Sparrows and starlings have been added to the government’s updated list of endangered species now subject to action plans to help them recover their numbers.
These once common birds are two of many bird species known to be struggling because of intensive farming, climate change, development and the manicuring of gardens. Birds on the government’s biodiversity action plan list – its roll call of species now needing help – have more than doubled in number since the first register was published 12 years ago.
These lists are all very well so long as something is done to shorten them. And something has been done for cirl buntings, stone-curlews and bitterns, all of which have increased their numbers since they were made BAP species in 1995.
But if we know what to do - and can do it - for our some of our rarest species, how is that so many of our more common birds are going down the pan? The answer lies in how much we care and this is new biodiversity minister Joan Ruddock’s chance to show that she cares.
First, we need the government to start what it finished on farming reform. Ministers pushed hard and successfully for changes to the Common Agricultural Policy but a by-product of this is the likely loss of land called set-aside - fields on which food crops cannot be grown.
Set-aside has been an accidental boon for many farmland birds – including, incidentally, stone-curlews - and its loss will not be borne by them unless its benefits are first replicated in another way, such as payments to farmers to leave some of their fields fallow.
Second, climate change is happening apace and may well have contributed to severe drought in Australia, floods here and in India, and forest fires and sizzling temperatures in Greece, southern Italy, the Balkans and Turkey.
More than 60 people have died in Greece alone and the wildlife death toll will have been much higher. Wildlife needs our help to adapt to climate change and most essential of all, is somewhere to go as existing habitats become too wet, too warm or too dry. That won’t necessarily help when there are fires or floods but it will help address less dramatic changes also being caused by climate change.
Third, the government must stand firm against business pressure to weaken planning law. A white paper published in May, proposed easing the passage of airport, road and port proposals, so reducing our chance to object, scupper or amend. The expansion of Heathrow is a prime example of a site where environmental concerns could be railroaded in the name of economic progress. On a smaller scale, tiny Lydd Airport in south-east Kent wants a new runway and terminal and two million passengers passing through its doors, putting at serious risk work at our Dungeness reserve next door. This is our oldest reserve and for years has been hugely important for wintering and migrating birds not to mention the 60-plus species that breed there every summer.
Dr Mark Avery, the RSPB’s Conservation Director, said: “We have known for a long time that sparrows are in trouble and have done an enormous amount of work to try to find out why. We are still some way from doing so and the inclusion of a species that was thought a pest not long ago, on the new BAP list, shows just how serious things have become.
“We need the government to put more money into helping wildlife and, with climate change happening now, there has never been a more crucial time to do so.”