I recently posted a review of last year – and inevitably some of the themes we covered in 2013 will reappear during the next twelve months, nobody said that nature conservation is anything but a long game!
The future of our special places for wildlife and the species that depend on them depends on many factors but three seem to stand out – resources (money is tight), progressive and well enforced regulation (under threat as the myth continues that somehow economic recovery is held back by effective protection of our natural world) and popular support (still strong but eroded by a palpable disconnection with nature, especially amongst the young). Looking back on 2014 we need to see that this was the year the scales shifted and genuine commitment to safeguard what is self evidently good for nature and essential for own wellbeing gets taken seriously.
Although the Westminster General Election is still 17 months away, this is the year the political parties will be developing the details of their manifestoes and these will be early barometers of commitment. Investing in nature, tackling the threats (including climate change) and working to reconnect young people with nature should all be given priority.
This blog will be borrowing an idea from BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and making the most of the services of a guest editor – and my entirely arbitrary pick happens to one of my favourite birds – the curlew.
Curlew - a surprise guest editor of the Saving Special Places blog
This won’t be free from controversy – though perhaps not to the level of the Today programme’s last selection. I recently tweeted (@andrefarrar) when I heard a curlew in the soundtrack to the drama series Last Tango in Halifax, and spent the next 24 hours in earnest twitter exchanges over the merits of predator control. So to spare another round of that, let me be clear that studies do show the impact of predation on ground-nesting curlew is but one of the problems they face (too true – ed).
So why curlew? Well the iconic wading bird has a real shout to be the national bird for the UK – all four countries are important for them, our uplands are home to internationally significant numbers during the breeding season and our great estuaries like Morecambe Bay are vital re-fuelling and winter stop-overs for these international travellers.
But as we enter a period of constitutional uncertainly with European elections the Scottish Referendum and a General Election holding out the prospect of an EU in/out referendum - but curlew have no concept of this artificial division of maps and powers – food for them and their chicks and a safe place to nest are about the limits of their geo-political ambitions. Whatever the shape of the UK +/- Scotland or the EU +/- UK+/-Scotland the reality, if you are a curlew, is that life needs to be better in the future than in the recent past or their decline (62% since 1970) will continue and, ultimately, they could face extinction. Effective protection in whatever shape we end up, requires international collaboration and meaningful action at a local level.
This frames our challenge quiet well, I think, it focuses beyond the politics to the challenges of safeguarding the places curlews depend upon, the landuse issues that affect them particularly, though not exclusively, in the uplands and on the coast (and, yes, that does include tackling the impact of predation at the right scale – ed). So the curlew's tale could well end up being a parable of our times.
I'll come back to some of the issues we'll follow in 2014 soon.
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