371398). Chaffer, Rigby and Clevely are among the partners in this LLP, as is Cosgrove himself.

But it doesn’t end there. For there are other companies under the ‘Energist’ flag. One being, Energist (Holdings) Ltd, using a Swansea address. Where we find Beaubridge Energist LLP shown as the majority shareholder.

Listed among other Beaubridge companies on the Companies House website we find Beaubridge Swansea LLP. Though it’s difficult to see why it carries that name. For this is a company using the same Hampshire address and is also registered with Companies House as an overseas company (OC432171).

There are two other companies at the Swansea address. Neogen Plasma Ltd, in the business of “manufacture of medical and dental instruments and supplies“. This is owned by Belmont Investments Ltd, and Belmont is owned by Energist Holdings Ltd.

I’m concerned that companies in my home town, involved in ostensibly harmless activities, have links with offshore companies pumping money into the Labour party, while also looking for greenwashing opportunities, and funding envirogrifters to buy up Welsh land.

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CONCLUSION

Another clue to the big picture comes from a Wales Environment Link (WEL) document, ‘Pathways to 2030: 10 key areas for investment in nature’s recovery across Wales’. (WEL is based in the Tramshed, you’ll be surprised to learn!)

On the first page (para 5), we read:

A recent study for the Green Finance Institute estimated that there is a gap of between £5 billion and £7 billion between the resources currently dedicated to nature recovery actions in Wales and those needed to meet priority outcomes for nature.

Here we have Rhian-Mari Thomas’s Green Finance Institute arguing that we need £5bn to £7bn to save Wales from becoming a desert.

But the ‘Welsh Government’ can’t spare that kind of money. So where might it come from? Rhian-Mari has already told us, in her reported conversation with Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Thomas argued . . . engage with private investors who were already keen to pour money into big green projects

I’m sure she’s given the same message to the ‘Welsh Government’.

Because there’s a lot of money in offshore tax havens. Not always dirty money from drugs and other criminal activities, but still, money that cannot be honestly accounted for. How best to use it?

One answer is cashing in on environmental hysteria. Because by their very nature, envirogrifters are ideal for those seeking to, er, ‘relocate’ money currently sunning itself in tax havens. Unscrupulous people who will egg on the planet savers to make ever more apocalyptic claims.

Because it’s in the interests of both corporate investors and envirogrifters. The greater the hysteria, and the more readily the politicians fall for it, then the larger the sums of money it’ll be argued are needed to put things right. Money that governments either don’t have or can’t spare.

So let me finish by suggesting that . . .

Nobody should be allowed to accept funding that originates offshore, even if it’s been ‘filtered’ through organisations like the Quadrature Climate Foundation, the European Climate Foundation, and the Green Finance Institute.

Tax haven money is too often dirty money. That’s why it’s in a tax haven. And why it’s always looking for opportunities to be laundered.

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© Royston Jones 2024