The RSPB Community

Yes, wind turbines really do save carbon emissions!

olly watts — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:02:00 GMT

Helen Blenkharn, Climate Change Policy Officer

I regularly get asked ‘do wind turbines save carbon emissions?’

A recent report by the Committee on Climate Change looks at the UK’s carbon footprint and the lifecycle emissions from different types of electricity supply and so answers the question once and for all. Taking a lifecycle emissions approach is important – it means that the emissions not just from combustion but also from materials, production, construction, operation and decommissioning all get counted. This gives a more accurate overall picture for the different fuels and technologies than just looking at their ‘in use’ emissions.

It’s clear that low carbon technologies ‘do what they say on the tin’ - they truly result in far lower carbon pollution than fossil fuels. The Committee on Climate Change says the average carbon intensity of UK electricity supply needs to be 50gCO2/KWh by 2030. It’s currently about 500gCO2/KWh - that’s a massive challenge in just 17 years. The table shows that the amount of electricity we can afford to produce from conventional gas fired power stations is going to be very limited, and even coal with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is going to push up the average emissions significantly.

What we need is a balance of renewable energy technologies – not just those listed above but wave and tidal too, alongside gas with CCS. However, CCS is still unproven at a commercial scale which is why we’re calling on Government to invest in cracking this technology as a priority. The report also says we need to reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by 70% by 2050 if we are going to meet our climate objectives. This is a staggering amount, and it proves that climate change isn’t going to be solved by leaving it to the energy sector – it needs a huge push from all of us to make it happen.

If this blog post leaves you with one message, it’s that we can’t afford to hang around. Decisions need to be taken, and put into action, quickly to change the way we power the UK. And we all need to look at our use of energy too, as individuals. Otherwise we’re going to be looking back in 2030 and thinking why on Earth didn’t we start sooner?

A new career in a new town

Leianna — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:59:00 GMT

Brand new blog from RSPB Scotland Trainee Ecologist, David Freeman. Find out more about the fascinating Bryophytes found on our reserves!

A New Career in a New Town

Back in March, I was delighted to be offered the position of Trainee Ecologist based at RSPB Scotland's Edinburgh HQ. The role is a fantastic opportunity to build on and develop a range of Ecological skills as well as a chance to undertake some real conservation work and make a real difference.

Conocephalum conicum by Li Zhang via bryophytes.plant.siu.edu

In particular, I am focusing on Bryophytes a group of tiny plants commonly known as mosses, liverworts and hornworts. These often-overlooked plants are some of nature’s most beautiful creations and display a range of deep colours and fascinating growth forms. They are also of incredible ecological importance. Their reliance on ambient humidity for water means they are often vulnerable to atmospheric pollution and the production of peat from the sphagnum mosses is one of the most important ecological processes in the world.

My calendar for the next few months is already filling up with fieldwork planned in Abernethy, Glenborrodale, Forsinard, Strathbeg, Orkney and Corrimony. Additionally I am being sent on numerous training courses both internal and external in places Like Geltsdale, Loch Leven and Raasay. These represent a fantastic opportunity to learn new skills as well as increase the amount of work I am able to undertake in my current role.

Thuidium delicatulum via bryophyteportal.org

So far, I have been out briefly to Loch Leven and Loch Lomond each time gathering a range of samples. At both of these reserves I have only scratched the surface of what must be present, but when you consider how overlooked bryophytes are, any addition to the records is a step forward! Highlights so far have to be seeing Conocephalum conicum a common but distinctive plant, Thuidium delicatulum that provided me with a fantastic opportunity to practice some microscope ID skills and the Bonsai tree-like Thamnobryum alopecurum. Spotting an osprey fishing on Loch Lomond was a nice moment too.

Thamnobryum alopecurum

Over the next few months, I intend to contribute a blog entry regularly to the website. I hope that this will paint a picture of some of the amazing work undertaken by the RSPB and draw attention to the fascinating world of Bryophytes.

The Wet, Wild and Wonderful North-West

MartinHarper — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:39:00 GMT

I have just returned from an excellent, if wet, weekend away in the north-west of England with our council of trustees, management board and regional staff. It was a chance to see for ourselves the work we are doing with others in some big landscapes in a fabulous part of England. It was great fun, with lots of wildlife (including otter, orchids, osprey and another 94 bird species) and lots of good conservation conversation.

We explored two of our Futurescapes: the Lake High Fells and Morecambe Bay (the latter also a Nature Improvement Area).

At Haweswater, we are working in partnership with United Utilities as part of our Sustainable Catchment Management Programme to restore water catchment habitat at a landscape scale. This should be good for biodiversity and should provide a cost effective way for UU to improve water quality for the two million people who depend on Haweswater for their drinking water. We also hope to be able to demonstrate that sheep farming in the uplands can be compatible with the wider range of public goods. You'll note that the weather failed to dampen our enthusiasm for the project.

At Bassenthwaite Lake, we have demonstrated the economic value of majestic species such as the osprey. Working with the Forestry Commission, Lake District National Park Authority and one hundred volunteers we have helped to protect ospreys, to highlight the conservation challenges in the region, to attract over one million visitors in a decade which, in turn, has generated £2 million annually to the local economy.

In the Lyth Valley floodplain, we are working with the National Trust, Cumbria Wildlife Trust the Environment Agency and many farmers to deliver major habitat recreation to help recover threatened species such as bittern, lapwings and redshank. We saw the fabulous work that Cumbria Wildlife Trust has done restoring Foulshaw Bog and debated how best to realise our shared vision for a sustainable future for farming in the Lyth valley whilst restoring floodplain meadows and reedbeds.

Finally, at one of our iconic reserves, Leighton Moss, we saw the progress that we have made to create two new satellite reedbed sites to help bittern conservation, to make the site more welcoming to the 100,000 visitors we get each year and to improve our understanding of the eel population. Our long-serving warden, David Mower, has been monitoring daily the number of elver (baby eels) entering the site for the past sixteen years. It is a remarkable endeavour and the data have underpinned the Environment Agency’s eel recovery plan in the north of England.

As ever, I came away incredibly impressed of the work our teams are doing, with many questions about how best to rise to some of the challenges we face, but equally reassured by the maturity of the many partnerships we have forged in the region. This is bound to result in better environmental outcomes. I look forward to our next Council weekend in Scotland next May...

Island living: searching for twite in the Hebrides

Leianna — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:26:00 GMT

RSPB Scotland Research Assistant, Davide Scridel, is out searching for an elusive bird in the Outer Hebrides. Find out more about his experiences and check out his fantastic photos below!

Island living: searching for twite in the Hebrides

The subject of the 2013 Statutory Conservation Agency/RSPB Annual Breeding Bird Scheme is the twite! The first survey, in 1999, produced a population estimate of 10,000 pairs with the majority of the breeding birds located in Scotland, then England and only a few pairs remaining in Wales. Due to the severe decline that this species experienced since the 1800s, twite are of the highest conservation concern in the UK. It is therefore vital we to reassess its population trends fourteen years after the previous national survey.

Twite perched on rock by Davide Scridel

Twite breed on unenclosed moorlands, hills coast and islands especially near farmland, with nests occurring on heather moor, sea cliffs, in gorse and, more rarely, in conifer plantation. They primarily feed on seeds found in grassland and cultivated habitats such as pasture, meadows and young fallows.

In Scotland twite breed most commonly in the Western and Northern Isles, in the Inner Hebrides and along the coast of West & North Scotland where these habitats are particularly widespread.

I feel very privileged because I have been assigned to survey this understudied species within a series of randomly selected 1x1 km² in the Outer Hebrides (Uist, Harris & Lewis), some of of my all-time favourite places. These islands are extremely beautiful and are the stronghold for breeding twite in the UK. Such preferences can be partially explained by the fact that the islands offer coastal and moorland habitats as well as the unique, small-scale farming practice called crofting.

Here fields are low-intensively managed to produce cereals or foraging grasses for livestock and the interaction of these human activities and the natural occurrence of a unique calcareous landmark Machair, formed by windblown shell sand, provide enough fertility to support cereal-based livestock production.

This is particularly true in the island of Uist, where I am based. Here cereals are grown using limited pesticides and low fertilizers with fields left fallow traditionally on a biannual basis, allowing very rare plants but also ruderal plants, such as dandelion and common sorrel, to emerge. These are the twite’s absolute favourites and part of our task here is to record the presence of this species also in relation to the amount of flowers we can see in the surroundings.

Golden plover on freshly ploughed machair by Davide Scridel

Small scale-low intensive agriculture practises are very rare nowadays and only persist in isolated areas but they are truly a heaven for orchids, invertebrates and for rare and declining farmland birds such as corncrake and corn buntings. Twite are much more than just “brown” birds. They are true indicators for changes in the way we live and how our needs affect our landscape. It is therefore very important to assess how the twite population is responding to human and non-human changes fourteen years after the previous survey.

08/05/2013

It is now a week since I took the ferry from Uig (Skye) to reach North Uist. The journey was remarkable: surreal landscapes and plenty of wildlife, with highlights such as golden and white-tailed eagle and hundreds of razorbills floating around a motionless sea. It was so unbelievably still that even the boat crew were capturing it with their cameras while approaching the Outer Hebrides - such rare moment for this part of the world.

Lochmaddy at dusk by Davide Scridel

I spent the following two days meeting local RSPB colleagues working on the site as well as partners SNH and MACHAIR LIFE+. The latter organisation is of particular interest to me as they are truly dedicated people, with the focus of increasing awareness and protection for this rare habitat full of biodiversity and very important not only for twite but also for rare invertebrates such as the Great yellow bumblebee, confined to a few spots in the whole of Britain.

The first day of the survey involved visiting a 1x1 km² located in South Uist. We didn’t see any twite but spotted stonechats, ravens, kestrel, whimbrel, wheatear and plenty of meadow pipits amongst others. An excellent introduction to the Western Island wildlife! But things got even more exciting towards the last transect when I noticed in the far distance a female hen harrier emerging from a spot in thick heather while whistling piih-eh to an approaching food delivering male. That made my day...and it was only the first one I’ve seen in the field. After seeing the female returning to the same spot I was then sure I had found a nest and decided to walk off immediately to avoid potential disturbance to the breeding pair.

Stonechat by Davide Scridel

Despite such excitement, I was quite disappointed to have not seen any twite. The weather forecast for the following day was typically Hebridean- rain and winds up to 40 mph which suggested a boring day indoors. Suddenly, those strong winds that brought rain in the morning also cleared away the cloudy sky and a splendid, but still windy afternoon, allowed a visit to a second square.

Similar to the first one, this square incorporated a combination of moorland/coastal habitat and after a few transects and point counts I detected the unmistakable “twit” and a later rambling song or “chortle”. Five TWITE amongst two pied wagtail and a few meadow pipits were confidently feeding on a white sandy beach energetically seeking for seeds amongst the washed up seaweed.

Twite searching for seed by Davide Scridel

No rings on legs but 4 out of the5 birds showed clear signs of pairing. The “chortle” is in fact a reliable indicator of breeding activity and my excitement did not stop when two birds decided to leave the feeding spot and fly towards the grass/moor mosaic cliff less than 100m away from the beach.

One of the birds remained perched on a stone, guarding the mate disappearing into a small crevice. I decided to wait and visit that crevice when both birds went back to feed on the shore. There was a nest there, carefully lined with grass and some sheep’s wool at the bottom of the cup. It was my first ever twite nest containing three light blue eggs with tiny black marks. I left the site quietly and checked for the safe return of the incubating female. It was a confirmed breeding site for twite and a very exciting day for me!

Male twite by Davide Scridel

Greening our pleasant land

MartinHarper — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:59:00 GMT

I have, at last, found the time to watch Roger Harrabin's Newsnight special on the Common Agricultural Policy.

The overall message came through loud and clear: the policy is a huge taxpayer investment (some £400 p/year per family) but there are serious questions over what this money is actually buying.

The CAP has a dark past: grotesque over-production driven by production related payments and profound negative impacts on the environment and developing countries.

But the CAP has changed a lot in the last 20 years. A series of reforms has established a clear (if somewhat slow moving) trajectory towards reducing negative impacts (environmental and social). The policy now also uses a small proportion of its vast budget to reward land managers who produce environmental public goods, things like wildlife, healthy soils and water.

But as Newsnight revealed, attempts to further ‘green’ the CAP look set to be scuppered. And who’s responsible? Perhaps those pesky (and deep pocketed) vested interests who’d like the policy to stay largely as it is – lots of [public] money doled out with virtually no strings attached?

One key issue that Newsnight didn’t cover is that of modulation. This mechanism allows Member States to move money from Pillar I, which funds direct payments, into Pillar II, which funds things like agri-environment schemes and wider rural development measures. It has been part of the CAP for over 10 years.

The good news is that this flexibility will remain a part of the next CAP. Member States will be allowed to move up to 15% of their Pillar I budget into Pillar II and each of the UK’s agriculture Ministers will decide how much they want to move later this year.

But modulation is a hot political topic now and one which has raised the ire of a number of farming unions, here and across the EU (see here and here) who claim that it would put UK farmers at a competiveness disadvantage. Their latest contribution is to argue that modulation should be subject to mandatory co-financing by national treasuries – put simply governments would have to put their own money in too.

Now I’m all for extra money in Pillar II but co-financing is just not an option for most countries, including our own – we just don’t have the money. Perhaps the NFU and others have not noticed the economic downturn? So in straitened financial times, I’d much rather have modulation without co-financing than no modulation at all. As would many farmers.

The fact of the matter is that without modulation Defra, and the devolved administrations, will not be able to invest properly in Pillar II schemes – schemes which not only reward farmers for producing environmental public goods but also help farmers to modernise, diversify, in other words become more competitive and market orientated – something Pillar I payments just don’t help them to do. And without a well funded agri-environment programme, it is widely accepted that Defra will fall woefully short of meeting its ambitions in the Natural Environment White Paper and its own biodiversity strategy for England.

To a logical mind the modulation issues should be a no-brainer. It’s therefore extremely reassuring that Owen Paterson, Defra’s Secretary of State, is continuing to maintain such a firm position on the importance of moving money into Pillar II.

But rather than espouse the RSPB position, I think it would be more apt to quote one of the many farmers we work with – evidence that the big farming unions’ position on modulation is out of touch with what many farmers think.

“As an arable farmer in Suffolk and receiving high prices for wheat and other commodities I can afford to rely less upon direct payments from the CAP, of course I have always taken the view as a farm business I should not rely upon my single farm payment. I have many poor yielding areas of the farm that I have placed into arable stewardship options, making the best of this land for wildlife means I not only provide benefits for wildlife but also demonstrate I am good value for the public investment I receive. Therefore, I can only view a transfer of funds from pillar one at 15% to agri-environment budget as a good and sensible way forward. Taking out these less productive areas has little impact on yield, little impact on my ability to feed people but big impact on my farm sustainability. My agri-environment options produce a range of benefits but without or with reduced agri-environment funding I as well as other arable farmers have no market for this, which is quite different to how my single farm payment works.”

James Bucher, Hall Farm, Suffolk Arable Farmer

Salty stories

MartinHarper — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:34:00 GMT

Here are the latest chapters in two salty stories: polyisobutene pollution in the English Channel and reform of the Common Fisheries Policy...

Yesterday, I shared on my blog a statement about the nasty, sticky substance polyisobutene (aka PIB), to be read at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)’s current meeting of its environmental subcommittee. Due to delays in the agenda, the statement was delivered this morning. It will be formally included in full in the record of the meeting, which is an important first step in getting the status of this material reviewed, as well as bringing the recent PIB disaster to the attention of the full global maritime community.

In response, the UK Government highlighted work being done on the carriage of so-called “high-viscosity” substances, which would presumably include PIB, and highlight the need to wait until the results of the MCA’s investigations into the incidents are released.

Those responsible for releasing PIB into our seas must of course be identified and, if illegal, brought to justice. However, regardless of the eventual outcomes of MCA’s investigations, our view is clear: PIB should have no place in any quantity in our seas. This is why we joined forces with other NGOs and the UK shipping industry to call for an urgent review of PIB’s legal discharge status. If all PIB was removed at ports under strict controls, ships would have no legitimate reason to carry any PIB back out to sea.

There is no quick fix here. It will take time to achieve a formal review of PIB at international level, and a review does not guarantee an ultimate ban. But we have made good progress in a short amount of time, and have the support of key players in the maritime industry.

This week has also seen 36 hours of talks by European Fisheries Ministers, as they made crucial decisions about reform to the Common Fisheries Policy. The UK’s Richard Benyon fought hard for the radical reform needed, but key aspects of the plan have been watered down. The discard ban – already long overdue – has been rolled back yet another year and will not start until 2015, and Ministers voted not to close gaping loopholes which will allow some discarding to continue.

The CFP is in desperate need of reform on bycatch, not just to revive our dwindling fish stocks, but other marine life killed as bycatch too. Today a new study has revealed that a staggering 400,000 seabirds are killed each year in gillnet fisheries. This number exceeds the estimated toll of bird deaths documented in longline fisheries. This is the first time the massive scale of this problem has been laid bare - making it clear that urgent action is needed to tackle it.

This is not quite the end of the road – each member state will take their counter-proposals back to the European Parliament and try and reach a compromise. But there is no guarantee that MEPs will back proposals, which will further extend the protracted negotiations, and threaten any chance of the much needed reforms in 2013.

If you want updates on either of these salty sagas, watch this space or please do follow our excellent safeguard our sealife blog.

One Little Box - saving UK wildlife one quid at a time

Adam Murray — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:49:00 GMT

Blogger: Gena Correale-Wardle, Senior Community Fundraiser

Have you seen our RSPB pin badge boxes in your local area? The little green boxes perch on counters in garden centres, coffee shops, hotels and pubs, proudly displaying their lovely enamel wares. For the suggested donation of £1 you can be the proud owner of one of over 50 current badge designs from tawny owl to killer whales.

These fabulous little badges do more for conservation than just letting people show their support for the RSPB by wearing their favourite species. The money generated from these lovely badges in their little boxes is a serious amount. Last year, across the whole of the UK, we raised £694,501 from pin badges. This money covers areas that we can’t traditionally get funding for, whether it’s for creating homes for otters on our reserves, providing bug hotels for children to make at one of our events or paying the running costs of our visitor toilet facilities! RSPB wouldn’t be able to achieve as much as it does without this money coming in.

In Eastern England we raised over £86,000 from pin badges last year and we are lucky enough to have around 350 long-term volunteers who service our pin badge boxes once a month to top up the boxes, collect the money and bank it for us.

We are always looking for fresh locations for our pin badge boxes and new volunteers to join our pin badge family, so if you have a bright idea for a site that would be good or would like to have a round of boxes yourself, please get in touch. The money you collect from looking after these boxes makes a real difference and amounts to such a large figure – all those £1s work together to make sure we can continue to give nature a home.

Get in touch with Matt Howard with your pin badge ideas or to find out more. Matt.Howard@rspb.org.uk or 01603 697515.

Nests, eggs and chicks, by Colin Higgins, Public Affairs Co-ordinator

Colin — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:26:00 GMT

Despite the variable weather, we’re now well into spring and many birds will already have started raising their families.

Some early-nesting birds like robins may already have fully fledged chicks, while others like house sparrows could still be nest building or incubating eggs.

Once birds have started nesting, they are legally protected until the chicks fledge, so if you find a nest in the garden, just sit back and enjoy them for a few more weeks.

During the nesting season, it’s still important to keep feeding your garden birds. While the chicks will normally be fed on natural food like caterpillars, the adults will be very grateful for a reliable feeding station for themselves, meaning that they can spend more time with their brood. Make sure not to use whole peanuts unless they are securely in mesh feeders so that they can’t be a choking hazard for young birds.

If you find a young bird out of the nest, please resist the temptation to take it in to look after it. The parents will be looking for it and the youngster will be calling for them at the top of its voice. If you need to pick it up, to take it out of the road for instance, this is ok, but please put it back as near as you can to where you found it. Birds have a poor sense of smell, so handling a chick in this way will not cause its parents to abandon it.

For more information on baby birds see http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/health/babybirds.aspx

If you’re interested in seeing how some of our bigger birds raise their chicks, why not have a look at the webcams for our Date with Nature projects.

The Chichester Cathedral Peregrines and the New Forest Goshawks are each raising a brood of 3 youngsters and you can keep up with all the action as the hungry chicks grow up into magnificent birds of prey.

So whether you’re watching thrushes in the garden or peregrines at the cathedral, this is a truly magical time for birds!

Curlew – International Conservation Plan announced

Ian Fisher — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:41:00 GMT

[Dan Brown is the RSPB's Globally Threatened Species Officer with responsibility for the curlew. Here he brings us news of an international effort to halt declines in this charismatic species.]

With its long down-curved bill and evocative bubbling trills, the curlew is a highly enigmatic wading bird – a cherished visitor to upland meadows and moors during the summer months, and of coastal areas during the winter. It is also a wader currently facing an uncertain future. Across its breeding range, which stretches from NW Europe to the grasslands of the central Asian steppe in Russia and Kazakhstan, the curlew has been declining at an alarming rate. A 44% decline has been recorded in the UK alone between 1995 and 2010, with overall declines so steep that it was recently up-listed to Globally Near Threatened by the IUCN.

Curlew in flight. Photo Dean Bricknell.

Today marks an important day for the Eurasian curlew - an agreement has just been signed to develop an international conservation plan for the bird. Curlews are migratory, often travelling hundreds of miles between their northern breeding grounds and their southern wintering quarters in Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. As with many migratory species, these long journeys traverse international borders, and so developing an effective conservation strategy needs all countries working together. That way we can identify the factors causing curlew declines in different parts of its range, and identify how each country can play its part in the species' recovery.

RSPB's Darren Moorcroft (Head of Species and Habitats Conservation) and Sergey Dereliev (AEWA Technical Officer). Photo Graeme Madge.

Outside of our responsibility for the unique and threatened flora and fauna of the UK Overseas Territories, there are few other IUCN Red List Species for which the UK has such great responsibility – the UK is thought to support somewhere in the region of 17-25% of the world population. Only Russia hosts more breeding birds. The UK is also the third most important country in terms of its wintering population. Therefore, in recognising the importance of the UK for this species, today we signed an accord with the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) that will see us working together to develop an international Single Species Action Plan (SSAP) for the species. We will be developing the plan over the coming year, and look forward to working with governments, academics and species experts across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to develop a comprehensive and robust conservation strategy that will seek to secure the curlew’s long-term future.

Find out more about AEWA and the latest initiatives for migratory birds at the AEWA latest news pages.

Stuck for answers (2)

MartinHarper — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:30:00 GMT

While we await the full outcome of the meeting of European Fisheries Ministers (details remain patchy at the moment) attention turns to the International Maritime Organisation's environmental subcommittee. Today, we have stepped up efforts to prevent pollution incidents such as the discharge of polyisobutylene which has had such a devastating effect on seabirds in the English Channel.

This morning, the following statement will be read out from the Clean Shipping Coalition...

Mr Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to address the meeting this morning.

This year, over 4,000 seabirds have been recorded washed up dead or dying along the south coast of England, covered in the substance polyisobutylene, alternatively polyisobutene or PIB. This substance, when discharged into the sea, coalesces into a glue-like consistency, coating birds’ wings and bodies and preventing them from feeding or flying.

The impact on populations at sea is likely to have been far higher, possibly affecting up to 40,000 birds. The longer term impacts of releasing PIB on other parts of the marine ecosystem are currently not well studied or understood.

The cause of this tragedy is still being investigated. However, the exact origin of previous PIB incidents has rarely been found and to our knowledge there have been no successful prosecutions against breaches of the MARPOL Convention in relation to PIB.

Mr Chairman, Under Annex II of the MARPOL Convention, the various forms of PIB are classified as Category Y, where although it is deemed to be a hazard that justifies a limitation on its release, it remains legal for a ship to discharge PIB under certain conditions.

It is our understanding, however, that the testing of these substances to determine Annex II classification does not take place in realistic marine conditions, and in PIB’s case does not sufficiently consider the full range of potential impacts of PIB upon marine ecosystems when mixed with seawater, beyond whether the substance floats or sinks.

We also simply do not know how much PIB is released into the marine environment as part of routine tank-washing operations, and the cumulative impacts of these chronic releases.

As such, Mr Chairman, it is our opinion that the risks of releasing PIB into the marine environment in any quantity are underestimated, both alone and with potentially corrosive cleaning agents, and that an urgent review is needed of PIB’s classification status under MARPOL Annex II, for presentation at a future meeting of MEPC. We are also concerned that when legal discharges of a harmful substance are allowed it becomes more difficult to stop illegal discharges, as ships have a legitimate reason for proceeding to sea with the waste on board.

This week, leading UK wildlife charities also signed a joint statement with the UK Chamber of Shipping, supported by the UK ports and maritime business sectors, strongly supporting such a review. There are copies of this statement on the table outside this meeting room and here at the CSC desk .

We would like to urge IMO Member States to respond swiftly to this serious issue and take a proactive approach to such a review.

PIB has no proper place in our precious oceans and seas, and we must ensure that the classification of PIB under MARPOL fully reflects its impacts on marine life.

Thank you very much for your attention.

In praise of rain

Adam Murray — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:06:00 GMT

Blogger: Rachael Murray, Project Officer

I’m off on holiday to Turkey next week, and ever since I passed that tantalisingly irreversible milestone of booking my flight, I have been pondering what I will wear on my ‘tropical’ adventure. With blue skies and wall to wall sunshine in mind, my list consisted of tiny vest tops, shorts and flip flops...bliss!

So, imagine my dismay when the day came to check the weather forecast to verify my sun soaked assumptions, and I discovered that there will be rain, more rain, a touch of drizzle, with a bit of lightning thrown in for good measure.

Well. Way to (literally) rain on my parade.

But before I got too resentful, I encouraged myself to reflect on how grateful I should be. Both for the luxury of going on holiday, but more importantly, that our lovely planet gets regular rain showers at all. I set myself the task of thinking about some of the brilliant things about rain, and this is what I came up with:

If you’ve ever seen one of those slow motion sequences that show a plant unfurling from bud to full blooming majesty, you’ll recognise what miraculous mother nature can do. But, without rain, there is no photosynthesis, which provides plants with energy to grow, filling our world with beauty and fragrance.
Is there anything more satisfying than that ‘sploshing!’ sensation as you jump in a puddle? Whether young or old, a good puddle jumping session is a great way to keep the big kid in us all alive and kicking.
It’s a bit of an irony that swallows, our lovely icons of summer, need a bit of rain to build their nests, which are constructed from pellets of mud. So don’t forget to leave pools of water around on those dry summer days to help them out!
Nothing beats the way my heart lifts as I catch an unexpected glimpse of a rainbow. Those glowing, otherworldly colours arcing across the sky are a phenomenon wholly dependant on a good shower!
Just like us, birds need a good bath now and again. Clean feathers insulate better, and bathing helps reduce parasites. So, as rain is collected by bird baths in gardens across Britain, it keeps our birds happy, healthy and well watered.
It’s not just birds, rain is a key source of water to drink and wash in for us humans too, keeping us well hydrated and free of disease. Imagine our reservoirs acting as giant bird baths, or water butts. It only takes the threat of an impending drought to remind us why rain is so important to our lives.
There’s no better way to feel cosy than to be safely tucked up indoors with the sound of rain hitting the windows (or on the roof of your tent!), knowing that you are snug, and the world is getting a nice big drink.
Where there is no rain, there is no food! Every crop or animal that eventually turns into something we eat will have had a good watering from the clouds throughout its lifespan, creating juicy fruit, tasty vegetables, plump cows and healthy and abundant cereals and grains to make soft bouncy bread (amongst other things!)
Nothing beats the smell of warm summer rain falling on roads, fields and gardens, and that feeling of a world cleansed that follows.
Sharing an umbrella with a loved one – there’s no denying there is something a little bit romantic about a stroll in the rain J

It strikes me that there’s a theme here – where there is water, there is happy, abundant life. There’s just no escaping it, rain is flipping marvellous.

I am going to bear this in mind as we move towards a good old British summer, facing the possibility that it might be as precipitation filled as last year. And since Turkey hasn’t escaped the same fate it seems, I’m off to dig out my cagoule and a pair of travel friendly wellies!

Why not let us know what you love about rain by leaving a comment below!

Image by Andy Hay (RSPB images)

Indian Conservation at Members' Weekend

Ian Fisher — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:55:00 GMT

[Neha Sinha is Advocacy and Policy Officer, Bombay Natural History Society, India. She is based in Delhi, though she would like to ‘fly’ to some IBAs more often. She can be contacted at n.sinha@bnhs.org. Neha tells us here about her experience at this year's Members' Weekend.

“This is the room you have to speak in”, Bryan said to me. I stared, dumbfounded, at the massive lecture hall in York University, with rows and rows of seats: more than a hundred listeners could easily fit in Room ‘B’. I was at the Members' Weekend to talk about my work with BNHS-India, and the amphitheatre seemed vast and academic.

I closed my eyes, thinking about the birds I was going to speak about. Exactly a year ago, I was in Mumbai. I remembered how hot it was; scruffy, stuffy, muggy. And then, down a few road crossings, I had seen 10,000 flamingos placidly feeding in a mudflat in Sewri, Mumbai’s own IBA. The birds had transformed the landscape, from a dull cityscape to a pink and white tapestry, moving and glittering in enchanting ways. I was also going to speak about the hunting massacre of Amur falcons in Nagaland, how the images of shrieking, screaming birds had robbed us of our sleep. And I remembered the Indian skimmers of Chambal, with their hooded eyes and comical beaks, sharing a painfully tiny sand spit with gharials, looking oddly like they were suited up for a corporate island event. And finally, I remembered the Nicobar megapode and the Narcondam hornbill, from their tiny islands in Nicobar and Andaman, birds which we are working on saving and which most Indians haven't seen.

The room starts to fill with an expectant audience.

I wondered then if the Members would identify with these causes, and with birds in distant lands, rivers—and shores.

I was more than pleasantly surprised! The Members streamed in, listening with rapt attention. Someone wanted to know if the Amur falcons were going to be okay this year, another attendee wanted to know how they could help. More questions: how can hunting be stopped? Would the vultures be okay? How were the tigers in India doing, and (perhaps of more interest!) how could one tell the difference between a tiger and a tigress?

Neha inspires Members and staff like, reminding us how India is a vital storehouse for biodiversity.

But more than anything, what I took away from the Members' Weekend was the propensity of the Members to help. Each attendee wanted to know how they could help birds and nature in India and other places. Birds they may never see, but birds which are a part of their consciences anyway. This is an amazing global citizenship, an incredible pool of people who do not believe in boundaries. It is gratifying to see that some people have truly taken lessons from birds—there are no boundaries for birds, birdsong, and enabling action for nature!

To many more successful Members' Weekends!

A force to be reckoned with - Neha with RSPB's Helen Byron (International Casework), Ananya Mukherjee (Vulture Recovery Project) and Dora Querido (LIFE Project Officer).

A foraging adventure and a wild sleep out. By Alice Jefferies, southeast community fundraiser

Sam Stokes — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:27:42 GMT

I was lucky enough to grow up in a small village in West Sussex which was surrounded by woods, fields and roaming horses.

I’d play outside with friends all day, experiencing wildlife first hand. We’d make rope swings, build dens and generally create a lot of extra washing for our mums; I’d play and explore all day until the call of my name across the fields would herald dinner time and I’d run home.

As an adult my love of wildlife and the natural world has only grown - you will still find me ‘playing’ outside of a weekend - swimming down the Ouse or hunting for mushrooms on the South Downs. Which is why I’m so excited about putting on an event which will celebrate everything outdoors and raise money for the RSPB too.

On the 25th of July the RSPB are teaming up with Hunter Gather Cook - a foraging school based in East Sussex. The event is taking place in Barcombe on a private nature reserve, which is locally renowned for its population of rare butterflies. Guests will be brought right back to nature - under the expert guidance of the HGC instructors, they will learn how to identify seasonal edibles from nature’s larder, cook a haunch of venison in a traditional underground oven to create a foraged feast for dinner, learn how to make a fire from scratch and enjoy some of the wild’s finest brews and cocktails at twilight. Finally guests will build shelters for a cosy night around the fire.

I realise not everyone had the chance to play in the great outdoors as a child like I did, but it’s never too late...

If you would like to learn the ways of the wild and be one of the party on the 25th of July, send me an email to find out more alice.jefferies@rspb.org.uk

Richard Benyon: your time is now

MartinHarper — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:59:00 GMT

You might be interested in this advert that will appear in today's paper. It is timed to coincide with a crucial EU Council of Fisheries Ministers. Our Biodiversity Minister has been leading the charge for radical reform of the Common Fisheries Policy and it is vital that his counterparts across the negotiating table realise the strength of public support for the stance he has been taking. Read here to find out more and then (if you do this sort of thing) please show your support for Richard Benyon by tweeting for a strong CFP deal @RICHARDBENYONMP #CFPREFORM.

Calls for a Thames Estuary Airport rejected... for the 7th time since 1946

Harry Huyton — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:06:00 GMT

The Transport Select committee’s rejection of a Thames Estuary Airport will not be the final word so we won’t be cracking open the fair-trade fizzy pop just yet – that should come later when the Davies commission (we hope) hammers home the final nail.

The Thames and its mighty estuary has been through a lot. Spanish armadas, centuries of international shipping, heavy industry, intensive farming, a sunken ship stuffed to the gills with explosives and the 6 million people who live around it have not yet overwhelmed the >1000 km² of mudflats and marshes sat on London’s doorstep.

Our work with the Thames estuary Futurescape, Wallasea Island and the multiple designations protecting these areas are all there for a reason. To protect and support the hundreds of waders, wildfowl, rare invertebrates and endangered mammals that depend upon these habitats. So it is fantastic that the committee specifically mention the impact a Thames Estuary Airport would have on wildlife in their explanation of its rejection - alongside the poor economic outlook.

Whilst everyone in the Thames Estuary will have collectively let out a sigh of relief today, the news was rather more alarming for west Londoners. The Select Committee firmly backed a new runway at Heathrow, and even encouraged an assessment of a proposal to move Heathrow West and build a fourth runway.

Its not just local residents who should be disappointed by this conclusion, however; Aviation emissions are currently increasing, and unconstrained aviation expansion will only accelerate this. Yet all countries in the world, including the UK, have committed to reduce emissions in line with keeping climate change to under an average global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius It’s increasingly clear that achieving this goal will mean we need to make faster and deeper emission reductions, and a new hub airport or expanded Heathrow will make this harder to achieve. It’s time that MPs and Government began to connect the dots and prioritised keeping our climate safe over short-term growth.

Reforming duties...

MartinHarper — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:59:00 GMT

I don't know whether you manged to catch the Channel 4 News nature conservation special last night. I couldn't watch it all as the opening section was so dramatic that my boy ran out of the room screaming "I don't want the hedgehogs to disappear". I thought that was probably a rational response to the crisis we face.

Anyway, I promised an assessment of the environmental assessment of the Queen's Speech. Sorry it's a day late. And I cannot blame the sunshine this time.

There are four notable bills proposed and I thought I'd give a quick view on each. I've given a "nature-rating" for each where 5 stars suggests that this could give nature conservation a great boost and 1 star suggests the interests of wildlife could be seriously undermined.

1. Deregulation Bill (**)
The Bill (which was unexpected) aims to “reduce the burden of excessive regulation on businesses”, in particular via the introduction of a “growth duty” on statutory regulators such as Natural England. While we strongly support the principle of identifying opportunities for more efficient and effective regulation, and agree that regulatory bodies should carefully consider the impacts that their activities have on those that they regulate, we are mindful of the considerable risks associated with a new duty that weakens the focus on safeguarding the natural environment. As I wrote here, we need agencies to be free from political interference or requirements to boost short-term economic growth.

The ground-breaking 2011 UK National Ecosystems Assessment clearly highlighted the wide variety of significant benefits provided by the natural environment in terms of economic prosperity, human health and well-being; the risks posed to the delivery of these benefits through inadequate protection and management; and the importance of regulation in safeguarding and enhancing the delivery of key services. Therefore, when regulators are faced with situations where protecting the natural environment may result in short-term costs to regulated bodies, we do not believe that economic factors should be given priority over social and environmental factors in deciding the best course of action.

I would have given this one star, but for the fact that the wording proposed for the duty "is have regard to" rather than "further" growth. That said, we shall be looking to ensure the pre-legislative scrutiny considers the implications of this new duty on the role of agencies in protecting the environment.

2. Energy Bill (***)
The Energy Bill (which carries over in to this sessiono of Parliament) will introduce sweeping changes to the way the UK energy market is regulated and to how different energy sources, including renewable energy is subsidised. It aims to bring about the investment needed to replace the fossil fuel and nuclear power plants that are coming to the end of their operating lives, and to meet our renewable energy and climate targets. The Bill should have been a seminal moment for the ‘greenest government ever’, but instead it has failed to establish a clear commitment to a near-zero carbon electricity sector by 2030, in spite of overwhelming support from businesses and NGOs. What’s more, the complex changes that the Bill will introduce are causing confusion and a hiatus in investment in clean green energy, just when we need it the most.

I have given this one three stars because there is still a chance that this Bill steers us confidently down a path towards a low carbon future. This will however require a change of heart from the Coalition Government.

3. High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill and the HS2 Hybrid Bill (The HS2 Preparation Bill will authorise expenditure to build a High Speed Rail network, while the Hybrid Bill will provide the Government with the legal powers to construct and operate the High Speed 2 railway. ) (***)
Few would argue that the UK's strategic transport infrastructure does not need improving. The question is whether HS2 is the right solution. There’s two tests it will have to pass before we would agree that it is. Firstly, it must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. A report last year for the RSPB, CPRE and Campaign for Better Transport showed that this is by no means a given; it will only help the climate if its part of an overall strategy that ensures passengers are get out of their cars and planes and on to public transport, including HS2 itself. Secondly, the route must minimise any damage to wildlife. Like many others, we are concerned about the damage likely to be caused to special sites for wildlife and want to see Government do much more to avoid impacts. Where impacts are unavoidable, however, we expect proposals that replace the losses on a like for like basis.

4. Water Bill (**)
The Water Bill aims to “improve the water industry” by making the water sector more resilient to droughts and floods, increasing customer choice and encouraging investment and innovation. We are disappointed to see that Defra appear to have discounted a primary sustainability duty for Ofwat. Instead, they are promoting the idea of a resilience duty. This raises the question of what resilience is. At one end of the spectrum, resilience might be seen as a mandate to maintain business as usual in the face of ever greater economic, social and environmental pressure. At the other end of the spectrum resilience could mean building environmental and socio-economic limits into how we manage water, fundamentally changing the way we organise land management, water supply and demand controls. Where Defra sit on this spectrum will determine how useful the resilience duty will be for the environment, but it’s clear that if we continue to lurch from drought to flood, maintaining the status quo won’t be enough. The Draft Water Bill, which received pre-legislative scrutiny by the EFRA select committee, focussed on competition within the water industry as an end in itself, with no evidence that progress on abstraction licensing, water allocation and management will be accelerated. I fear we have some way to go before we can describe the way we manage our water resources as either sustainable or resilient - hence two stars.

That's it for this session of Parliament. And then there's just one more opportunity for a five-star bill for nature before the General Election in 2015...

We need to help UK wildlife adapt to climate change

Emily Sanders — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:16:00 GMT

For a long time, climate change has felt like a distant problem; a cause of concern for our children’s children maybe, but not us. No longer, however, as our climate is changing before our eyes and we’re being forced to cope with a seemingly endless series of floods and droughts. But if you think it’s bad for us, then take a moment to think about how our wildlife is coping, because a major new report launched to today shows that it’s plants and animals that are on the frontline of our changing climate.

The ‘report card’ is compiled by Natural England and the Environment Agency in consultation with a wide range of experts to collate the latest scientific evidence, including ourselves at the RSPB. It provides a comprehensive overview of how nature is already being affected by climate change in the UK, and what is to come.

The picture at the moment is by no means uniformly negative; most of our butterflies do well out of warmer summers, and the UK has welcomed a range of new species spreading northwards over the Channel such as little egret and small red-eyed damselfly. But the negative impacts are already beginning to emerge. Spread of problem non-native species, pests and diseases is being aided by the changing climate, and we’re seeing coastal habitats such as saltmarsh being lost rapidly to sea-level rise. Individual species are also struggling with the changes – the spectacular black grouse and capercaillie show poor breeding success in response to high summer rainfall, for example.

That’s why we think conservation needs an adaptation strategy, and this strategy needs to be based on three pillars:

An enhanced protected area network of bigger, better sites that are well managed and ecologically connected across the landscape. These sites will continue to provide vital refuges that will help to accommodate the northwards advance of species in the face of climate change, but delivery at the scale needed will require new and innovative partnerships at the landscape scale, within the conservation sector and with others who can change how land is managed for the better.

Addressing existing problems to ensure populations are robust and able to withstand stress. In the uplands, for example, a combination of climate change and drainage is drying out the peat soil, reducing the number of craneflies that chicks of species like golden plover depend upon. With many others, we are working to restore these damaged ecosystems, putting the plovers and other species in the best position possible to successfully adapt.

A long-term perspective. Conservation has always been a long game, but climate change means that we now need to have our eyes on the future more than ever. If we don’t, then today’s conservation successes risk being swept away.

Even this, however, won’t work if climate change continues unbridled. Nature can only adapt so far and so fast. Reports this week that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rapidly approaching 400 parts per million - up from 280 before the industrial revolution – are a sobering reminder that current efforts to avoid ‘dangerous’ levels of climate change are inadequate. One major review in the journal Nature concluded that under a mid-range climate warming scenario, 15-37% of species would be 'committed to extinction' by 2050. We’re currently on a trajectory that would result in a greater level of change.

This leads us to the inescapable conclusion that anyone who wants to see the unique and wonderful wildlife of our country protected must step up to the climate challenge. That means doing everything we can to reduce our emissions, and challenging Government to do the same.

Taking the slow road: surveying fungi on the banks of Loch Lomond

Leianna — Wed, 08 May 2013 10:22:00 GMT

Brand new blog from Chris Knowles, RSPB Scotland Nature Counts Trainee Ecologist.

Taking the slow road: surveying fungi on the banks of Loch Lomond

This end of a frosty spring is about as far from being mushroom season as you can get, and yet that’s what I had high hopes of finding on one of my first outings as a ‘Nature counts trainee ecologist’.

With the recent weather in mind, I set out on a surprisingly dry and not-particularly-freezing kind of morning to survey woodlands at the RSPB Loch Lomond reserve.

1. Ring Wood, RSPB Loch Lomond

As I took my first few steps into Ring Wood I glanced around at the dominating beech and birch, cast a hopeful eye over the copious standing and fallen dead wood and then spent the next 20 minutes in pretty much the same spot. I had stepped into a wonderland of diversity as each trunk, log and fallen branch revealed more of the toughest fungi left hanging on since last autumn like the Birch Polypore (also known as the Razorstrop fungus due to it being used in the past as a tool sharpener) and some of the woody perennial fungi like the Hoof Fungus (also known as the Tinderbracket due to it being used to carry tinder for firelighting still to this day).

2. Hoof fungus (Fomes fomentarius)

In fact due to the large number of species found, by noon I had barely moved 20 metres from where I started. So although it was with some reluctance that I had to drag my eyes from the ground in my search for fungi, I was rewarded over lunch by a sight in the skies. As I sat on a bank of the loch munching a sandwich, an osprey with similar thoughts in mind repeatedly swooped down over the water catching its own lunch – it was wonderful to watch, and something I had never observed before (neither an osprey, nor an osprey’s lunch).

Soon enough it was time to get my head out of the clouds, and back into the woods for more fungi; no difficult task on a site like this. I was particularly impressed with how many species had colonised the same host plant together... with the best exhibiting no less than four visibly fruiting in close proximity on the same dead tree.

I’ll be returning to the same woods for another survey this autumn, but next time I think I’ll be bringing the kids along for a fungal lesson in sharing.

The offset offering (part 2)

MartinHarper — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:59:00 GMT

I had a good morning with Biodiversity Minister, Richard Benyon, yesterday. While the weather was a little disappointing, Old Hall Marshes was looking great, hooching with waders and marsh harriers. We discussed some of the challenges we face on the site and set it into the wider Essex/national context. The reserve provided a much better backdrop for our discussion compared to the usual office environment.

Mr Benyon's attention, like all his parliamentary colleagues, will turn today to the Queen's Speech: a moment for pageant and political intent. I'll offer a view on its content tomorrow.

In the meantime, I promised to pick up the offsetting theme continued by Sam Vine yesterday. Sam outlined some of the challenges they are dealing with as biodiversity offsets are rolled out at state and national level (link here). Much of what Sam said resonates with the RSPB’s thoughts, particularly the need to adopt a principled, robust and pragmatic approach to the development of any offset system to ensure that nature does not lose out.

Our interest in offsets is not to facilitate economic growth per se, but to see if they offer a way to stem decades of gradual biodiversity loss to development that has gone on outside our protected areas, with little or no redress. Our starting point is that compensation (or offsetting) is an absolute last resort, once all measures to avoid and reduce possible impacts have been taken, and there is a clear need for the development that justifies damage to our steadily eroding natural capital. We are not alone in wanting to avoid short cuts being taken – the Government’s own National Planning Policy Framework agrees, as does its Natural Capital Committee.

A well regulated, mandatory national system of offsets could offer one possible way of making those fine words a reality. This could ensure, as the NCC’s report suggests, that development no longer leads to the erosion of our natural capital. Designed properly, it could offer more effective ways to provide habitat and species compensation when it is considered necessary, while complementing wider landscape scale conservation and lowering overall costs through economies of scale. However, we do agree with the NCC this should not be rushed in to headlong – that it should be ‘carefully explored after a clear set of principles and a policy framework has been developed.’ Scratch the surface of the biodiversity offset issue and you reveal a complex web of interrelated issues that all need to be got right if the goal of no net loss of biodiversity is to be achieved for real, rather than on paper. Careful thought and real political will, based on robust science, is needed to implement an offset system worthy of the lofty ambitions often claimed for it.

Comparing the situations here and in Australia reveals some interesting similarities and some real differences. The first is that a successful offsets scheme relies upon there being the political and social will to meet no net loss of biodiversity. This means having strict rules about what has to be offset, when, and how it is done. At the same time, accepting that it will often not be possible to replace a lost habitat or species, so damaging development in the wrong place should not proceed.

But there are real differences that, in some ways, makes developing and implementing offsets in here more complex. For example, unlike Australia, we do not have significant areas of native vegetation where little intervention and cost would be required beyond getting the habitat to a point where it can be left alone. Our rich heritage of semi-natural habitats means knowledge of how to restore or create the conditions required by many habitats and species is still in its infancy and largely experimental. As in Australia, sound science is essential. Simply increasing the area of replacement habitat by five or ten fold and hoping it will work cannot make up for the permanent loss of valued biodiversity. Even where we do know how to guarantee success, there is normally a need for continuing active intervention which brings with it associated costs over the course of decades.

So, we wait to see how the Coalition Government wishes to take forward its current work on biodiversity offsets in England. The RSPB will continue to give serious thought to this issue that at one and the same time offers real opportunity for, and considerable risk to, the conservation of the natural world around us.

Rainham Marshes - On the Edge! By Martin Holm, Visitor Services Manager

Sam Stokes — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:34:35 GMT

"We couldn’t be more on the edge, even if we tried"

These words come from Rainham Marshes' Information Officer Howard Vaughan in filmmaker Kieran Evans’ documentary Outer Edges. A seventy-minute film, which tracks a peripheral route from north Essex to the Thames. Rainham Marshes is part of a journey that follows the flow of the River Roding from its source to its conclusion at Barking Creek and along the Thames Gateway to Tilbury. Apart from Howard, long serving volunteer Sam Shippey talks about when he first visited the area long before it became a nature reserve.

Narrating the film is musician Karl Hyde who for many years lived in Romford, not far from the marshes. Part of legendary dance outfit Underworld, Karl is a firm fan of the Rainham Marshes and rumor has it, he has been visiting a few times. Underworld broke through to the mainstream with their Born Slippy/Nuxx track, which they penned for Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting movie from 1996. Danny and Karl (together with the other part of Underworld, Rick Smith) teamed up again for the London 2012 opening ceremony as Underworld did the intro music. So it’s a wee bit of stardom, that Rainham has had sprinkled over the marshes.

And the music doesn’t stop here as Outer Edges partners with Karl Hyde's solo album, Edgeland, which is just out as a lovely CD/DVD deluxe version. It’s probably the first time Rainham Marshes has been part of a record release. First single to be lifted from the Edgeland, The Boy With The Jigsaw Puzzle fingers, also features Rainham Marshes – see if you can recognize some of the scenes...

(Please visit the site to view this video)

You can watch a trailer for Outer Edges here.

Finally, you can always come to Rainham Marshes yourself and explore the “wild lives” of all those wonderful creatures living in the furthest reaches of London suburbia. On many levels, they couldn’t be more on the edge, even if they tried!

The offset offering: a guest blog from Sam Vine, Head of Conservation, Birdlife Australia

MartinHarper — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:59:00 GMT

I trust you had a fine Bank Holiday weekend. Mine included a couple of excellent dawn(ish) choruses and feels as though it has extended a bit as this morning I shall be hosting Biodiversity Minister, Richard Benyon, at one of our reserves, Old Hall Marshes in Essex. I am looking forward to it. Lots of sunshine and lots of wildlife will help us both. Which is good as there is a lot to discuss!

Here is one issue.

Back in January, I set out some of our views about this issue after the Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, revealed to The Times his interest in establishing a scheme that offers planners the powers to ‘offset’ the impacts of development, thus removing apparent barriers to economic growth. Since then, the pressures to remove environmental barriers to economic growth have only increased (see here and here). It’s also apparent that interest in offsets is unabated. Over the last few months, the Government’s Ecosystems Markets Task Force and its Natural Capital Committee have both recommended serious consideration be given to the idea. The Environment Secretary’s enthusiasm to learn more has recently taken him half way round the world to find out about Australia’s approach to offsets.

So, I thought it was time to return to the subject again. Given the Environment Secretary’s recent trip to Australia, I’m really pleased to welcome Sam Vine, Head of Conservation at BirdLife Australia, to reflect on their experience of the offsets debate with their national and state governments. Tomorrow, I’ll set out some more of our views.

----------------------------

Globally, biodiversity is in crisis. Bird species are in decline all around the world. The task of arresting, and ultimately reversing, this decline is urgent.

At the same time, governments are increasingly promoting biodiversity ‘offsets’ as a way to enable both conservation and development. They claim that offsets can achieve ‘no net loss’, or even ‘net gain’, in biodiversity or species habitat. Sounds good in theory, but does it work? And are our policy makers and developers really up to the challenge?

The idea that we can create new habitat to replace what will be lost as part of a development is an appealing one. We know it is at least possible to create some habitat for some species some of the time. Many recovery programs for threatened species focus on restoring lost habitat. However, in most circumstances the process of delivering full and valid ‘offsets’ for species habitat are often untested, require long lag times for habitat to ‘come online’, and are too costly to recreate habitat at an appropriate scale.

So even where it is theoretically feasible, history demonstrates that offset programs rarely benefit nature. In fact, there are many documented cases where offsetting has been used to justify the destruction of irreplaceable natural habitat. Qualitative assessments of biodiversity-offset programs demonstrate that they rarely meet the objectives they were established to achieve.

To effectively counter-balance a development impact, a biodiversity offset must deliver the same amount of the same biodiversity or habitat values as are to be lost. But the entire range of natural values and processes on any given piece of earth are complex and are not fully understood. When devising offset schemes, the natural processes need to be understood not just in the “here and now” but well into the future. The complexity and uncertainty involved make it very difficult to plan and to verify offsets in a way that ensures a true ecological counter-balance.

Nonetheless, a vogue for market-based approaches to biodiversity conservation is driving the development of offset schemes around the world. Here in Australia, our Commonwealth and state governments are increasingly trying to implement their policy goals of reversing biodiversity decline by ‘offsetting’ damage to threatened species habitat.

This approach sends the wrong message that our most threatened species and special places are tradable commodities. Furthermore, offset programs will inevitably lead to the loss of genetic diversity. Genetic diversity provides threatened species critical adaptation possibilities and resilience to the impacts of climate change. These issues have been largely ignored by governments in the ardent hope that they can have their cake and eat it too.

Our governments are taking up offsets schemes with gusto. BirdLife Australia have responded pragmatically. We have engaged with policy makers with the objective of improving policy and processes. We have developed a list of criteria for an offset proposal to be considered a valid offset. These criteria are based on the best available science and expertise within the Australian context. They are technically prescriptive and complex, but we make no apologies for this. If governments are serious about achieving their stated objective of conserving biodiversity, offset programs must meet these robust criteria and ensure ‘no net loss’. Anything less will amount to the facilitation of habitat destruction at the expense of environmental protection.

Image captions and credits:

Top: Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo – habitat offsets are required for this endangered species’, yet monitoring indicates it has declined by 40% since 2010, probably due to continued habitat loss and degradation. [Image: Robyn Pickering]

Bottom: Plains Wanderer – offsets are problematic for this vulnerable species as it relies on specialised grassland habitat that cannot be replicated [Image: Chris Tzaros]

Greetings from the STAR (Seabird Tracking And Research) team on Colonsay!

Leianna — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:47:00 GMT

Introducing a new series of blogs from RSPB Scotland Conservation Scientists. First up is Emily Scragg, Senior Research Assistant with the Seabird Tracking And Research team on Colonsay.

Greetings from the STAR (Seabird Tracking And Research) team on Colonsay!

It is our fourth year here on the island (and my first) carrying out seabird tracking work with the previous three years tracking carried out as part of the Future of the Atlantic Marine Environment (FAME) project. This research aims to find out where UK seabirds are foraging in order to help inform the Marine Protected Area (MPA) designation process. Previous years tracking data is freely available to the public, policy makers and renewables companies at webgis.spea.pt/FAME. We encourage everyone to explore our ground-breaking results for themselves.

We are one of four STAR teams collecting data this year, with the others based on Orkney, Fair Isle and Rathlin (in addition to collaborating with people on the Isle of May, Skomer and Puffin Island).

Tessa and I are based on Colonsay for the next three months, a small island in the Southern Hebrides which is home to around 100 people, a general store, a bookshop and a brewery...what more could you want!? The landscape is comprised of a wide range of habitats from heather moorland to dunes, machair, sandy beaches and sea cliffs, and consequently has exceptionally rich biodiversity. Along with Islay it is the only place you can find breeding chough in Scotland.

We arrived here two weeks ago and have spent the time preparing for the field season ahead – this has involved a wide variety of tasks from re-acquainting ourselves with the locals (and the local cakes!) to cleaning and sorting equipment, reccing sites, and preparing the GPS tags we use on the birds.

The tags take quite a bit of sorting before they are ready: each must be charged and discharged at least twice, and then run through a series of tests to check that it is in full working order. We have over 150 tags so this is no mean feat! Fortunately we've been able to intersperse this with trips to the cliffs to re-familiarise ourselves with the sites and find out what the birds are up to – the short answer has so far been 'not much'. Shags are the first species we tag on Colonsay but we have to wait until they are settled on their nests incubating, and this year the onset of breeding for the shags appears to have been delayed. This could be due to the high winds and waves we've been experiencing. When breeding, When breeding, shags forage in shallower waters close to the colony and can find it difficult to feed when high winds cause turbulent waters.

On Monday we visited the local school to talk to them about our project and to try out the 'FAME game'. This involves sending the children to 'forage' for Sandeel fact cards whilst carrying one of the tags. We can then download the tracks from the tags and show them where they've been. With a class size of 3 (2 were off sick) it was a little intense but I think all of them had fun and learnt something about us and about the birds we study.

Aside from preparing for the field season we have been having fun at the island's Spring Festival. There have been a lot of talks and workshops on offer and we have been taking advantage of our relative free time to explore these fully! Spring is well underway on the island – we saw our first Cuckoo of the year last week and a Corncrake was heard yesterday in one of the fields near where we live. There are lambs gambolling everywhere you look and the Primroses are in bloom, as SpringWatch would have it “Spring has sprung”!

Our other teams have also been working hard: Team Rathlin has already tagged 3 birds on Great Saltee, team Orkney has been preparing for their first off-island trip and team Fair Isle have been playing it easy as their equipment only arrived on the ferry a few days ago! The advantage (or disadvantage) of once-a-week post. We will all be keeping you updated throughout the season with our progress.

The best place for warblers, by Rolf Williams

Sam Stokes — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:32:00 GMT

“This has to be the best place in Britain for warblers,” said the celebrated and highly decorated environment journalist Michael McCarthy.

Michael McCarthy, by Rolf Williams

We were in the wooded sanctuary of RSPB Northward Hill surrounded by spring blossom and bluebells, our quiet conversation drowned-out by the song of two competing nightingales, willow warblers, chiffchaffs, whitethroats, lesser whitethroats, blackcaps, as well as song thrush, blackbird, a raucous wren, cuckoo, chuckling green woodpecker and drumming great-spotted, a thousand rooks, mewing Mediterranean gulls, croaking grey herons and warbling egrets; this was no dawn chorus, it was lunchtime!

Michael was visiting the Hoo Peninsula to capture his thoughts on film for a later television feature about the disastrous declines in migratory birds, most particularly the nightingale, 90% of which have gone within my relatively short lifetime.

We had spent the morning at Lodge Hill, arguably home to the densest population of nightingale in the country, at least 84 pairs. There we listened to the distinctive, hesitant yet punchy melody of the birds and contemplated the local authority’s plans to level the site (now designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest) in favour of 5,000 homes – homes that can go some-where else if they try.

“I have never heard so many nightingales in one place,” continued Michael - we were up to five already, an echo of the English countryside from times past. Most in Britain have never heard a nightingale, but one person in the film crew said, “I can’t tell what’s what, it’s just a load of birds.”

Actually, once you hear a nightingale you never forget or mistake it again, that is why the song has inspired writers and musicians for millennia. Michael described the national ‘indifference’ that has brought the nightingale to the brink of extinction in the UK, it’s last stand now in the south east, mainly in the ‘Garden of England’ – Kent.

That garden is not so healthy any more, with most farmland birds and many invertebrates sharing the fate of the nightingale. Sadly, for any guarantee of delighting in the experience of their song you will have to come to the RSPB’s reserves at Northward Hill, Cliffe Pools or Pulborough Brooks, and some special nightingale events are now posted on the reserve websites, please join us and the birds for a ‘performance’.

Nightingales do still occur in large numbers at Lodge Hill and in small numbers elsewhere, but unless we can protect these sites the singing of a nightingale you hear today may be its final curtain call and the silence that follows will not be peaceful but deathly.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Two nightingales competing in song along the edge of abutting territories at RSPB Northward Hill, Hoo Peninsula, Kent

If climate change is starting to sound like a broken record...

olly watts — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:38:00 GMT

If you want the latest global climate statistics, here they are.

Last year was the ninth warmest on record, says the World Meteorological Organisation’s statement on global climate for 2012. At 0.45°C above the 1961-90 average, it’s the 27th consecutive year above the long term average global average temperature.

There’s just one year – 1998 – that interrupts the years from 2001 being the hottest we’ve had. The pattern of succeeding decades being warmer is apparent.from the graph, especially given the natural variability caused by the El Niño cycle, volcanic eruptions and other phenomena.

The years 2001 to 2012 were among the warmest 13 on record. A strong El Nino in 1998 made it an exceptionally warm year. Source: WMO Annual statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2012

Globally, rainfall was slightly higher in 2012 than the 1961-90 average. But this overall average hides drier weather over much of the central United States, northern Mexico, northeastern Brazil, central Russia, and south-central Australia. In contrast, northern Europe, western Africa, north-central Argentina, western Alaska, and most of northern China saw wetter than average conditions.

2012 was also a year of extremes. While the United States and south-east Europe experienced extreme drought, west Africa and Pakistan were hit by extreme flooding. Europe, northern Africa and Asia were affected by extreme cold and snow.

The report also shows how Arctic sea ice is diminishing rapidly, reaching a record low with 18% less summer ice than the previous low point in 2007, 3.41 million square kilometres, compared to 4.17 million square kilometres.

Arctic sea ice in 2012 - and the next lowest extent in 2007 - compared to the 1979 to 2000 average. Source: WMO annual statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2012.

Melting occurred over 97% of Greenland’s ice sheet in July 2012, the highest level in the 34-year satellite record. And whilst there was a slight increase in Antarctic sea ice Antarctica overall, like Greenland, is losing ice mass overall.

It’s pretty clear that something is happening, don’t you think?

Seeing the wood for the trees

Aggie Rothon — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:26:32 GMT

Blogger: Phil Pearson, Conservation Officer

Hintlesham Woods, one of the largest blocks of ancient woodland in Suffolk and part of the RSPB’s Wolves Wood Reserve, has received considerable attention over the past twelve to eighteen months. The reason is this: despite it being a nationally important Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for the trees, plants and birds that it supports, National Grid were exploring options that would see a significant area of the wood removed to allow a new overhead power line to be constructed.

As a result the RSPB campaigned vigorously to ensure that any new overhead lines avoided this nationally important woodland. Many people supported our efforts and, thanks in no small part to everyone who wrote to National Grid, options were identified that run the power line around the wood rather than through it. On 19 February, National Grid confirmed a route that will not see a new overhead power line constructed through the wood.

Great. Job done! We’ve protected the woods and the wildlife it supports – or have we? The answer: maybe.

The National Grid is still to finalise its detailed route which means the woods could still be affected by their plans. The RSPB doesn’t want to see any of the woodland impacted. As a result we are following developments closely over the coming months to ensure that National Grid do not consider options that will see the loss of trees on the edge of the woodland.

Some may say that losing a few trees will not have any significant impacts, but the RSPB considers that any loss of woodland wouldn’t be acceptable. Why?

Well firstly, we are dealing with ancient woodland here. As highlighted by the Woodland Trust, this type of habitat is irreplaceable. It is not possible to simply plant trees on a new site and claim that this provides a suitable replacement, as the woodland that develops will depend on the soil, water availability, and other factors that enable plant and tree species that are typical of ancient woodlands to thrive.

What’s more, Hintlesham Woods is a SSSI. This indicates that the site is nationally important and there must be a presumption that such sites should not be damaged, especially where alternatives exist. Even a small amount of change on the edge of the wood could allow increased noise, light or other factors to penetrate further into the woodland. This can increase disturbance and result in species that have a preference for larger blocks of woodland to be displaced. The RSPB has worked hard to manage the woodland for species such as marsh tit which have declined significantly over the past twenty years. Anything that could jeopardise the effectiveness of our management for such species would not be acceptable.

So, whilst the RSPB is supportive of National Grid’s recognition of the importance of Hintlesham Woods in their current plans, we are now looking for a final commitment that there will be no damage at all from their proposed scheme. We continue to discuss the project with National Grid through stakeholder groups, and will be reviewing information later in the year that will be submitted for public consultation. At that time we would be grateful for the support of as many people as possible, hopefully to show appreciation for how National Grid have addressed wildlife impacts around this site rather than defending the site from damage once more.