I'm confused, what season are we in? Is it spring or summer now.
Yesterday (3.5.11) the first of four central London peregrine chicks hatched live on our webcam. This morning, I heard swifts screaming over my house and the tree at the end of my garden is now in full leaf. I'm even contemplating harvesting some elderflowers to make some syrup. Now, the weather forecast is for rain, after a prolonged hot and dry spell. It's hard to know what season we're in.
On the other hand. I don't really care what the season is. It's just great to see lots of green, feel the warm sun on my face and hear the summer migrants adding their voices to the dawn chorus. One sound I'm missing is that of the cuckoo. I was in France last week and their two-tone song echoed over the hills through-out the day. Cuckoos, swifts and other migrants are generally declining.
It would be easy to blame climate change for the confusing seasons and declining migrants and other species, but as usual, the facts are more complicated. Certainly climate change is part of the problem, but there are other factors at play, not least the way we manage our environment. History is littered with the remains of ancient civilisations that crumbled because they expanded beyond their ability to sustain themselves - just look to the ruins dotted around India and South America if you need evidence of these failed cultures. Are we now in danger of repeating history?
The UK Government had the foresight to include birds among the indicators that help us monitor the state of our environment, alongside other measureable elements such as air and water quality. Legislation was in place to safeguard these "indicators", but it's now all in danger thanks to the Red Tape Challenge, a drive to chuck cumbersome bureacracy onto the bonfire. I'm all for efficiency, but not the wholesale and reckless abandonment, or even contemplative abandonment, of crucial laws protecting the natural world. Without this protection, we stand in danger of destroying the very fabric of nature that sustains us and all other wildlife.
It's taken years to campaign for much of this legislation, such as the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Blood, sweat and tears have been shed to safeguard and protect our natural environment and the wildlife that keeps it all ticking over. Forget spring and summer. Now is the season of our discontent and we must show it by logging our comments on the importance of safeguarding nature - which in turn safeguards us.