This blog has been following the story of many special places for wildlife and the people who work tirelessly to save them, nurture them and make them accessible for others to enjoy.
It’s 100 years since Charles Rothschild’s idea that the best places for wildlife should be protected led to the founding of a movement that, today, is the Wildlife Trusts.
There’s loads of fascinating material here and an interactive timeline and everything.
Over the years I’ve worked with several of the individual county wildlife trusts on innumerable projects, joint initiatives and pieces of casework bringing strength and breadth by combining our approaches.
Two nearly did become one – in the 1970s plans to merge the RSPB with the Society for the Promotion of Nature Conservation (the forerunner of the Wildlife Trusts). Nearly but not quite – yet through all our recent shared history we continue to work closely together in the conservation family.
But our origins were very different. By 1912 the RSPB (the R was added in 1904 as we are in retrospective mood) had been pushing our campaign to stop the slaughter of birds for fashion for 23 years. We’ve always relished the long game!
This famous photograph of our sandwich board men telling the tale of the egret dates from 1911.
We would have been characterised as having a ‘species focus’ back then (though one possible name was the Society for the Protection of Birds, Plants and Pleasant Places) – and we still do. Rothschild’s list of 284 reserves published in 1915 framed the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves in different way with a clear focus on the importance of the land.
It wasn’t until the early 1930s that the RSPB had a go at the nature reserves game – we secured nature reserves through purchase and the gift of land on Romney Marsh and Dungeness. And we’re still there.
The protection of special places was a dominant theme during the 20th century – intensifying as pressure on our natural environment increased. After the Second World War legislation set up the ability to designate places as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Nice idea and nice badge – but not very effective at delivering real protection in the 1970s destruction or damage of SSSIs reached 12% per year.
This attrition of nature was dramatically slowed after the passage into law of the 1982 Wildlife and Countryside Act – SSSIs (Areas of Special Scientific Interest in Northern Ireland) had come of age. The landmark W&C Act was brought into law as a direct result of our membership of the European Union. Now the EU gets a very mixed press in the UK – but one aspect has never been in doubt, the environmental protection driven by the Nature Directives has been a buttress of protection of nature across the EU and in the UK.
The 1979 Birds Directive (require bedtime reading, I know) required the UK Government to put in place effective laws. Its sister act – the Habitats Directive came later and we can now celebrate 20 years of the best wildlife sites in the EU – they are labelled Natura 2000 sites (not a term that is familiar in the UK) and they are the best and most important sites for nature at a continental scale. Many of them feature in these posts. The Forest of Bowland in Lancashire, the Thames Estuary, Dungeness in Kent. The designation doesn’t make them safe ... but it’s a good place to start.
Along with Natura 2000 came LIFE funding – a mainstay of many vital conservation programmes over the last two decades. We’re grateful that LIFE funding is enabling us to bring our Futurescapes programme to life (pun intended) with new staff and engagement activities across the UK. Our programme complements the Wildlife Trust Living Landscapes as we all recognise that the future lies in working together and thinking big.
Happy birthday Wildlife Trusts, here’s to the next 100 years.
Follow me on twitter