Blogs

The RSPB is among those celebrating the return of Ratty, otherwise known as the water vole, to some of the UK’s waterways. As reported in today’s Daily Mail.

As Robin Page rightly says, Ratty has managed to hang on, just, in remote places. But there are some easily accessible places where it’s not too hard to catch up with the friendly creature.

RSPB nature reserves Rainham Marshes and Elmey Marshes have of the highest water vole densities in sites surveyed across England and Wales.

You could also see them at our Northward Hill, Titchwell and Minsmere reserves, among others.

Water vole populations are undoubtedly still in crisis thanks to habitat destruction and predation pressures. But if you get a chance to visit one of their strongholds, I promise it will be well worth it.

I’ll never forget my first glimpse of the tiny creature at RSPB Sandwell Valley near Birmingham. I’d been told there were some there, but didn’t for one minute think I’d be lucky enough to see one on my first attempt. I’m someone that is always looking into the crowd when a goal is scored at a football match or looking the wrong way when something funny happens that can’t be re-enacted. So I was sure my chances of seeing the often elusive water vole were slim to none.

But as I walked along the boardwalk, hopefully scanning the water’s edge, I saw a brightly coloured object ahead. It was a discarded upturned baseball cap, and sitting I it casually grooming its adorable face, was a water vole. I felt extremely honoured to see it and it seemed like an age until it realised I was getting closer, gawping at it. Tiny, vulnerable and nimble, it let me enjoy it for a while before disappearing off into the reeds.

I couldn’t believe my luck.

Seabirds, and other marine wildlife species, have been in the news this week.

Firstly albatrosses came under the spotlight thanks to top level talks on tuna fishing and its impact on seabirds. Scientists gathered in Brazil on Monday to agree fishing quotas in the Atlantic.

RSPB marine conservationist Dr Cleo Small was there to remind those in attendance that longline fisheries pose a major threat to seabirds and that measures must be adopted by fisheries to prevent further loss and even extinction of some seabirds, especially albatrosses.

Long line fishing is having a devastating impact on albatrosses, which are often attracted to the lines by the bait and then get caught on hooks and dragged underwater where they drown. 18 of the world's 22 species of albatross are now heading for extinction.

Closer to home things are looking up for our native seabirds with the passing of the new Marine Act. While much of the coverage of the act has concentrated on the public access to coastal areas that it will create, we are most excited about what it will mean for marine wildlife. After all, how much better walk along the coast is when you can look out and see wildlife teeming above and below the waves.

Birds like the shag and the kittiwake, which have struggling in recent years, will benefit from the act, but only if the new powers contained within it are properly utilised. Now the government has these new tools under its belt to tackle declines in marine wildlife, it has to get on and create special conservation areas along our coasts to help threatened sealife.

We’ve identified 21 of the most important marine sites around the country and rest assured we’ll be banging on the government’s door until they get the protection they so urgently need.

Yesterday the great and the good of the farming industry packed into a chilly barn on the border of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to get very enthusiastic about saving wildlife.

There was enthusiastic talk of changing the way our countryside is farmed to help protect birds, and admissions from farming leaders that the intensification of farming in recent decades has had negative impacts on the environment. They even invited government minister Hilary Benn along and nodded in agreement to every word he said.

Sound a little far fetched? Well get with the programme because things are changing in our countryside and this could be the beginning of something pretty special. Yesterday saw the launch of the Campaign for the Farmed Environment – and it’s hit the headlines in the farming press as well as the national newspapers.

The venue was the family farm of NFU president Peter Kendall and with guests including decision makers from all the main farming industry organisations, government environmental bodies and countryside conservation groups, this was clearly being taken seriously by all those involved.

But why? Campaigns, environmental schemes and rural projects are being launched all the time and few of them ever get this kind of fanfare and attention. Well a little background will help put things in perspective.

Back in the 70s and 80s grain and butter mountains caused by over production of food were resulting in falling produce prices. In response the Government introduced the policy of set aside. All this land left out of production provided a great habitat for farmland birds which was lost when the markets changed course, food prices rose and set aside was abolished in 2007.

Farmland birds are already suffering – they are now at half the level they were at in 1970 – so loss of this habitat could prove to be disastrous in the long term. In response the Government started looking for a way to replace the set aside policy and protect farmland birds and other wildlife. And after a lot of negotiation, debate and general to-ing and fro-ing, we have now arrived at the Campaign for the Farmed Environment.

It’s a voluntary scheme, so – aptly for the target audience of farmers – it’s more about carrots than sticks. But it’s one we urgently need to be successful, because if we lose skylarks from our skies, yellowhammers from our hedgerows and grey partridges from our wheat fields then our countryside will lose its heart.

Wildlife crime has been in the news again this week with a special report in the Independent on Sunday and news of a terrible breeding season for English hen harriers.

Last year the RSPB received 1,206 reports of potential offences against wild birds. Included in these were 210 reports of bird of prey killings, 133 poisoning incidents, 36 egg collecting incidents, 106 reports of illegal bird trading and 27 instances of disturbance to protected birds.

Not all of these end up in the courts, but the RSPB and our wildlife crime partners in the RSPCA and the Police pursue every conviction we can. Here’s some of those who have been collared by the long arm of the law recently for their despicable crimes against birds.

Roger Venton and Kyle Burden – Venton, head gamekeeper at Kempton Estate in Shropshire, was handed a suspended three month jail sentence, a fine and community service in January after he pleaded guilty to allowing his assistant, Burden, to use a cage trap baited with a raven. Burden was given a 26-week suspended sentence for killing badgers and buzzards on the estate.

Richard Pearson – In 2006 the home of Pearson, an illegal egg collector, was raided and officers were shocked to discover more than 7,000 eggs (pictured). Pearson was sent to jail last year for 23 weeks – one of 12 people handed custodial sentences for egg collecting since 2001.

Alistair Waters – In October last year Oban Sheriff Court in Aberdeen fined Waters £600 for recklessly disturbing a white tailed eagle nest on the Isle of Mull. Waters, eager to get a photograph of a pair of nesting eagles, had been spotted disturbing their nest just hours after an egg had been laid in it, despite the well advertised public watch points that had been provided nearby.

Robert Jenkins – Police and RSPCA officers entered Jenkins’ home in Port Talbot, Wales in May 2007 armed with a search warrant following reports of illegal bird dealing. They found 29 protected birds at the address, 22 of which had been caught from the wild, including linnets, goldfinches and chaffinches. He was convicted of possession of wild birds and fined £1,000.

Paul Cheetham and Jamie Griffiths – In August last year magistrates at a court in Rhyl described Cheetham and Griffiths’ drunken attack on a seagull as ‘sickening’. The pair, who were jailed for four months, filmed themselves on their mobile phones kicking the bird to death.

This week sees world leaders gathered in Barcelona to try to find a way forward before December’s crunch meeting of the UN climate change convention in Copenhagen. Here, our Head of Climate Change Policy, Ruth Davis, gives us her thoughts as the talk begins.

Once again, representatives from 192 nations are gathering to discuss how (and indeed whether) to avert the end of the world. 

This time the climate change cavalcade has pulled up on the warm but rather desolate concrete spaces of portside Barcelona and for once, it seems minds are beginning to concentrate.

The question is, will it all be too late? There are only five days of official negotiating time left before Copenhagen.

Many think a deal in December without the USA is unthinkable, yet the Americans cannot make firm offers on emissions cuts or finance without domestic legislation to back them up. There is no chance of that before December, and so little chance they can play a full part.

Other countries will ask why the world should wait. Why should America be given yet more time and patience when people in Africa are already dying because of climate pollution?

So, should we push for an ambitious, legally binding treaty in December or counsel patience and look for the foundations of an agreement that could allow the US to join later?

In the end, it isn’t our call. What power we have comes from our ability to watch, analyse, explain and complain. We are, simply, here to tell the truth.

The truth is that time is running out for the Arctic, for the Amazon, for the millions of people who live in land threatened by floods and droughts.

We need a legally binding deal with the kind of ambition that will rescue us from dangerous climate change. That means deep, deep cuts in emissions from developed countries like ours, and action to halt and reverse tropical forest loss. We need a fair deal, which protects vulnerable people and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change, and helps poor countries cut emissions without stifling development.

If world leaders cannot deliver this in December, then shame on them. Yet, if they do fail we will not give up. We will demand they keep coming back until that fair, ambitious and binding deal is concluded.