I was chatting with a new member of our London team the other day and inevitably the subject of motivation came up. That little devil on my shoulder bit my ear then shouted in its loutish voice... "Motivation? You're like a pig in clover. You are able to let motivation choose your career choice? You don't know how lucky you are".
When I was in my final year at school, the careers advice was: "You can choose one of the three F paths in life. Farming, Forces or Factory". Presented with this meagre list of options and the facts that all the local farms were large family owned busineses with sons lined-up to inherit and that my Dad told me not to follow him through the factory gates, I went to discover the world. In my view, I chose life as the character Renton says in Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting. After a succession of jobs, I chose conservation. It links me with my childhood experiences of living and working in the countryside. It requires the skills I learned as a journalist and developed during my time working with communities and educators in regeneration, tempered by my time serving customers in cafes and garages or labouring on sites, farms and in gardens. Some of those earlier jobs were gained through necessity, but now I have been able to let my ideals steer my career choice.
So here I am in London where neighbours in my street have never eaten an apple they've personally plucked from a tree and where many of my children's primary schoolfriends don't know the difference between beef, lamb or chicken; to them it's just meat and has no link with any living animals. How do I share my excitement over green roofs or sustainable drainage systems? How do I begin to explain why chopping down trees and paving over gardens is causing flooding and higher summer temperatures? Why did we help London Underground manage their embankments for nature? Then there's the BIG question I'm constantly asked ... "Why does it matter if the birds or bees die?
I could quote the many world religions on mans "custodianship" of nature. I could say we have an inherent responsibility. Maybe I could opt for the threat approach that 90% of the world's food crops come from just 100 plant species and that 71 of those are dependent on honey bee pollination. Maybe mention that a single swift can gobble ten thousand flying bugs, such as mosquitoes, every day, saving human lives otherwise blighted by malaria. I could give them tons of research on how plants soak up rain and pollutants while providing oxygen and cool air or how birds clean-up dead and rotting material or help spread seeds. There are so many things nature does for us that we could never afford to do artificially.
The bottom line is that we're all dependent on natural resources and we're already using more than exists. That's why 60% of the UK's species are vanishing and partly to blame for the increased climate extremes that bring floods and droughts. By monitoring birds we can measure that destruction. Birds are towards the top of most food chains and because they're visible, any declines in their numbers sets alarm bells ringing to say our natural systems have broken down. Right now, I'm deafened by those alarm bells.
Nature's amazing and people are amazing. We can produce awesome films like this. We can split atoms and travel through space. Why can't we put nature before building new homes or airports in unsuitable locations, after all, without nature, there will be no need for homes or airports.