Countryside Alliance - love the countryside

Casting for Recovery, the unique Countryside Alliance-backed fly fishing programme for women who have, or have had, breast cancer, will run retreats in Devon, Hampshire, Co Antrim and Angus in 2010; applications to participate are now being accepted.

A new report by the ‘Better Government Initiative’ has branded the Hunting Act a “notorious example of bad Government” along with other disastrous examples from the last 20 years including the Poll Tax, the Child Support Agency and the Millennium Dome. The report was produced by some of Whitehall's most senior figures, including the former Cabinet secretary Lord Butler and Sir John Chilcott who is chairing the Iraq war inquiry.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has issued guidance confirming that covert surveillance by animal rights groups should be authorised under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. It has also confirmed that evidence obtained through unauthorised covert surveillance is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The new guidance says:

The Countryside Alliance's events listing is constantly updated and aims to keep you in touch with rural events of interest across the UK.

On Monday 11th January the Children, School and Families Bill received its Second Reading in Parliament. The Bill seeks to bring into law the recommendations of two independent reviews on reforming the primary curriculum and making Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education statutory. We believe the countryside is a powerful medium in which to deliver major components of PSHE, such as healthy living, physical competence and performance, managing risk and developing self awareness and advocate that within the Children, Schools and Families Bill there should be an entitlement to outdoor education within the curriculum. All MPs were briefed for this debate; please click here to read our brief (pdf)