As the Environment Officer, the NEC has asked me to co-ordinate the support by LDWA of the Ramblers' Big Pathwatch initiative. The Big Pathwatch aims to record the state of all our rights of way. The aim is to cover the whole country, grid square (1km x 1km) by grid square.

The LDWA is keen to support the initiative everywhere and especially in areas with Long Distance Paths running through them. I am looking to use the opportunity to ensure that all our members (and others) have effective access to as much of our fantastic national networks of footpaths as possible. How can you get involved in the Big Pathwatch?

1) Visit: www.ramblers.org.uk/BigPathwatch and download the free app onto a smart phone. Choose up to 10 grid squares at a time. Walk every path in the grid square and use the app to record what you find
2) If you don't have a smartphone, you can still print off a survey card, complete it and upload the results to the Ramblers' website.

Please let me know how you get on.

Christopher Hedley, Environment Officer

I've enrolled on a cracking fracking course...

It starts on Monday. 4 weeks. Free of charge. 3 hours per week.

4 points clear. Top of the league. All matches played. Cant be beat. :)

I've now undertaken 4 courses from FutureLearn. They're free and very professional. I highly recommend them if there's a subject that interest you, But be prepared to spend a few hours studying.

Wow, what a resource.

Thanks Peter. The link below failed for me. This might be worth a try: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/categories

As it is coming up to two years since there were any posts on this Environmental Matters page, I thought I would let you know about a free on line course I just completed about Climate Change.

The content and the implications of doing nowt are rather sobering to put it mildly!

Apologies to those who know about Future Learn. I have no link with them, other than that I thoroughly enjoying the 5 weeks course!

Here is a link Future Learn

They will repeat the Climate Change course some time in the future. In the meantime, there are quite a few others to be getting on with.