By Cleo Small, Senior Policy Officer (Global Seabird Programme)
Did you see the news this week about the widespread outrage at the proposed merger between the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and National Oceanography Centre? The merger is being put forward as a cost-cutting exercise by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and will be decided this week.
Now more than ever we need UK science in polar regions focused on global issues of climate change and the environment, not on business
Martin Harper wrote about it in his blog, and now the RSPB has joined with Greenpeace, WWF-UK and Friends of the Earth to strongly oppose the proposed merger
It isn’t just NGOs, the planned BAS merger has prompted widespread outrage from scientists and MPs too, with the former US vice president Al Gore defending BAS as a "globally significant institution". The Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, chairman of the polar regions cross-party parliamentary group said the proposal was "utterly foolish". Of more than 360 responses to the government consultation almost all have been against the merger.
It’s a major concern that there has been no case made that costs will be saved. In addition there is much concern on the threat that the merger places to world class British Antarctic Survey research. For the RSPB, our overriding concern is the language in the merger consultation which describes polar regions as “frontier environments” for development. The proposed mission is: to deliver, enable and support world-class marine and polar research for the advancement of knowledge of the Earth system for the benefit of human well-being, the national interest and the UK economy”. Does everything now have to support the UK economy? The proposed vision has no mention of global issues of biodiversity and climate change, currently key aspects of what BAS does.
The RSPB has a keen interest in the work of BAS. It was BAS work that helped identify the scale of albatross population declines, through long term monitoring at South Georgia, and paved the way for finding solutions. Albatrosses are one of the most threatened group of birds in the world (17 of 22 albatrosses are on the IUCN Red List). BAS is also a world-leader on climate change research, which the RSPB views as the greatest potential long term threat to life on Earth.
Thank you to everyone who signed the petition opposing this merger. We hope government listens to the collective cacophony of well-founded objections. We will keep you posted.