Today is Mark Avery’s last day at the RSPB – and I hope you will join me in wishing him all the very best for the future.
He’ll be a hard act to follow – he has that enviable ability to take complex arguments, and summarise them in a way that brings clarity and makes a conclusion suddenly obvious.
Here's Mark holding his audience at an event to celebrate his 25 years at the RSPB
As a scientist who can bestraddle (there’s a word I haven’t used for a while) the worlds of policy and communications – he’s a rare bird indeed and we’ll miss him.
Hard acts to follow bring the best out of people, and I’m certain that in Martin Harper we have the best of people to take up the challenge as Conservation Director.
At the launch of our new (and biggest) campaign, Stepping Up for Nature, I took this picture just on the off chance I could use it to illustrate the changing of the guard.
If you haven’t caught up with Mark’s blog – there’s still time and I’m sure I’ve heard (once or twice) that there’s a book of the blog. And if you want to follow Mark’s peregrinations – you can, here.
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I’ve spent most of yesterday on Romney Marsh – visiting two very contrasting places. I ended up at Dungeness where I met Keith Taylor MEP to show him around our nature reserve – but more of that later.
I set off ridiculously early (pre-dawn chorus early) so that I could fit in my early visit to an ordinary looking chunk of farmland that is ‘my’ Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) square. I say ‘mine’ but in reality the only difference between this 1km x 1km square of farmland and any other is that a decade ago the BTO’s computer randomly picked a square of Romney Marsh and we’ve been together ever since.
It’s not much to look at – but our random acquaintance has revealed a hidden beauty. And it was there today, yellow wagtails chasing and displaying and the males punctuating the green of the wheat and the blue of the sky with vivid yellow.
The tree sparrows now seem well established – they weren’t around when I started, corn buntings hit rock bottom last year with just one record, but I’m pleased to report a recovery, in part, to four birds. The ditches had been slubbed (love that word, means they’ve been cleaned out) so the re-growth of reed was still sparse probably explaining why there were no reed warblers, there’s still time and they may be there on my second visit in a month or so.
Over the last decade my square has provided some extra treats, a calling quail, a ring ouzel passing through on his way to breeding grounds further north and today a male marsh harrier, he’ll go down as a fly-over, but one to watch for the future.
If you can spare three mornings a year and fancy a blind date with a square – do have look at the BBS, here.
Onward to Dungeness, I was sufficiently early to be able to go for a walk – marsh frogs quarrelled from the pools and reed warblers sang from deep cover. A distant bird of prey added birding glamour as it was a black kite, a very rare bird that sadly didn’t hang around as it headed north.
The reason for my visit wasn’t to fill my boots with spring wildlife – that was a bonus – I was hosting a visit by Keith Taylor MEP. Dungeness is one of the most significant wildlife sites in Europe, and it comes with a full set of wildlife designations and Keith was interested in finding out more about the place its wildlife, history and some of the issues it faces.
Here we are showing off a plaque celebrating the European status of Dungeness, which we both signed. The Special Protection Area (for birds) and the Special Area of Conservation (for everything else) puts the peninsula in the top draw of wildlife sites.
But designations are only a start – getting special places, like Dungeness, at the heart of a vision for the whole landscape, cherished by local communities and valued by visitors to the area has to be the bigger aim. So I was able to tell Keith about the RSPB’s Futurescapes programme which aims to link the futures of special places with the most enlightened management of the wider countryside.
My day of two places; one, a square of ordinary farmland, the other one of Europe’s most special places for wildlife. Both are crucial to the future of nature, the hot spots and the wider countryside richer in nature.
Their needs are different – but the one without the other is a vision of a poorer world.
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A little over 150 years ago laws were passed to stop the slaughter of seabirds at Flamborough Head in Yorkshire. One of the leaders of the efforts to do something to stop the killing was the Vicar of Bridlington. A century and half later and the places seabirds nest on land are pretty well protected – places like our Bempton Cliffs RSPB Reserve – but still we strive to get effective protection for the places that they depend on for food those chunks of our marine environment that are just as vital.
Puffins -protected on land, still vulnerable at sea.
There will be all sorts of judgements passed on whether the coalition government is the greenest ever – but I’m willing to take a fair bet that the laws that protect our natural environment will be one of the fundamental tests.
The Government’s Red Tape Challenge is risking the fundamental principle that our natural world is only going to prosper with effective legal protection. All environmental legislation is potentially under threat.
It’s probably the Government testing the water, the intention is probably not to repeal the laws and undo the regulations that are giving the natural world and our environment a fighting chance. Probably?
Our role in helping to secure some of the most effective environmental legislation in the world has been immense. And it is the support of so many that has made such a huge difference. Over thirty years ago as an RSPB volunteer I wrote my first letter to my MP – my contribution was a tiny part of the surge of interest and concern that made the Wildlife and Countryside Act an effective law.
Just a piece of paper? Just some ‘red tape’?
Well, before 1981 (when the Wildlife and Countryside Act became law) 12 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (our best wildlife sites) were being damaged or destroyed each year. Since then the situation has been brought under control. This blog has brought you several tales of the work we still have to do to protect the best – but it’s effective, we get successful outcomes because of the legal framework that protects nature.
Whatever the Government’s actual intention – the ‘Red Tape Challenge’ sends a worrying signal.
So, does the Government want to step up and be the greenest ever – or does it want to slash and burn the hard-won protection of our natural world?
Let’s not leave that to chance – you can step up now and send a clear signal that we won the argument to get the laws in the first place – and we won’t stand idly by and see them discarded.
Please act now and add your name here – and do send this to your contacts.
Whether it’s Happy Leaping Frogs or Hearing Laughing Friends – our natural world is precious.
But you know that.
And without Heaps of Lovely Funds so much of what we and others can do to safeguard and cherish the natural world would be so much harder.
Can you tell where this is going yet?
Yes it’s the Heritage Lottery Fund – the HLF has been a vital friend to the natural world, it’s contribution has been hugely significant.
Referring to ‘it’ as the HLF (as we all do) runs the risk of missing the crucial point that ‘it’ is made up of people taking decisions about what is important to all of us.
And they are asking what we think – it’s an important question as the HLF will award £300m in 2013. So your views on where the investments should be made in the future are crucial. They are important for us humans – but vital for the natural world. Wildlife is notoriously unable to contribute to consultation exercises – so that’s where you could come in, you can step up and give nature a voice.
You can read more here and you will see the link to the consultation page – please have a look.
And if you want to have a quick reminder of just some of the fantastic special places that the HLF has helped us nurture, here’s some links; Beckingham Marshes in Nottinghamshire, Dungeness in Kent (and here’s a link to a blog post I wrote about what people value at Dungeness), South Yorkshire’s Old Moor, The Lee Valley’s Wild Place Your Space project, Northern Ireland’s Rathlin Island, Saltholme, Ynys Hir in the west of Wales, The Flow Country in the north of Scotland and Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk.
What a list. We are so grateful to the support we have had from the HLF – but we all know the future is going to pose more and bigger challenges, the role the HLF can play in the years to come is crucial. So go on, let’s Help Life Flourish.
If you’ve been able to give to the emergency fund set up in response to the impact of the wreck of the ship MV Oliva on Nightingale Island – thank you, you’re making a difference by stepping up for rockhoppers.
The wreck and release of fuel oil has hit the population of northern rockhopper penguins hard and the people of Tristan da Cuhna have risen to the challenge of rescuing and caring for birds affected – here’s an early report from RSPB’s Katrine Herine.
I’ll bring you some more detailed news next week but here a couple of Katrine’s recent pictures of the penguin’s using the island’s swimming pool converted for their use – and of one of the birds returning to the sea.
The work the islanders are doing is fantastic and is saving these already endangered penguins - but it isn't over yet, their wrk continues.
If you would like to give to the appeal – you can, here.