A Case Study In ‘Rewilding’

In a sense, this is a follow-up to last week’s offering, Budget Boost For Rewilders And Globalists. This week, I’m looking at an example of ‘rewilding’ which, on closer inspection, turns out to be a tourism business – receiving funding for posing as a rewilding project.

I’ll fit this into a more general evaluation of ‘rewilding’, and what it really means.

Incidentally, last week’s piece about Tir Natur’s project got a response from ‘Welsh Government’-funded Nation.Cymru and Stephen Price, its Senior Reporter.

Price has a background “working in the third and charity sectors“, and a “voluntary role as a Keep Wales Tidy Litter Champion“. Which gives us another link between that charity and Tir Natur.

SETTING THE SCENE

This week, we’re mid-way between Abergavenny and Monmouth, the region I’ve dubbed ‘Abergavennyshire’ due to an influx of ‘progressives’ from the hell-holes of ‘Metro-Land’ and elsewhere.

(It should go without saying that Stephen Price lives in Abergavennyshire.)

Despite its distance from Corruption Bay, our politicians care more for these recent arrivals than for Welsh people. Certainly, that’s my conclusion when I consider the funding and other patronage bestowed on Abergavennyshire.

Perhaps a reward for this ingress strengthening Labour’s position as the largest party on Monmouthshire county council.

It’s here we find the Abergavenny Food Festival, Coleg Soros, Brecon Jazz Festival, Hay Festival, the many bodies arguing farmers are killing the Wye and the Usk. And of course – Gilestone farm, and the Green Man Festival. Etc., etc.

Map of Abergavennyshire. You’ll see it’s a cross-border unit because many of the new arrivals feel unsafe with thoughts of borders and nations.. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Our destination today is not easy to reach. There’s no A road in the vicinity. Instead, it’s the B4233, then a track off that road, and after you’ve gone up a-ways, it’s another track to the destination.

This off-road excursion brings us to the The Grange Project. Run by Tom Constable and his wife Chloe, who bought the farm in April last year for £1.875m, without need of a loan or a mortgage.

But as the entry on Rewilding Britain tells us, there’s a lot more going on:

The vision for the site includes developing new nature-based tourism, including log cabins, alongside education and wellbeing programmes hosted in a beautiful converted barn on site. Chloe intends to use her background in clinical psychology to run courses focusing on the systemic resilience required to address the climate and biodiversity crises, while Tom will use his background in business to support ecopreneurs as they set-up and thrive on site.

Those who’ve been brainwashed, worked into a frenzy over a non-existent ‘climate crisis’, will be able to come to The Grange for treatment. At a cost, of course.

The Grange Project also does podcasts – in fact, Tom Constable is a professional – and here we find another link with last week’s piece.

You may remember Dan Ward, one of those involved with Tir Natur, was also working with North Star Transition. North Star was created by Jyoti Banerjee, who starred on the Grange podcast last week.

Small world, innit!

A CLOSER LOOK

Those who’ve given themselves nightmares from reading too much Monbiot won’t be the only visitors, for The Grange also offers corporate away days. Where the IT department of Global Gizmos Inc can come gaze at trees and stuff.

Better still . . . for the trifling sum of £10,000 you can enjoy “two bespoke corporate away days“. Read more in the Corporate Partnership Proposal.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I tell you what . . . for half that (in ready cash) you can have two corporate away days in my back garden, There’s flower beds, and a tree, and, er, grass, and if it’s wildlife you’re after then I’ll get our cat to put in an appearance.

If it’s raining you can sit in the conservatory. The missus will lay on a cuppa and biccies. Can’t say fairer than that, squire.

I have no doubt that the companies turning up for these eco-jollies will be claiming tax deductions, which will contribute to the ‘black hole’ in the UK accounts, and be used to justify freezing pensioners this winter.

That’s the ‘circular economy’ you keep hearing about.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

And sure enough, in the Corporate Partnership Proposal we find predictable ‘quotations’.

One from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), that outfit launched by Nazis using environmentalism as the new way to seize power and cull the untermensch.

The other is attributed to ‘Native American Wisdom’. (Are people still falling for that bollocks!) Here’s some wisdom from a source as much Native American as the one quoted: ‘Big Chief Jac-on-Blog say: “Environmentalists speak with forked tongue“‘.

The Grange website also offers, “our own glamping cabins and bespoke bell tents“, and elsewhere, “off grid escapes” in caravan-type structures made by Herefordshire chippie Simon Whitfield.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Whitfield runs The Tiny Home Company. When I tried to find it on the Companies House website I drew a blank. So I went back to the website and scrolled down the homepage, where, in the smallest font imaginable, was: “The Tiny Home Company is a trading name of WB Capital Ventures Limited“.

But it was only by copying and posting it into Word that I was able to read that. Why so small? Very odd.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

WB Capital Ventures Ltd was formed as recently as July, and I assume ‘WB’ stands for Whitfield Brothers, because the two directors are Simon Peter Whitfield and his older brother(?) John Robert Whitfield.

The twelve shares split 8 – 4 in favour of the older brother. Who maybe put up the cash. He has over a million pounds sitting in the bank account of his other company.

And talking of money . . .

In its short life The Grange Project has already trousered £26,650 from the Coetiroedd Bach scheme. I guarantee there’ll be more grants in future.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I’ll end this section with a brief look at what’s registered with Companies House. There are two companies.

One’s Wild Grange Farm Ltd, launched as recently as September 5, with the Constables as the only directors and shareholders.

And then there’s the Community Interest Company, formed in August, Wild Grange CIC. Again, Tom and Chloe Constable are the only directors (or members) and shareholders. Which I found odd. Because with a CIC I would expect to see others named, representing the community that will benefit.

This is usually people in the vicinity. So I went to the Companies House website entry for Wild Grange CIC and the Certificate of Incorporation. Most of which is pro forma.

Though towards the end it sets out who might benefit from the CIC:

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Which is fair enough, and what I expected. But what I read earlier in the document has me thinking. I refer to Rewilding Britain, as the ‘asset locked body‘.

A worst case scenario might be . . . the farm title is transferred to the CIC, which liquidates, and Rewilding Britain takes over The Grange.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In the clip above, the Charity number given is that for Rewilding Britain. Whereas the address is for The Trust Partnership (and associated companies), which I assume drew up the arrangement.

The mystery is company number 08943330. For it refers to Mental Mastery Ltd, of Bournemouth, that dissolved 18 months after being formed, without filing anything.

I’ll assume it’s a typo. But if not . . .

THOUGHTS ON REWILDNG

Let me be clear, there might be a role for small-scale rewilding such as we’re asked to see at The Grange.

Thinking again of my back garden . . . if I let it run wild it would sprout plants, flowers; attract butterflies and other insects, some small mammals, maybe a foraging hedgehog.

But once we talk about pine marten, beaver, wild boar, deer, wild ponies, ancient cattle, then we need more land than even the 1,000 acres Tir Natur is hoping to buy.

Because without large areas for these animals to roam and live naturally, problems such as stress, over-grazing, and in-breeding will occur.

Of course, food can be brought in, and fresh bloodlines can be introduced; but if ‘rewilding’ doesn’t create a self-perpetuating ecosystem, as in nature, then that defeats the whole object of the exercise.

One answer might be linking separated projects with ‘corridors’. I mention this because the idea features regularly in rewilding fantasies. Such as one in Cornwall called Tor to Shore. (Does that ring a bell?)

While Helman Tor sits near the top of the Par River, areas downstream are surrounded by farmland, where the project will partner with local farmers to tackle agricultural pollution and create ‘wildlife corridors’ – areas of habitat that . . . connect with other nature-rich sites, allowing wildlife to thrive beyond the reserve’s boundaries.

Rewilding Britain got its ass kicked for its involvement in a similarly-named colonialist land grab. It may be treading more carefully now, yet it’s deeply involved at The Grange, and seems to have been involved from the outset.

But how well do animals understand ‘corridors’? Not well at all; so that would mean mile after mile of fencing . . . which will inevitably get broken.

Mrs Jones will wake one morning to find aurochs feasting on her prize geraniums. And, then, when she goes out to shoo them away, and one of the buggers tramples her . . .

Or maybe it’ll be the consolation prize of tauros.

Auroch. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I haven’t mentioned predators like wild cat, lynx, and wolf. All of which appear in rewilders’ literature. Yet they have to be present, for without the balance created by their natural predators introduced prey animals will need to be regularly culled.

As deer are culled in the Highlands, due to the absence of wolves. While a shortage of prey animals will see predators going elsewhere to get a meal. (‘Look out, Mrs Jones!‘)

Which means that for a rewilding project to be viable it would need 20,000 or more self-contained acres. There would need to be enough food for a range of herbivores and foragers, whose numbers would be kept in check by predators – as in the wild.

In a small country like Wales we just don’t have that land to spare. Not if we; a) want a farming industry and b) let people access the countryside.

Which brings us to a very fundamental question, one confronting us at Grange Farm: ‘What is the real purpose of rewilding?’ This article (February 2023) asks a very similar question, and gives some disturbing answers.

A bit leftist for my tastes but it still makes good points about farms being lost, and corporate investment through middle men, agents, and front organisations.

Organisations such as Rewilding Britain, involved with three-year-old Nattergal. Below is Nattergal director and CEO Archie Struthers, panellist at Rewilding Britain’s Blue Earth Summit last month.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Nattergal is owned by Lansdowne Developed Markets Master Fund Limited of the Cayman Islands.

One day Archie’s a ruthless investments guru, next day he’s saving the planet. These things happen. After Christmas I’m joining the Socialist Workers Party. (Yes, really!)

Archie’s a busy man for Nattergal, and the company’s mystery owner. Let’s look at three recent ventures. Starting with High Fen Wildland, where we read:

High Fen will offer wellness, eco-tourism, educational and research opportunities to provide opportunities for people as well as wildlife.

Wildlife comes last. Almost an afterthought.

The other two are Boothby Wildland, where, “Nattergal hopes to generate revenues through the sale of ecosystem services (natural capital)“. And Harold’s Park Wildland, that “will generate income from the sale of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) units and corporate sponsorship, and will support nature based tourism and recreation“.

Archie also has a couple of relatively new companies of his own, registered in Glasgow. Ardmaddy Ventures Ltd, named for his Argyll estate; and Nature Based Investment Solutions Ltd.

Make no mistake, corporate ‘investors’ are circling Welsh family farms like vultures.

There was an example just last week of farmers being ‘cold called’ by a company named Property Vision. Acting on behalf of anonymous ‘investors’.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Rewilding Britain is involved with three projects in Wales in addition to The Grange; they are:

Cefn Garthenor, in Ceredigion. Gilfach, in Powys. Wilder Pentwyn, also in Powys.

They have three things in common:

1/ They were once homes to Welsh families.

2/ They are no longer working farms producing food.

3/ They have received substantial ‘Welsh Government ‘ funding

Always worth remembering when some clown gets all misty-eyed over ‘rewilding’.

CONCLUSION

On a fundamental level, The Grange Project makes no environmental sense due to the increased traffic emissions as engines struggle with gradients and rough tracks to even reach the place.

More environmental damage than the working farm it replaced. Unless of course you want to be really stupid and introduce the threat posed to us all by farting cows. (Fortunately, ‘Dr’ Bill Gates has a solution.)

The Grange Project is clearly a tourism project and a ‘wellness’ retreat for hysterical Guardian readers raking in extra money by presenting itself as a rewilding project. Like those we looked at earlier linked with Archie Struthers.

I believe genuine rewilding is incompatible with daily visits from the public, especially noisy children, and middle management on a raucous day out. Making it all rather phoney.

Especially if there’s ‘natural capital’ and ‘biodiversity net gain’ involved.

And let’s remember that The Grange is less than 100 acres in total. From what I can see, a few trees have been planted and pigs allowed to muddy up some fields. Is that really ‘rewilding’?

If so, then why aren’t we all offered money to let our gardens run wild? A few thousand of us, in Wales alone, could make a big contribution to the environment and biodiversity.

Because, gentle reader, ‘rewilding’, with the involvement of outfits like BlackRock, is not about saving the planet; it complements legislation and other measures intended to undermine farming, thereby freeing up land for acquisition and investment.

‘Rewilding’ is just the prettied-up face of the Globalist land grab.

Once you understand that – everything else makes sense!

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Budget Boost For Rewilders And Globalists

This post is about a group I’ve mentioned before, Tir Natur. It’s not a big outfit, it was only launched in 2022. I’m writing about it again because my attention has been drawn to what might be a major development.

Which coincides with the UK government’s decision to make most family farms liable for punitive inheritance taxes. This measure will leave many farming families with little alternative but to sell up.

Which is almost certainly the intention.

For the Treasury only expects to benefit by £520m a year from this legislation. Inconsequential when set against the harm that’ll be caused to the rural economy; and in Wales, the damage inflicted on a culture and a way of life.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Here’s the Tir Natur website piece on the development. It reads:

An opportunity has presented itself to Tir Natur. A significant area of land which has been deemed unsuitable for commercial forestry and the dominance of purple-moor grass and bracken undermine its grazing value.

But is it being grazed now, or not? If it is, then do the graziers agree with that evaluation? I ask because later we’re told: “Overgrazing over the years has restricted natural regeneration and reduced not only the ecological, but agricultural value of the land“.

And yet, things can’t be that bad. For the place seems to be swarming with wildlife; on the ground, in the trees, in the water, and above our heads.

A skylark . . . over our heads . . . whilst a male roe deer, springs up . . . Pine marten are known to be neighbours whilst red squirrel are seen here . . . Otter . . . sandpipers and goosanders. Red Kite and buzzard hunt for . . . small mammals in the thick tussocks . . . osprey patrol the water . . . trout and pike abound.

Despite this picture painted of a Cambrian Eden, a paragraph or two later we’re asked to: “Imagine, then, a new approach. Ancient Welsh cattle and ponies enter the land“.

So there must be good grazing available, just not for sheep and cattle.

It also talks of pigs “disturbing tussocks” . . . presumably the tussocks wherein dwell the small mammals providing prey for kite and buzzard.

The section outlining Tir Natur’s plans concludes with looking forward to: “Ground nesters such as golden plover and curlew make their triumphant return“. How will they cope with the trampling horses and cattle, or the gobble-up-everything porkers?

From the area Tir Natur says it wants to buy. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

What is graphically described is a flourishing ecosystem, so I can’t see how Tir Natur’s vision improves on that. Am I missing something?

Maybe in writing this glorious example of bucolica the writer got carried away and ended up contradicting himself, or herself, or theyself.

And let’s bear in mind that this land could be bought by a commercial entity from outside of Wales. The new owner could then make lots of money from allowing Tir Natur to graze reindeer or anything else they fancy.

NEW ARRIVALS

When I looked at Tir Natur a couple of years back there were four trustees (of the charity), but there have been changes. One of the founders, Stephen Jenkins, is no longer a trustee, but serves as a Development Officer. Here he is with the rest of The Team.

He may be one of only two Welsh people still involved. The other being Gwenan Jenkins-Jones. She is also a trustee at Keep Wales Tidy.

This is a body becoming increasingly political, with a Woke and ‘inclusive’ emphasis. Explained by ‘Welsh Government’ funding trebling from £1.52m in 2019 to £4.71m in 2023.

(It should go without saying that Andrew Stumpf, chair of Keep Wales Tidy, lives in the White Highlands of Abergavennyshire. A sink hole for Welsh public funding)

When we look at the changes in personnel at Tir Natur it tells us by whom and for what purpose Tir Natur has been captured.

First up is David Kilner. Who’s also involved with Climate Cymru. It was this lot’s BAME section that produced the internationally ridiculed recommendation to ban ‘racist’ dogs from the countryside.

Yet another outfit in receipt of Kilner’s wisdom is Natur am Byth. Here’s a piece he penned in April last year for Friends of the Earth.

Clock to open enlarged in separate tab

The other member of The Team is Dan Ward. Who has worked, and may still work, for Natural Resources Wales. But for the purposes of this article, I want to focus on his link to North Star Transition (NST).

To give you a better understanding of where we’re heading, go to this post of mine from a year ago and scroll down to the section ‘North Star Transition’. Below is a clip from the NST website I used back then.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

And here’s the full article, written by North Star co-founder Jyotir Banerjee. It begins: “Large-scale investment funding is missing in action when it comes to transforming landscapes.”  (“Missing in action”! Are we at war?)

A more recent article on the NST website, by Jérôme Tagger, warns that:

There is an urgent need for large-scale funding of nature-based solutions across many landscapes if the UK is to achieve net zero, environmental, social and health transformations.

So who’s Jérôme Tagger?

Well, he’s American, based in Brooklyn, New York, and he may still be hiding under his duvet after Donald Trump’s election victory. Here’s his Linkedin profile.

You’ll see that Tagger is CEO of Preventable Surprises, and when skimming through the website my eyes were drawn to “climate finance and behavior“. He’s also co-founder of White Label Impact.

Time to turn to the Tir Natur trustees. And when you see who’s recently joined, you’ll be in no doubt as to what Tir Natur is up to.

In May 2023 Richard Wheat came aboard. He’s an ecological consultant at Middlemarch Environmental Ltd, of Coventry. Companies House tells us the company is controlled by Warwickshire Wildlife Trust.

In June this year, it was Sally Weale, documentary film maker. She was, until March 2022, a director of The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.

Next, in July, it was our old friend Tim Birch of Extinction Rebellion. He fled Derbyshire a few years back with a posse of gamekeepers in pursuit. He is now a director of Wildlife Trusts Wales . . . which voted itself out of existence a few years ago to become a county branch of the English parent body.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

And, finally, on September 26, it was James Hitchcock. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he’s appeared on this blog a number of times after coming to Wales to be CEO of the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.

He quit that job last month, and became Advocacy Coordinator – Wales for Rewilding Britain. Wales, a country he doesn’t even know. But he does know who’s who in Corruption Bay, and that’s what matters.

That’s quite a cast. Why are they all now involved with Tir Natur, a small outfit, with an income that last year doubled to just over twelve grand?

GLOBALIST BONANZA

You might be wondering why this Labour government would want to destroy farming, and why its supporters welcome the move. Let me explain.

Taking the supporters first . . . the Pinkhairs may genuinely believe they’re sticking it to the super-rich (and perhaps even freeing the serfs), because they really are that fucking stupid. Whereas old-style leftists may have a hazy recollection of kulaks being vilified in the smoke-filled rooms of yore.

But above all that, the government in Westminster is a Globalist tool . . . one that was not made by Keir Starmer’s father, but by some very unpleasant people indeed.

These Globalists, who I’ve identified on the blog before, want to take over (among other things) farmland. Firstly, to profit from insane subsidies and payments given to those claiming to be saving the planet. Secondly, to take them nearer their ultimate objective – control of the food supply. And by that means, to control human behaviour.

To help them achieve this they must control what we see, hear, and say. This explains their puppets demanding hate speech legislation, and laws against ‘misinformation’. Also, banging people up for social media posts.

For they must control the narrative. But it’s more difficult for them now because their mainstream media is no longer trusted, and there are channels they do not control.

Another problem they have is that the ‘climate crisis’ isn’t co-operating, and hasn’t been for years. There’s no marked deterioration in the weather, and the net zero lunacy imposed to combat this ‘threat’ is being increasingly resisted.

The fallback position is the ‘nature crisis’, or ‘biodiversity loss’, which asks us to believe that species are disappearing almost daily. And just as with the ‘climate crisis’, it’s all our fault. This looming tragedy can only be averted by us making major sacrifices – which again, will involve assaults on farming.

For to save the dormouse we must stop eating cheese.

Just as the ‘climate crisis’ relied on con men like Al Gore, and voodoo ‘science’, so, when it comes to species depletion, we are expected to heed the sermonising of those who want big dollops of cash to put things right. And of course, they also want land.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The more I’ve learnt and thought about environmentalism the clearer it’s become why top environmentalists found it easy to work with the Globalists – because they’re one and the same.

Let’s start with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Which modestly says of itself:

Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.

And I bet you’ve never heard of it! But I’m not sure you’re supposed to.

DARKER PAST

The IUCN was formed in 1948 and took up residence in Gland, Switzerland. Feeling it needed a more public face, in 1961 the IUCN helped launch the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), also headquartered in Gland.

The founder and first president of the WWF was Prince Bernhardt, consort to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. Though he himself was German and had, like many other princelings, joined the Nazi Party in 1933.

Prince Bernhardt was also a member the shadowy Club of the Isles, another organisation that helped give birth to the WWF. This group of royals and business tycoons uses environmentalism to protect and promote their post-imperial interests. Especially in Africa.

Involved in both was Philip, consort to the late queen of England. His sisters all married German princes, and three of them became Nazis. In 1948 Elizabeth’s father, George VI, banned Philip’s family from his daughter’s wedding.

Among the activities of the WWF and associated movements that get less publicity than saving pandas is taking over vast areas of Africa for game reserves, and ‘parks’. When the evicted populations protest they are dealt with as trespassers, or even shot as ‘poachers’.

Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO, comes to give Starmer his orders. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

There are incredible allegations made against the WWF and those behind it, but let’s ignore the more outlandish claims – such as ‘anthropological reserves’ in Amazonia – to consider two features that are undeniable.

Firstly, there’s the link with fascism or, more specifically, Nazism. Secondly, there’s the belief the world is overpopulated.

Seeing as we’re 80 years on from WWII, we can perhaps ignore a (direct) Nazi link. But the belief in an overpopulated world is central to the modern Globalist-environmentalist agenda.

It explains so why many refer to that agenda as being “anti-human“. Critics can see it, but may not understand the background that makes their suspicions correct.

Let me end this section by explaining how the agenda is already making us poorer in ways other than immediate costs like higher electricity bills.

Earlier we looked at Keep Wales Tidy. It receives huge amounts of ‘Welsh Government’ funding, not to keep Wales tidy, but to promote the Globalist agenda. And the same applies to countless other ‘charities’, third sector outfits, even pressure groups.

It’s amazing . . . the Welsh NHS is falling apart, kids leave school unable to read and write, but Corruption Bay can always find money for organisations that are actually working against our interests. Even threatening our national identity.

CONCLUSION, AND WARNING

The West is in a dangerous place, with the Globalists controlling politicians and uniparty systems. And this control costs lives, tens of thousands of young lives in the war in eastern Europe, from which BlackRock profits hugely.

Take a few minutes to watch this 3 minute video by Robert F Kennedy Jr.

If the West is in dangerous waters, then Wales is docked up Shit Creek.

Yet I have such a low opinion of Senedd Members that I think they might genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing. They’ve certainly swallowed all the Globalist scams. But it’s not just our clowns.

Not long before they dined with Larry Fink of BlackRock, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were granted an audience with ‘Dr’ Bill Gates, of Covid fame. Look how attentive and respectful they are!

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In Cardiff, London, Brussels and elsewhere politicians are in thrall to Globalism, with the leftist majority in the Senedd pre-disposed to imposing petty regulations and restrictions on personal freedom.

Which makes them putty in the hands of kings, princes and others who are used to exercising power. Those who once marched with the workers now dance for Hapsburgs and Bourbons.

Having mentioned BlackRock a few times, here’s an example of how it operates. Some ten years ago planning permission was granted for a wind farm in Blaenau Gwent. Within months it was snapped up by you know who.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Many suspect the wind farms planned today, by Parabola Bute and others, will go the same way once planning permission is obtained.

That Blaenau Gwent example wasn’t a one-off. The Labour party has been dealing with BlackRock for many years. In 2016 BlackRock took control of the £2.8bn Welsh public pension pot.

That’s how BlackRock and the rest operate. They don’t make or create anything, they just use other people’s money to buy up things, corporations and assets which then give them vast economic strength, and with that strength, political power.

And it’ll be the same with land acquired by Tir Natur, and all the other land from which Welsh farmers will be evicted. If it’s not BlackRock then it’ll be some other Globalist corporation working to exactly the same agenda.

Helped by BlackRock having the WWF in its pocket. It’s the same with all the other organisations, down to your local wildlife trust. Globalists have ‘environmentalists’ doing the dirty work for them, ‘greenwashing’ their activities.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

So don’t be fooled by these machinations pretending to save the planet. It’s the biggest asset grab in history. And as I’ve explained, it has worrying antecedents.

Always remember that behind the cuddly image of environmentalism lurk the shades of those who thought Hitler was the good guy. Which helps explain why Globalism is just another attempt at world domination.

Demanding reduced population levels in order to tackle the ‘climate crisis’ is no more than the ugly eugenics of a century ago made more palatable.

At root, it’s just repackaged Nazism. So wake up and realise it.

♦ end

UPDATE 27.11.2024: Today Nation.Cymru put out a piece in defence of the Tir Natur project, and almost certainly in response to the piece above I’d put out two days earlier. It was written by Stephen Price, N.C’s Senior Reporter.

Price lives in Abergavennyshire, has a background “working in the third and charity sectors“, and a “voluntary role as a Keep Wales Tidy Litter Champion“.

Which says it all.

© Royston Jones 2024

‘Welsh Government’ Declares War On Freedoms, Motorists, Farmers

Now that we’ve had three weeks of living with the 20mph speed restrictions I think it’s time to put this measure into its wider context, make a few connections, and introduce some new faces.

I apologise for this piece being a bit long, but it’s still less than 2,800 words. And worth sticking with.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Much of the background to this new legislation was covered a few weeks back in ‘20mph, A Disaster Unfolds’.

What’s absolutely clear now is that 20mph did not suddenly appear, it’s been hatching for a while. To explain what I mean, here’s a table I’ve drawn up, though I’m sure it’s incomplete, so if you can add to it . . . .

And here it is in pdf format with working links.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I believe it starts with the Well-being of Future Generation Act 2015. This cartoon video imagines ‘Megan’, growing up under the umbrella of the Act’s protective legislation. Which promises:

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

And it’s failed her on almost every count. But then, grand gestures done for dramatic effect rather than to deliver lasting benefits will invariably fail.

Next, we look at the Wales Act 2017. There, in Section 26, we see that power to vary or regulate speed limits is now conferred on the ‘Welsh Ministers’.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Which makes sense if, as some suggest, Wales is being used as a testing ground for the wackier planet-saving ideas.

Now we move on to an undated publication by Public Health Wales recommending 20mph on our roads. I assume this is by Huw Brunt and Sarah Jones of Public Health Wales. It mentions the new powers to lower speed limits.

Then there’s the Clean Air Zone Framework for Wales (April 2018) where, on page 20, we read:

Consideration should be given to lowering speed limits in a CAZ from 30mph to 20mph, which some research suggests would deliver overall benefits27. Safety benefits from reduced road speed can also encourage modal shift from private cars.

Perhaps, state-owned, chauffeur-driven cars are OK?

The call was taken up by Sustrans who, in a publication dated 1 January 2019, called for 20mph speed limits across the UK, quoting Public Health Wales. Does this also show Wales being used as a testing ground?

Another example of pearl-clutching theatricality was Wales declaring a climate emergency. This happened in April 2019, just before Environment Minister Lesley Griffiths (and Gary) met with Scottish and UK counterparts.

Here’s the plan for funding the responses deemed necessary to combat this ’emergency’, produced by Future Generations Commissioner and Labour party insider, Sophie Howe. From which I’ve extracted the graphic for ‘Transport’ below.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Those who compiled that table obviously view increased car ownership as something deplorable, which must be reversed. Yet for me, and I suspect for most people, those figures represent progress and increased prosperity.

Finally, we see 20mph again in Labour’s 2021 manifesto ahead of the Senedd elections. The original manifesto seems to have disappeared, so I can only link to the update put out following the agreement with Plaid Cymru.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

It’s a pity the original’s disappeared because I’m told it proposed risk-based approaches to assessing trunk road speeds. Basically, ‘Welsh Government’, or an individual minister, wanted lower speed limits on A and B roads.

Perhaps Plaid Cymru, a party of rural areas with sparse traffic on open roads, realised this would not go down well in Trawsfynydd or Nant y Caws.

So we see that the call for 20mph, and associated demands, goes back at least 5 years, and probably further. We’ll briefly consider associated issues before turning to an unattainable fantasy.

One of the associated matters is 15- 0r 20-minute cities / neighbourhoods. Which can be viewed in two ways.

The optimist might say: ‘Wow! everything I need will be within easy travelling distance; Waitrose, Pilates, accountant, Skivvyhire, Green Party constituency office, ballet class, tattooist, florist, saddler, doctor, dentist, plastic surgeon . . . .’

(Dentist? In Wales!)

The cynic might ask: ‘Yes, but is that 20 minutes there, or 20 minutes there and back? And what if I want to travel for longer than 20 minutes . . . and just keep going, into the wide blue yonder?’

Sustrans was promoting the idea in November 2019, just ahead of December’s UK general election. The local chief of Sustrans for over six years (2007 – 2013) was Lee Waters, now Deputy Minister for Climate Change.

Make no mistake, Sustrans is an anti-car organisation. And Waters himself is said to be a cycling and walking “fanatic“. Which is fine with me. Veganism is fine with me. It’s when zealots and fringe outfits are allowed or encouraged to push their beliefs onto the rest of us that I object.

The Future Generations Commissioner was backing 20-minute neighbourhoods by September 2020. To show loyal, Plaid Cymru chimed in in April 2021.

Labour-controlled Cardiff council was also on board with the “20-minute neighbourhood or 15-minute city“, as this motion from March 2021 puts it. Even crediting Sustrans.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Erm, let’s think about that for a minute. A city is made up of neighbourhoods. So obviously a city is bigger than a neighbourhood. That being so, how can a city be traversed, and its services accessed, quicker than those of a neighbourhood?

I’ll touch briefly on three more elements of the grand design.

First Minister Drakeford has described ULEZ charges as the “last resort. But he hasn’t ruled them out. Labour’s experience in London, with people fighting back, might explain his hesitancy.

Then there’s road charging, mentioned on page 21 of Llwybr Newydd The Wales Transport Strategy 2021. Where it’s spelled out quite unambiguously:

We will develop a framework for fair and equitable road-user charging in Wales and explore other disincentives to car use, taking into account equality issues including the needs of people in rural areas, people who share protected characteristics and people on low incomes

 . . . and explore other disincentives to car use“.

Something I found odd about this was that it said, “in Wales“. But this was produced by the ‘Welsh Government’, so which other country would it refer to? Or was it written by someone else, perhaps not based in Wales?

The reference to “protected characteristics” I assume means that women with penises won’t have to pay. (Where’s my wig?)

Finally, let us never forget that it was Lee Waters who announced earlier this year that all new road-building projects were cancelled.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

To achieve this result the Welsh Roads Review Panel was created with orders to deliver the desired ‘findings’. And to guarantee that outcome the group was chaired by Dr Lynn Sloman. Who wrote ‘Car Sick‘, which rather gives away her position.

I wrote about this episode in March, scroll down to the relevant section.

THE WORLD OF MAKE-BELIEVE

‘Vision Zero’ seems to have appeared in September 2012. In the ‘Welsh Government’s Road Safety Delivery Plan. Explained here in a written statement from the late Carl Sargeant, then Minister for Local Government and Communities.

Here’s how Road Safety GB reported it.

Vision Zero was a vague promise to reduce road accidents. It was re-affirmed in this ‘Welsh Government’ publication from May 2018 (pp 6, 13).

But then, just a year or so later, on page 24 of the Manifesto for the 2019 UK general election, we read that Vision Zero has become a plan to eliminate road deaths and injuries entirely!

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Let’s give a little more thought to this idea of  Vision Zero.

It should be obvious that Vision Zero can only be achieved by banning all vehicles, whether powered by the internal combustion engine, battery, or hydrogen.

But with more bicycles and pedestrians on the roads – as is hoped – there will still be fatalities and injuries. Either cyclists crashing or cyclists colliding with pedestrians. It happens now. With more cyclists, and with cyclists having freedom of the highways, some will be even more reckless and inconsiderate than they are now.

With vehicular transport banned – and that must also mean public transport – then people will spend far more time at home.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

But most accidents happen in the home, so spending more time at home will result in more accidents. Don’t take my word for it, read what RoSPA says on the subject. So how is transferring death and injury from the highway to the home an improvement?

It’s not an improvement at all. It only makes sense if the real goal is to ban cars.

More people spending more time at home will create other problems. I can predict with certainty there’ll be more cases of domestic violence, and murder. There will be more children physically and sexually abused. Even more cruelty towards domestic pets.

Also, more suicides, due to the stress of being cooped up at home. It will be a kind of lockdown. And it will be done despite us knowing the social and psychological damage inflicted by Covid lockdown.

But then, it may be dressed up as climate lockdown. And if so, then we must accept that chasing each other round the house with meat cleavers is an acceptable price to pay for saving the planet.

Think about what you’ve just read. Put it all together and tell me it’s not a war on cars, on private transport, and the freedom the car gives us.

RULE FROM THE SHADOWS

I’m returning to the idea of Wales being used as a testing ground. With most people unaware of it, and the lack of awareness even extending to the ‘Welsh Government’.

But testing ground status is easy to achieve when our politicians are controlled by pressure groups. These often directed and / or funded by individuals and organisations making up the Globalist network.

I’ve written about this phenomenon a number of times recently. In Wales: Ruled By Pressure Groups. And Who The Hell Are These People!. The ‘Welsh Government’ even pays through the nose for this Globalist influence, as I explained in Lynn Global Pushes Globalist Agenda.

The bigger picture only makes sense when you remember how it started.

With the end of Communism a new threat was needed. And so in 1991 the Club of Rome adopted ‘global warming’. Explained in this video (less than 5 minutes long).

Klaus Schwab, founder and chairperson of the World Economic Forum (WEF), makes an appearance. Schwab is also a member of the Club of Rome.

This programme of control was easy to sell to third-rate leftist politicians in Wales because socialism is fundamentally anti-human; viewing us as classes or identities, even “protected characteristics“, rather than gloriously varied individuals.

And of course, socialists love imposing “Can’t do that!” restrictions.

Now for the new faces I promised.

NORTH STAR TRANSITION

This company was formed just over three years ago by Jyotir Banerjee. The website is full of silly phrases interspersed with impenetrable jargon: “multi-capital metrics” . . . “radical reframing and holistic transformation” . . .

It’s not often one encounters so much bullshit on a single website. Thankfully.

The clue to North Star’s real purpose comes in a piece written a few weeks ago by Banerjee himself. We are told that “biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change” can all be remedied – by “large-scale investment funding“.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Now you know me, when a chancer crosses my path I like to know more about him or her. Did I really say, “chancer“? (Inner voice: “Yes you did, Jac.”)

First stop was Companies House, to see what our boy has been up to over the years. There are a number of companies to his name, which are either dissolved, dormant or, if still trading, then none too buoyant, to judge by the accounts submitted.

The address currently used for Banerjee’s empire is 1 Pembroke Villas, The Green, Richmond. And a very nice gaff it looks too. But according to the Land Registry this property is leased to a firm of accountants.

The reason I’m writing about Banerjee is his Wales Transition Lab.

But what is Wales to be ‘transitioned’ into? And by whom? And for whose benefit?

This piece from the North Star website by Victoria Topham of Buckinghamshire informs us that:

Since October 2020, a group of 35 thought leaders across Wales have listened to each other and imagined a country that future generations could thrive in.

Listened to each other“! I see a gang of interlopers discussing the future of our homeland without consulting us. This is often called colonialism.

Topham continues . . .

Why Wales? With a population of 3m people, Wales is the right size for such a living laboratory.

Now she’s gone full-on memsahib. For her and her ‘thought leaders’ our Wales is just a testing ground. With us indigenes as guinea-pigs? Or are we to be removed?

Despite this clique being anonymous one name found on the North Star website is, inevitably, Jane Davidson, who seems to serve as a kind of chatelaine to that demi-monde where enviroshysters have the ear of politicians and civil servants.

After claiming to have initially been reluctant to get involved Banerjee eventually joined Davidson’s Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group. (How many different target years do these people use?)

In his homage to La Davidson Banerjee writes: “Olivier Boutellis and I set up North Star Transition to tackle the climate emergency . . . “.

My cue to introduce Olivier Boutellis and explain what I think is really happening.

Despite what Banerjee says, Boutellis was not there at the start (unless he was keeping his head down). For North Star Transition was launched 10 June 2020 and the company Olivier Boutellis-Taft SPRL climbed aboard 3 February 2021.

This company was registered in Belgium 04 October 2011.

So who is Olivier Boutellis, or Boutellis-Taft?

The capture below from the European Parliament tells us he’s a lawyer and an economist. And this tells us he’s been a magistrate and a lecturer. Also, CEO of Accountancy Europe.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

But it’s his Linkedin profile that I found fascinating. The screen capture below will explain why.

It tells us Olivier Boutellis-Taft joined the Club of Rome EU Chapter at exactly the same time he got involved with Jyotir Banerjee and North Star Transition.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

But there’s something not right. The website looks abandoned, and the Twitter account hasn’t been used since September 2020.

There is also a Linkedin page of the most elementary kind. But it claims the Club of Rome EU Chapter has 11 employees and that its focus is on “sustainability” and “environmental services“.

But understandable doubts to one side, let’s accept Banerjee and Boutellis-Taft at face value. I believe they’re promising to find ‘investors’ looking to buy Welsh farmland for carbon offsetting, or in other ways take land out of agricultural production.

Which fits perfectly with the Globalist agenda to destroy small- to medium-sized farms so that corporations can take control of the food supply. Because if you control the food supply then you control the people.

The opening part of this 2-minute video explains it succinctly.

This Globalist agenda is welcomed by the environmental pressure groups because it destroys farming, especially livestock farming, and most of these activists seem to be vegans.

They also anticipate getting some of the grabbed land for their rewilding fantasies.

Because of course there’ll be fewer people living in the countryside. Take out the main industry and the decline begins. Impose travel restrictions, run down public transport and impose other obstacles and rural living becomes even less attractive.

At the top and the bottom both Globalists and environmental activists know what they want, and are guaranteed to benefit. It’s those in the middle of the scam who, along with the people, will lose out.

Because politicians don’t seem to realise that in the New World Order they are surplus to requirements. As Klaus Schwab explains in this very short video – in the future we won’t need elections.

Can you imagine such a world?“, he asks. Yes, I can; and while losing politicians has its attractions . . .

Without elections we won’t need politicians, except to serve as ‘managers’ for their Globalist masters. Which is not a lot different to what they’re doing now.

Our politicians have been fooled into thinking they’re saving the planet when what they’re really doing is sacrificing Wales and other countries to the psychotic ambitions of the Globalists.

And this explains dreamers, chancers, shysters and con men flocking to Wales.

CONCLUSION

As I hope I’ve explained, 20mph speed restrictions should not be viewed in isolation. They are part of something much, much bigger.

You’re free to dismiss me as a conspiracy theorist. It’s a free world. For now. But before you go . . .

Justify Vision Zero transferring deaths and injuries from highway to home without admitting it’s a plan to do away with cars. Do you think Jyotir Banerjee’s “large-scale investment funding” is designed to save the Welsh family farm? And why does Klaus Schwab talk about abolishing elections?

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023