Ex-Environment Minister, now Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Ben Bradshaw is interviewed in today's Independent on Sunday (probably because he has moved up from 24 to 8 in the paper's Pink List). Although he was not my favourite Environment Minister (maybe I should tell you who was some time?), because he allowed more cormorants to be killed, he makes a good point in his interview. He is quoted as saying 'It's great being in charge of a department whose role is to spread pleasure and happiness. It's almost as if, at a time of economic uncertainty, people need that cultural and sensual nourishment even more.'.
Well, we do need all that. And aren't all government departments supposed to be giving us cultural and sensual nourishment? Certainly Defra should. The smell of flowers, the pattern on a butterfly's wings and the song of a skylark all nourish us. Nature is part of our cultural heritage.
I feel very mixed emotions about the current enthusiasm for valuing wild nature. In one respect it must be true that a lot of destruction of nature happens because we don't value it properly - why else would we be cutting down rainforests that are doing such a good job for us. If only we valued them better for their carbon storage, water purification, flood alleviation and food supply then we would never cut down rainforests to grow palm oil. So a hard-nosed economic appraisal of the value of nature and wildlife seems like it could be very useful.
But the song of the skylark is difficult to value in terms of anything other than cultural and spiritual nourishment.
And we aren't a very cultured nation or species if we don't regard the song of the skylark as being important just as Mozart's Magic Flute is, or the BBC, or the Olympic Games. So maybe nature conservation ought to be part of Mr Bradshaw's Department's remit in Culture, Media and Sport? Or at least we should behave as though we are all naturally cultured.
I wish I lived in Kent because there is a fantastic showing of Heath Fritillary butterflies at our nature reserve at Blean Woods. This has been covered in the Independent and the Daily Telegraph this week. The photograph in the Torygraph is great. Get there soon or they'll be gone!
I said I'd come back to Birdtrack. This is a website where you can put your UK and Ireland bird sightings and they will be kept safely. This is good for you if you are the type of person who likes to be able to be able to review what birds you've seen but don't want to have to spend time going through lots of old notebooks. And it's good for ornithology and nature conservation too, because your sightings are available to the BTO and RSPB (and Birdwatch Ireland) to build up an even better picture of bird distributions, arrival and departure dates and trends in numbers. We do know a lot about birds but there is plenty that we don't - and Birdtrack will fill in some of the gaps.
There's a little bit of effort involved in logging on to the system and setting up your own sites but after that you are away.
Here are a couple of simple analyses I've done with my own records that I find interesting.
From 1992-98 I had the same office at The Lodge and kept a window list each year. So I know the first day that I saw each species. In 1992 spotted flycatchers were a common sight but they became rarer and rarer as time went on - I haven't seen one at all so far this year! And during those seven years it seemed that the spot flys arrived later each year:
1992 18 May
1993 19 May
1994 10 May
1995 22 May
1996 21 May
1997 24 June
1998 3 June
Maybe not completely convincing because we don't know which days I was in the office. But suggestive and interesting - at least to me. And possible because I put the records into Birdtrack and it's so easy to look at them in this type of way.
Here's another example. At Stanwick Lakes, my local patch in Northants, I keep a list of which species I see on every visit and all of them go onto Birdtrack. So far this year I haven't seen a turtle dove at Stanwick, and yet I'm sure they used to be quite regular. Well here are the results for the last five years:
2005 6 records in 13 visits
2006 2 records in 4 visits
2007 1 record in 4 visits
2008 1 record in 10 visits
2009 0 records in 9 visits
It certainly looks as though they are a lot rarer these days. The same thing is happening right across the country - and that's where Birdtrack will be so powerful over the years - the patterns of arrival dates and numbers added up across thousands of observers (including you?) will paint a clearer, richer picture of the ups and downs of bird populations.
Give it a try! Your records of barn owls, kingfishers and any other species are really useful - particularly if you can keep full lists of all species you see.
Some farmers may be choking on their cornflakes when they read in the Daily Telegraph that Lord Mandelson is their most powerful ally in their campaign to avoid being required to replace the environmental benefits of set-aside. Lord Mandelson's Business Department is against almost any form of new regulation on any industry - phew! it's a good job that we've already decided that sending kids up chimneys is a bad idea, otherwise Lord Mandelson would presumably be against making that illegal.
Times were when other government departments quaked in fear of The Treasury - after all they have the cash - but now it seems that kingmaker Mandelson holds most clout. But it is odd that The Treasury haven't intervened to point out that at a time when public money is tight, the option of requiring farmers to replace some of the wildlife benefits of set-aside seems quite a good one compared with paying £30m for the same benefit. Well, maybe £30m of our money isn't worth bothering about.
I have been told so many times that no decision has been made that I definitely don't believe it! It seems that the otherwise utterly admirable Hilary Benn is about to do the wildlife that he cares about a great disservice. If so, then you have to wonder whether Defra has reverted to MAFF - a government department that did what its clients, farmers, wanted rather than pursue the public interest.
For Defra to go back on the advice of its expert committee, to choose a 'voluntary' option put forward by the NFU which volunteers nothing except to suck up more taxpayers' money, to choose the industry vested interest rather than the public interest, to choose the union view rather than government's own statutory advisor's view, to choose the more expensive option, to choose the more uncertain option is such a poor decision that it makes one weep.
However, we seem to be heading for the option that will appease the NFU and stop its officers throwing their toys out of their pram rather than the one which delivers the best value for the public.
Although such an outcome is difficult to accept it seems we will have to. And we will. Because the plight of farmland birds is so dire that the RSPB can't sulk on the sidelines but will have to find as many ways as possible of working positively with Defra and the NFU in order to limit the damage to wildlife. We can do that - we must. Sometimes being a voice for nature means biting your tongue!
We are approaching the decision on set-aside replacement that has cropped up a few times in this blog. We aren't hopeful of a good environmental choice from Defra - rumour has it that the NFU 'voluntary' approach may be the chosen option.
However, the media seem to be waking up to the peculiarity of the consultation process and how odd a decision it would be if Hilary Benn opted for something that is vague, has little chance of success and will cost the taxpayer a lot of money! Hooray! To opt for the 'voluntary' scheme (where farmers volunteer to take your money!) would be more wacko than the late lamented Jacko!
We are expecting an article by the distinguished environmental columnist Geoffrey Lean in tomorrow's Daily Telegraph.