We’re hosting a conference this afternoon with a title that fits the national mood; Financing Nature in an Age of Austerity. We’re proud of our record in terms of delivering birds for your bucks but there’s no doubt the next few years are going to be tough as the public funds for nature conservation inevitably shrink.
We’ve made our case that nature is especially vulnerable to spending cuts – and over 302,000 of you have joined our call by signing Letter to the Future. In a few day’s time we will see the response as the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review are announced.
But whichever way the cloth is cut – there will be less to go round. The challenge is moving from contributing to the debate about the cuts agenda to how to work constructively and innovatively to ensure that our precious natural environment and all that it brings us practical ecosystems services that deliver water, soil and flood defences to the unalloyed joy of a noisy spring filled with life.
And that’s what we’ll be hearing about this afternoon as we start to map out a new economic landscape where we don’t have to sacrifice nature to balance the books.
Follow me on twitter.