Tag Archives: RSPB

Conservation, Politics

RSPB – Wildlife Trusts Rally for Nature

On Tuesday (9 December 2014) I joined the RSPB and The Wildlife Trusts on their joint ‘Rally for Nature’, in other words a briefing in Church House, a short march to the Houses of Parliament, and a meeting with my MP, Angie Bray (Conservative) in the Central Lobby.

RSPB-TWT Rally for Nature panel in Church House (from left: )
RSPB-TWT Rally for Nature panel in Church House. From left: Mark Avery (RSPB), Joe Dudworth (LACS), Stephen Trotter (TWT), Mike Clarke (RSPB), Kerry McCarthy MP (Lab), Caroline Lucas MP (Green)

The briefings gave those hoping to see their MP something to say and a bit of guidance about how to say it. Joe Duckworth of LACS hosted the morning panel in a very jolly way.

A cheerful Caroline Lucas, MP
A cheerful Caroline Lucas, MP

Caroline Lucas spoke clearly and passionately on key campaign causes, fitting a great deal into her 5 minutes: the goals of a Nature and Wellbeing bill, especially to reconnect children with nature; a long-term government commitment to nature; a mechanism for national and local action, including mandatory plans at these levels; and proper coverage in school curricula. She then spoke on the need to control Wildlife Crime, with consistent application of existing laws; need to act on illegal carbofurans used to poison birds of prey; sentencing guidelines; training of prosecutors; and action on trafficking of endangered species. She emphasized the role of the European Union Birds and Habitats Directives, the backbone of our wildlife laws (she noted that the UK did support these, once), and that they are now in danger, even though they are not in any way a block to development. She told us gently that Natural England now has to “consider economic growth” in every decision: an outrageous imposition on an important conservation body, itself in peril of being merged into nothingness. She spoke of the value of nature in people’s mental wellbeing, and that we needed to challenge the idea of growth as the be-all and end-all of government policy. She decried vague talk of “the environment” and told us to focus on the local and real, such as allotments.

Rally assembled at Church House
Rally assembled at Church House

Kerry McCarthy told us she was one of 3 vegan MPs; said people thought it “a bit mad” talking about “bees, bats, badgers”; but that when the public in marginal seats send in over a thousand emails about such a topic, it makes a difference. She reminded us that deprived people were much (10x) less likely to live in green areas, and instead suffered from smoking, drinking, fat, diabetes, unemployment, loneliness and depression. These can all be ameliorated by contact with nature. She said that bees and other pollinators were declining, and that in Bristol the urban pollinators project showed children what bees did, and provided free vegetables to all and sundry. She mentioned Fracking in Chew Valley, and opposed the wasteful practice of subsidising grouse shooting. I asked her what Labour’s biodiversity policy was; she said there wasn’t one yet as the Manifesto wasn’t ready, that it wasn’t a “doorstep issue”  (one that voters asked her about), and that a long-term view was needed. I think I heard a polite intake of breath from the audience as they realized Labour really hadn’t got its act together on nature at all.

Badger on the March
Badger on the March

Julian Huppert MP (Lib. Dem.) said airily “We can destroy our viability on this planet.” but said little, to my mind, on what Parliament might do to prevent this. He did say that MPs were impressed by anyone who bothered to come to parliament as it showed commitment. He advised us to make our case, given that “people” (I think he meant MPs) fell into one of 3 categories: those who care about the world (I assume he meant nature); those who care for the local environment (their constituency); and those who just care for how they are perceived, i.e. could be embarrassed into some kind of action if it were seen to be popular. He claimed that the coalition government had doubled renewables and increased green energy. It didn’t seem to be much to do with nature or biodiversity really.

DSCN2736 Joe Duckworth, Bill Oddie at Houses of Parliament
Joe Duckworth, Bill Oddie at Houses of Parliament

Sir John Randall MP (Con.) told us to be nice to our MP as they assume people will be confrontational, and are far more receptive when we’re not! He had seen peregrines over Parliament and grey wagtails and kingfishers in St James’s Park: wildlife was here, with us, even if there were fewer birds in the countryside, and despite “the scandal that’s going on in Malta” (illegal mass shooting of migrating birds). He came across a lot better than Huppert did.

I was astonished to find no queue at Security, so I had to wait in the Central Lobby for the time I had allowed for queuing! It gave me a chance to go over my carefully-prepared notes, not a bad thing.

A beautiful handmade placard
A beautiful handmade placard

Angie Bray MP told me she was an RSPB member, and that she had written an article for the Ealing Gazette on bees, but (she volunteered) wasn’t convinced by the dire claims on neonicotinoids; it wasn’t something on my list, as it happens. We agreed totally on the need for children to get outside to play, to be in nature, and that parents were needlessly fearful of paedophiles in the park (most child molesters are, unhappily, within the extended family or otherwise known to the children concerned). She mentioned in passing that LACS were basically too wild to be taken seriously. She agreed that poisoning and the use of illegal lead shot were not good, and we parted all smiles.

Conservation, Wetlands

Landscape-Scale Nature Conservation: The Greater Thames Futurescape

I went along to the RSPB Central London Local Group to hear the RSPB project manager responsible, Jo Sampson, give a talk about the Greater Thames Futurescape.

Greater Thames Futurescape
Greater Thames Futurescape. Image: RSPB; Map: Google

This is the immense area (3834 km2) of the Thames estuary, including broadly all the neighbouring land up to the 5 metre contour (actually it covers all of the Isle of Grain and the Isle of Sheppey too).

Futurescape has a slightly unfortunate hokey sound to it – reminiscent of the French Futuroscope (near Poitiers), a once imaginative place with exciting architecture and a vision of the future which has turned into a sprawling business park.  But the idea and the execution are very different.

There are actually a whole lot of Futurescapes around Britain; the RSPB’s contribution is to manage the Greater Thames one, and it’s a good choice, as there is a concentration of wildlife here – not least, 300,000 migrating waders – and a matching clump of RSPB nature reserves, including Cliffe Pools, Elmley Marshes (now managed by its own conservation trust), Nor Marsh and Motney Hill, Northward Hill, Old Hall Marshes, Rainham Marshes, South Essex Marshes, Shorne Marshes, Vange Marshes, Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project and West Canvey Marsh. There is also a rich sprinkling of conservation acronyms and designations across the area, with Special Protection Areas (SPA), Ramsar sites, national nature reserves and dozens of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

If there are so many fine, well-protected and skilfully-managed reserves in the area, why create yet another layer of management? The answer goes to the heart of the challenge to nature in a crowded place like Southeast England, and indeed in a crowded world.  With a changing climate and rising sea levels, it’s always possible that a reserve, specially one down on the mud flats within a metre or two of the high tide mark, may become unsuitable for the species it was meant to protect – or may disappear altogether. If so, the wildlife will have to move to neighbouring sites, preferably suitably protected, or die out in the region.

A thousand Oystercatchers in the Thames Estuary at Sheppey
A thousand Oystercatchers in the Thames Estuary at Sheppey

The logic of this means that although having a reserve like Cliffe Pools that is splendid for avocets, or Elmley Marshes for waders and Marsh Harriers, is a brilliant start and very necessary, it isn’t enough. What is needed is to manage the entire landscape to make it resilient: if a shock occurs in one place, the landscape as a whole can absorb it, meaning that populations will barely fluctuate but instead simply move about. Perhaps the avocet area will turn out to be a lifeline for some other wader, or a snail, a bumblebee, or a rare pond plant.

The result is that no one organisation, not even a rich one like the RSPB – it is the largest single landowner in the Greater Thames area – can hope to do the best for nature on its own. Instead, all across the landscape, different areas, protected initially by separate organisations for their own purposes  – flowers, bumblebees, birds, whatever  – need to be managed together. And that means partnership, consortium, multi-organisation projects with EU funding, meetings, planning, glossy leaflets, and management-speak.

The Greater Thames area is home to a large population of humans: 6 million, not counting the similar number of Londoners who live within the area’s contour. There are powerful pressures on the land and even the mudflats below the high tide mark: housing, business, roads, bridges, railways, even mad ideas for whole new 4-runway hub airports. London mayor Boris Johnson is just the proponent of the seventh proposal in the past 50 years for a new airport in the Thames Estuary. Others (I digress, forgive me) included John Prescott’s daft attempt to put an airport on the Cliffe Pools reserve, using the Northward Hill reserve as a convenient source of spoil to spread 15 metres deep over the marshes; an earlier attempt wanted to take the Ministry of Defence’s wild seascape at Foulness, a lengthy train-ride from London. So Boris hardly invented the idea; and its dismissal for the seventh time is no guarantee that it won’t come back yet again. What is needed is enough education of the public about the value of the Thames Estuary,  a vision of the future that stresses its importance to wildlife and the benefit of that wildness to us humans, so that the idea of plonking an airport in the midst of  the Greater Thames land-and-waterscape sounds as ridiculous as trying to put it in Hyde Park. Prescott actually said, as he flew over (as one does) in his helicopter, clutching a map of the Southeast, “What a lot of whitespace down there”. No, it isn’t whitespace, it’s one of the best places for nature in Europe, and irreplaceable.

Crossrail has built a 180 metre jetty at Wallasea to accept shiploads of spoil for the RSPB's new nature reserve there
Crossrail has built a 180 metre jetty at Wallasea to accept shiploads of spoil for the RSPB’s new nature reserve there. Image: Crossrail

Since the sea level is certainly going to rise, areas are going to have to be managed actively to make them suitable for wildlife when the tide reaches higher than it does now. It isn’t enough just to breach the sea wall and gouge out pools, leaving the sea to shape mudflats, as can be done on the (rising) west coast of Britain. Huge amounts of material will have to be brought to places like Wallasea Island to turn them into wetlands and prevent them from simply vanishing beneath the waves. The RSPB has spent 10 years of patient negotiation (what a marvellous tolerance of sitting in meetings) with partners such as Crossrail, a commercial company, with the wonderful result that Crossrail will dump all the millions of tons of spoil from digging its tunnels under London at Wallasea in the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project. Even so, more spoil is needed, and the RSPB is patiently sitting in meetings about future dredging in the Thames estuary (yeah, sounds exciting), waiting for the chance to get more mud for its nature reserves.

Conservation

RSPB Central London Local Group: Hope Farm (and Buffet)

Yesterday I went along to the RSBP’s Central London Local Group. They meet in the Scottish church hall behind Harrods in Knightsbridge: on the short walk from the tube I passed some amazingly expensive-looking people, associated with a lot of taxis and a green-coated commissionaire. Inside, I nibbled a biscuit and was offered a raffle ticket.

The group’s AGM was billed to last 30 minutes: it did, and was presented efficiently and interestingly by the members of the organizing committee. They regularly run 10 coach trips each year to out-of-town reserves as far away as Lymington and Slimbridge.  They hold a similar number of indoor meetings, with at least one scientific talk, a non-birding talk, one on a specific bird, and some on good birding places in Britain or overseas. Audiences are increasing; the group is more than breaking even, and makes an annual donation to RSPB projects.

The main talk was by Ian Dillon who manages the RSPB’s Hope Farm in Cambridgeshire. It’s not exactly a nature reserve: it’s a working farm, bought after a successful fundraising campaign in 1999, and run “for Food, Profit and Wildlife”. Dillon used to be warden of a nature reserve up in Orkney caring for Corncrakes, once a familiar farmland bird (I actually remember our music master at school berating the congregation during a singing practice for sounding like Corncrakes (they go Crek, Crek not terribly musically), which tells you how long ago it was) but now almost extinct except in the Outer Hebrides where the shy birds don’t have to try to outrun giant modern tractors that can harvest a field at 25mph.

Dillon gave a practised and lively talk about Hope Farm, covering the 90% decline in some farmland birds since 1970 (Grey Partridge, Corn Bunting, Turtle Dove among them) as farmers have, from their point of view, improved their farming. They grow twice as much wheat per hectare, up to around 8 tons. They have achieved this through intensification, using pesticides, fertilisers, mechanisation and drainage. The result is clean, healthy crops, free of weeds, pests, and diseases: but also largely free of wildlife. Specific issues for birds are the increase in winter wheat and barley, meaning there is no food-rich stubble for them to feed on in the winter, and the 1960s policy of grubbing out hedges to increase field size and hence efficiency, removing nesting sites, insects, and roosts. The speed of modern farm machinery is also fatal to wildlife such as Grey Partridges and hedgehogs. The overall effect is an average 50% decline in farmland birds since 1970; it has not quite run to completion, with numbers continuing to decline slowly in what is in the more arable parts of Britain such as East Anglia effectively a sterile countryside adapted to industrial food production.

Hope Farm runs a conventional wheat-oilseed rape – wheat – beans/peas rotation. With the EU farm subsidy, and farmed by an efficient large contractor – each big machine only visits the farm for a few days per year: it would be silly for Hope Farm to buy its own – the farm makes a profit and achieves good yields, so in theory farmers should be happy to listen to what the farm has to say about its practices, however much of a turn-off they find the name ‘RSPB’.

For as well as farming, Hope Farm aims to increase wildlife, at least its farmland birds. It has been successful so far: since 2000 the number of Skylark territories has increased fourfold, while Yellowhammers have recovered to more than their 1960s levels – luckily an early BTO survey covered the farm. Wintering bird numbers are well up, too – 200 Yellowhammers, 37 Grey Partridges, 172 Skylarks, exceeding expectations. This has been achieved with two main changes: some small inconvenient-to-plough areas have been sown with mixed crop seeds so different birds each get winter food; and five metre square patches, dotted around the arable fields, have been left bare, enabling Skylarks to feed in summertime. Curiously the Skylarks actually continue to nest in the dense crops (of wheat, etc), but once these become tall they find it hard to land there, so without bare patches they tend to nest close to the ‘tramlines’ made by the tractor when spraying. The nests don’t get run over, nor are the birds destroyed by harvesting (they’ve flown by then), but nesting near the tramlines so they can readily take off and land makes them vulnerable to passing predators – foxes, badgers, hedgehogs – all of which use the tramlines. Very careful survey work, with remote cameras, proved that this was the problem. So the lark patches help, but in rather an indirect and surprising way.

Hope Farm has to date been less successful at persuading farmers to follow suit. The RSPB set out confident that with solid evidence of effectiveness and profit, the world would do what they said. Ah, they reckoned without the slow, cautious, individualistic, calculating ways of the farmer. After all, why do anything that doesn’t pay? One answer is that it does: you qualify for an agro-environment scheme, which increases your subsidy. Another is, that trying to farm those small awkward corners doesn’t pay, either: you spend more time and money trying to work those bits of land, which slope, or are shaded, or have poor drainage, or are more susceptible to disease, and the effort, diesel, seed, pesticides and fertiliser you use are not justified by the small extra returns. This is for the farmer a practical matter; for us and the RSPB and our children, a matter of whether there will be wildlife in farmland, or not.

The evening ended with a delicious finger buffet and a glass of Cava. The group is active, enthusiastic, and runs a varied programme. I shall go along. Why don’t you?