Owen Paterson calls for email block after bee "cyberattack" It is wrong that they should not get access to the e-mail system. The emails were calling for the UK Government to support a ban on neonicotinoids, the family of pesticides blamed for a decline in bees. But Mr Paterson said he wanted to wait until the field studies on bumblebees were completed before he made his decision on the ban. I am not going to be rushed. I am really determined to do the right thing for bees. People have their right to express their views but 80,000 e-mails is a cyber-attack. However Avaaz, a global campaign network involving 20 million people, which helped organised the email campaign said it was a democratic right to send the emails. Ricken Patel, Executive Director for Avaaz pointed out that 2.5 million people signed the petition for the ban and feel strongly about the protection of bees. He said the organisation are happy to send emails to a separate account and it is up to the minister to manage the public's right to express their opinion. 84,000 people writing individual emails to Owen Paterson on bees is not a cyber attack but democracy. In another controversial move, in an interview with Country Life magazine Mr Paterson said that people in the UK are "obsessed with raptors" and foxes should be managed by hunting with dogs. No one is more keen than me to see the Hunting Act repealed because I believe in the management of wildlife. Mr Paterson also said that the Government is working on a new system of "biodiversity" offsetting so that developers working on huge projects like HS2 or the Severn Barrage can offset the damage to wildlife by creating new habitat elsewhere. It shouldn't be a case of build the bypass or save the bats, but, now, the two sides don't talk. The idea is that if we have to put a bypass through woods, we try to mitigate, but if we can't, we'll give something back in terms of a wood, pond or meadow locally. It would let the steam out of the kettle. Developers would cooper- ate, as they're getting their way, and the RSPB or the Woodland Trust will get it back in spades. However Ben Stafford, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said so-called "biobanking" should not be an excuse to "trash the countryside." Bio-banking or biodiversity offsets have potential, and are already being explored in several areas of England. If we can allow sustainable development and boost the amount of wildlife or beautiful countryside we have at the same time, that's an obvious win-win. But the Government must proceed with caution. It won't always be possible to compensate for environmental damage by creating new habitat down the road, and not all kinds of wildlife and landscape can be easily replaced. We must still start from a point of avoiding damage to our precious natural environment wherever possible, and only see offsets as a last resort. They are not a licence to trash the countryside. And if the Government wants to use offsets on a larger scale, they should be part of a vision to improve England's countryside - increasing the extent of beautiful landscape and the amount of wildlife, not trying to shift them around like chess-pieces on a board every time a developer comes calling.