You know the feeling. You're close to the top of a hill or even a ladder. You reach the top and look around.
The sense of achievement and yes, even wonder, is unique and often rewarding. The RSPB started 122 years ago as a campaigning organisation with a group of women taking on authority, before women even got the vote. That campagning spirit lives on, but we're becoming impatient. We want to step up our efforts and we need your help.
Goals to save nature were missed in 2010. We did what we could on RSPB reserves, but it wasn't enough. What is needed was a national effort. A public outcry followed by a steely determination to make things better for our future. That was our Letter to the Future, which was handed in to Downing Street today. Now for the steely determination.
We've created a long term plan, Stepping Up for Nature, to save our own life-support systems, ensuring there is clean water, clean air and bountiful life come 2020 and beyond.
Take a few moments to look out a window. How much wildlife can you see? If, like me, you're in an office, you may see concrete, glass and metal. But there are shrubs, trees, moss and lichen too. These are home to bugs, birds and maybe even bats. At home in Hackney, there are foxes, squirrels, lots of birds, bugs and bats too. The parks and ponds have a whole host of other critters. All of these spaces impact on the air temperature and humidity. The greener they are, the harder they work to improve our surroundings. Add to this the work wildlife does to help provide us with food, and you can see why we need to improve and care for nature.
It's not so obvious here in London, or in the UK, but wildlife is on the retreat globally. We can't afford to lose it. Our Stepping Up for Nature campaign is the RSPB's answer. The UK's Environment Minister Caroline Spelman agrees, but the Government is giving less cash to deliver it. So can we make a difference without central Government? Of course we can and we will, with your help. It really matters. It's not just about birds and bugs. It's about equality of resources, access to clean water and reliable clean energy.
In London, we're losing sparrows, starlings and summer visitors such as cuckoos and swifts. Globally we're losing tropical rainforests, so important for global weather control and the carbon they lock away. Not to mention the millions of species that live there. Our seas are just as bad but far less visible. Sand eel populations are crashing which deprives UK seabirds of food. Coral reefs are shrinking. Simple actions such as planting a native hedge, lowering the thermostat one degree or buying less meat to eat, all have tiny impacts. Collectively, the impact is huge.
Hold my hand and let's step up together to reach that summit, the view from the top can be full of wildlife to the horizon and beyond. What a high we'll have.