Mark Avery's blog

...and finally

2011-04-28T22:57:00Z

It's been great! Thanks for everything.

And if you want to keep in touch with Mark Avery in the future then visit markavery.info

And the blog goes on...

2011-04-28T20:02:00Z

I hope you've enjoyed reading this blog over almost 2 years - over 700 blogs have been posted. Does anyone claim to have read them all? I doubt it.

I've enjoyed writing here enormously - sometimes it has been a bit tricky to fit in with the rest of my work and the rest of my life but it has been great.

And being the RSPB's Conservation Director has been fantastic - it's a great job in a great organisation. As I said on the Today programme on Monday - everyone should be an RSPB member!

My successor, Martin Harper, will be picking up the blog reins as well as everything else - I think he's very brave, as I had 10 years of the job under my belt before I started this blogging lark. Good luck Martin - I'm sure you'll be great at the blogging and at everything else too.

And trimbush, Jockeyshield, Sooty, mirlo, lazywell, nightjar, redkite, Stackyardgreen, Bob Philpott, miles, Gert Corfield and others - be nice please! I wonder why I put you all in that order?

And a bit later today there will be a last blog which tells you how to keep in touch - if you want to.

Countdown - 1, guess what?

2011-04-28T11:55:00Z

The most common subject on this blog has been farming and the decline of farmland birds (and there are lots of extracts in the book of the blog).

Be in no doubt - many farmland birds have declined and they symbolise and stand for the declines in plants and insects in our farmland.

I say 'our' farmland because we British, maybe particularly we English, feel a great affinity for the countryside - it's in our literature, poetry and psyche. So although we don't own it, we feel close to it.

And although we don't own the countryside, we are pouring large amounts of our money into it in the form of grants (to carry out wildlife-friendly farming) and income support (money for being a farmer) for farmers. So I've always thought that the 'leaders' of the farming community could be just a little more grateful and eager to please the rest of us.

Farmers - they're a funny bunch. Some are lovely, some you just want to throttle - much the same as conservationists, politicians, school teachers, plumbers or any other large group of people. I can almost honestly say that some of my best friends are farmers and none of my worst enemies. Some farmers are doing loads and loads of stuff for wildlife and others are doing precious little. That's hardly surprising really.

What the RSPB has achieved at Hope Farm is an indication of what the countryside could be like and still be highly productive in food terms and yet be much more productive in wildlife terms. It's not the RSPB's job to talk to every farmer in the country and try to persuade them to 'do a Hope Farm' or at least something similar - and maybe even something better (I'm sure we don't know all the answers). No, it's not our job to do that and yet we are pouring large amounts of RSPB members' hard-earned money into doing just that. Where farmers are keen to step up for nature then the RSPB will step up to help them, if we can. We've increased the scale of this work enormously whilst I've been Conservation Director (nothing anti-farmer here, you see).

However, it will take more resources than we have, and more time than nature has, to fix everything this way. As well as that advisory work we need government to make it easier for farmers to do the very best things and more difficult to do things that don't add up to much wildlife benefit. That is a Big Government job - it's 'Big Money' and it ought to provide 'Bigger Wildlife Outputs'.

And so, what Defra needs to do is to adjust the details of the Entry Level Scheme so that it is just a little bit more testing for farmers (not very much at all - we aren't talking thumbscrews here) and a lot more productive for wildlife. Simple ask - if the Defra Ministers are reading this blog (and I'm sure that they will have this pointed out to them) - that's what I'd like as a leaving present please. But it's not for me - it's for wildlife, it's for good value from public spending and it's not against farmers.

Countdown - 2, ours?

2011-04-28T11:46:00Z

The UK Overseas Territories are a funny collection of places, mostly islands, which speak volumes about the UK's colonial past.

We will go to war to protect their sovereignty but will we protect their wildlife?

The UKOTs are populated by 240,000 British nationals and are visited by over 1.6 million UK citizens every year and yet are mostly overlooked in Whitehall. Defra is the department responsible for the biodiversity of the UKOTs, yet does not have a single full-time member of staff member working on this complex area of British biodiversity.

The UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are of outstanding importance for global biodiversity, home to iconic habitats and species, including over a third of the world’s breeding albatross population and arguably the most important seabird island in the world (Gough island). This biodiversity is highly threatened: there are now 74 critically endangered species in the UKOTs. Over 75% of the globally threatened species for which the UK is responsible are found on these small islands, including over 90% of the UK’s globally threatened bird species. With 33 bird species under threat of extinction, the UKOTs have more bird species of global conservation concern than the entire European continent.

Extinctions are an ongoing threat. The last global extinction in the UKOTs occurred as recently as 2004 (the St. Helena Olive), a fate which would have been unthinkable had the last specimens of the species occurred on an offshore Scottish island. The Gough bunting is predicted to go extinct within 40 years without conservation intervention. If the UK is to have a hope of meeting its 2020 biodiversity commitments, it will have to step up its responsibility towards the UKOTs and treat them as a true priority. Only 6 of the 33 globally threatened bird species in the UKOTs currently have action plans in place.

The tiny human populations of many of the UKOTs are unable to respond to the scale of action required. Support and assistance is required, but the UKOTs fall between the gaps: due to their status as UK Territory, they are ineligible for support from most international funding sources (e.g. Global Environment Facility), but they are also unable to access much UK funding (e.g. Heritage Lottery Fund) due to their location.

Our two advocacy asks of Defra are to:
• conduct a UKOTs Disappearing Species Assessment of the state of the c.140 critically endangered and endangered UKOT species. (At present, no priorities for action have been identified and the status of many of the UKOTs’ globally threatened species is unknown).
• establish a UK Overseas Territories Biodiversity Unit within Defra to coordinate HMG work on the issue- can’t be done ‘off the side of the desk’.

Countdown - 3, buying land

2011-04-27T11:58:00Z

Much of this blog has been about what government should or should not do. But thank heavens there are plenty of things that nature conservationists can do without bringing politicians into it at all. And perhaps top of the pile is buying and managing land.

I can remember when there used to be occasional tensions within the RSPB between those who wanted to save nature through policy change and those who wanted to do it through land management. One of my achievements, such as it is, in nearly 13 years of being the RSPB's Conservation Director is to calm down those tensions and get people behind the idea that we need both - why tie one hand behind your back when you need six hands to make much progress anyway?

Much of this blog has dealt with public policy but much of my working life has been given over to spending millions of pounds of the RSPB's money on fantastic nature reserves. The first of these that we added under my Directorship was Dingle Marshes (still a great place) and I've never looked back since.

We've been adding to our land holdings in the Flow Country - where I first worked for the RSPB in 1986, when we had no land up there at all. Our Forsinard nature reserve is the largest of all our nature reserves now - that's a lot of growth in a mere 25 years.

I like to think of our 200+ nature reserves as a rather large family of teenagers. Why is that? Because hardly any of them is fully formed and grown up. But they have lots of potential.

It is in the nature of land purchase that you rarely have the opportunity to buy all of, or just, the land that would make the perfect nature reserve at the start. There's often that important bit of land (for access, or to allow proper control of water levels, or simply the 'best' bit) that isn't included in the original deal. And it's also in the nature of things that you rarely know when the remainder will be available for purchase. So I regard many RSPB nature reserves as unfinished - wonderful as they are, they are mostly unfinished.

But don't they do a great job? Nature reserves have played a big role in the recovery of populations of marsh harrier, bearded tit, bittern, avocet (of course!), corncrakes, roseate terns and actually a whole range of other birds and, very importantly, not just for birds. And over recent years, and into the future, RSPB nature reserves will also to do a good job for lapwings, redshanks, snipe, black grouse, choughs, cranes and who knows what other bird species? 25 years ago it would have only been the more visionary who would have seen that so many birds of the wider countryside would be increasingly concentrated in nature reserves.

Check out previous blogs on our nature reserves in general (here, here ) or some in particular (Nene Washes, Saltholme, Islay, Geltsdale and Otmoor).

Which is your favourite RSPB nature reserve - and why?

Did I mention there is a book of the blog? It even has tips about how to blog so you could start yourself.

Countdown - 4, hen harriers

2011-04-27T11:55:00Z

They are just one species of bird, and their numbers in the UK have increased a bit over the last couple of decades, but still the hen harrier's plight is resonant of a distant age when nature was persecuted freely.

I believe, and the RSPB believes, that this is a species which is ruthlessly killed by some of those involved with grouse shooting. The evidence for this comes from science, rumour, film evidence, a few court cases and the more honest members of the shooting fraternity. And this regular killing is of course totally illegal.

Things have got worse over recent years - by which I mean that the degree of honesty on this subject has decreased in the 'sporting' press and the organisations which claim to represent 'shooting folk'. It was not so long ago that honest men from the shooting community accepted that hen harrier persecution was common and unacceptable - some even wrote scientific papers on the subject.

The pity of it is that we do not believe that everyone is 'at it' but that view would be easy to maintain since the number of voices raised against these practices in the shooting community is very small and rather quiet. The community that protects its evil-doers has to share some culpability, surely?

Personally I get on rather well with many members of the shooting community - their and my love of the outdoors and of nature gives us quite a lot to talk about. I wouldn't be interested in shooting grouse or pheasant but I am not personally that worried that people do - and the RSPB which remains strictly neutral on the ethics of field sports. But illegal activity is different - and that's what raptor persecution is. And the shooting community has gone down in my estimation because it is not honest about what so many of its members know to be true - that illegal persecution of birds of prey (hen harriers included) is widespread and covertly encouraged.

I have had moments when I have wondered whether this issue is so small in the big scheme of things that we should simply move on. But then I always come back to the fact that if the RSPB does not speak up about this issue then precious few others will. And it's wrong - killing protected wildlife is wrong.

But what do you think? Should the RSPB take a deep breath and calm down on this subject - or perhaps redouble its efforts? You tell me.

Previous blogs on this subject are (here, here, here, here, here and here) and here too.

Countdown - 5, a countryside full of Hope?

2011-04-26T12:51:00Z

Hope Farm is doing well. In fact it is one of the aspects of our work on which I look back with considerable personal satisfaction. Acting as a senior figure in a fairly large organisation one has a variety of roles - one of which is to make the big calls. The RSPB going into arable farming in the hope that we could do it and produce a lot more wildlife was a big call. Not mine alone of course but getting the idea together and getting the proposition through our Council, and then making sure that it worked, was my responsibility. Luckily I've always had great staff around me who deliver the goods!

And it needed to work. A large amount of money was involved - the actual price is a confidential matter between us and the vendor but we are talking about over £1.5m 11 years ago. And that purchase was generously supported by RSPB members who thought it was a great idea - we worried about that at the time too. would our membership 'get' the idea of spending money on land that would never be a nature reserve? They did - they always support us provided we explain things well - thank you all.

Hope Farm has delivered increased wheat yields, is a perfectly respectable productive farm and yet has seen spectacular increases in bird numbers - and those of other wildlife too. All this has been achieved through sensible use of existing agri-environment schemes - some of which contain options which were developed at Hope Farm.

As a demonstration project it has been a great success - it really has. The achievements on the ground - quadrupling of skylark numbers, the return of the lapwing and grey partridge - all have surpassed our initial hopes. And thousands of farmers have seen what has happened and gone away a little better informed about the RSPB and a little better informed about how to protect wildlife. But not enough of those farmers are giving their farms the Hope farm treatment - if they were then we'd see increases in farmland bird numbers.

Sometimes it is suggested that if only we had a network of Hope Farms than we could get the message across so much better - that's a network of £1.5m projects. It is tempting as an end point but less tempting as a way to spend our money. The case is made as to how effective the agri-environment measures can be - and without, in this case, the need for expensive predator control - and decision-makers are convinced and farmers should be convinced by the practicality of the necessary measures. We need something a little more to nudge things forward.

And how about Hope Farms in the hills or Hope Dairy farms? Again, nice ideas - but quite pricey and quite difficult undertakings. And if no one copies you even when you have proved the concept then ...?

Hope Farm has been fortunate to have three excellent managers over the years: Roger Buisson, Darren Moorcroft and Chris Bailey. As Chris is moving on soon we will be looking for another to take the work forward - might it be you? And taking it forward involves trying to keep those wheat yields up, keep those bird numbers up, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the land and reduce water pollution flowing off the land.

Hope Farm has figured quite often in this blog (see here, here, here, here and here for example).

Hope Farm appears eight times in the index to this excellent book where farming and farmers appear over 30 times.

Countdown - 6, a Forest and Wildlife Service

2011-04-26T12:48:00Z

The Forestry Commission is a bit of an anachronism - a state timber outfit. Why does the State need to be a timber grower? I reckon there would be a better argument for State Farms or State Fishing Fleets than State foresters.

The public interest in our State Forests is not because we are all hanging on the price of pulp wood it's because we like some of the forests that are not very commercial but are wonderful places and happen, through history and accident, to be managed by FC. Places like much of the New Forest and much of the Forest of Dean.

We, the public, appreciate the fact that some of these sites are rich in wildlife, beauty and history. The good sites would be even richer if they were managed by a body whose remit was to make them as wonderful as possible - which is not FC's remit at the moment. And that job, making the most of our natural heritage, need not, and should not, be mixed up with another remit of producing timber economically. Timber production is a business like many others, certainly quite like wheat production, where the State's proper role is in regulation and providing incentives and that's about it.

See previous blogs to realise that the RSPB saw the forestry debate coming and helped to shape it (here, here, here, here, here, here, here - and that's just a selection).

Trees did die to produce this book, but do you really mind whether they were State-managed or not?

Countdown - 7, peat

2011-04-26T11:15:00Z

In maybe 10 years time, the use of peat in gardens should become as frowned upon as blowing cigarette smoke into the faces of children. It will become mainstream that the use of the precious natural resources, destroying wildlife habitats and sticking more carbon up into the atmosphere at the same time, for the beautification of our own private gardens, when alternative less-damaging alternatives are available, is anti-social.

It will be realised that arguing about whether peat alternatives work well or badly is like arguing whether a Chelsea tractor goes faster in a traffic jam than an electric car - not really the point.

See previous blogs on this earthy subject (here, here, here, here, here and here).

And there's been a bit of a spat in the press on this subject over the Easter weekend too (and see here too).

No peat was used in the making of this book.

Monks

2011-04-25T13:03:00Z

I have just done an interview, presumably my last for the RSPB, for the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on monk parakeets (here is the link - it starts at about 48mins and 50 seconds).

Small numbers of this pretty parrot have become established in southern England and Defra are aiming to get rid of them as they fear they may cause damage to crops, gardens, 'infrastructure' and maybe wildlife.

Infrastructure needs a bit of explanation - will a few small parrots bring down the country? Probably not. But monk parakeets are unusual amongst parrots in building huge communal nests out of sticks - who knows what they get up to in these blocks of flats? And sometimes they build their nests on electricity lines causing power blackouts. But it's as an agricultural pest that they might (but might not - it's in the nature of these things that there is doubt) cause most problems.

Defra plan to catch up the relatively few monk parakeets who are out there now but will resort to lethal killing if non-lethal means don't work.

And very nice of the Today Programme to thank me for all the interviews I've done over the years for them - I lost count a long time ago but I'm guessing it's over 50.

And, Dear Reader, you can look forward to a veritable blogfest over the next few days as the Countdown continues. I will cover farming, raptor persecution, my successor, how to stay in contact with me, the book of the blog (please buy now!) and a host of other subjects.

Book of the blog - Blogging for Nature

2011-04-23T14:46:00Z

If you have enjoyed reading this blog - and I do hope that you have - then you may be interested in buying the book of the blog!

Blogging for Nature is not available through any good bookshops - the only way to purchase it is through a website which you can find by clicking here.

A snip at £9.92 (+P&P) this book contains 143 of 700+ blogs which have appeared here over the last couple of years.

The book also contains hints and thoughts on how to blog and comments on the blog from a number of regular commenters here (eg Stackyard Green, nightjar, redkite and Sooty).

Blogging for Nature has a very kind Foreword written by the former Secretary of State for Defra the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP.

And, if you buy the book you will discover Sooty's real name.

277 pages which cover; the change to a coalition government, the recent breeding of red-backed shrikes and little bitterns, hen harrier persecution, thoughts from the Bird Fair, Game Fair and political Party Conferences, news from Hope Farm, the forestry debate, eagle owls, our Bird of Prey Pledge, Letter to the Future, the odd mention of Rushden and Diamonds FC, RSPB nature reserves, predator control, farming and farmland birds and so much more.

Thank you to the RSPB for agreeing to me publishing this book.

Countdown - 8, biofuels

2011-04-23T10:19:00Z

Not all regulation is good. The biofuel issue illustrates better than most others that if governments get things wrong, and impose that error widely, then disaster ensues. And the biofuel issue illustrates the few options left to the individual when government makes big mistakes.

I'm here talking about crops grown for fuel (and it doesn't really matter whether we are talking biomass or biofuel here) on a large scale and on land that could be or was producing food. I'm not thinking of biofuels produced from household or agricultural waste. I've written about this issue over the last couple of years a few times here (see here, here, here and here).

I won't go into the details again now - the essence of the argument is that if you use productive agricultural land for growing fuel rather than food then the food has to be grown somewhere else - and it will be. Because the world isn't large and empty, the places that extra food is grown are likely to be places like rainforests which are currently rich in carbon and rich in biodiversity and good at producing ecosystem services of a wide variety of types. And because rainforests (and grasslands etc) are good at storing carbon whereas most biofuel crops lead to low savings in carbon the perverse outcome is that carbon suffers, wildlife suffers and food production suffers - an amazing triple whammy. Well done us!

This argument has largely been won with decision-makers (although vested interests oppose change as they always do) although winning the argument has not led to any substantial change in government policy, so far. Later today when I will up my car with diesel I will have no option but to be putting the bodies of long-dead lifeforms into my tank (that's what those fossil fuels are after all) but also more than a splash of biofuel which represents the bodies of dead tigers or other wildlife which will have suffered from this crazy EU-wide policy.

And so if you want to participate in the Red Tape challenge then as well as telling government to get its hands off laws that protect wildlife (see yesterday's blog) why not also post a comment asking for the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation to be revoked forthwith? I have.

Countdown - 9, regulation

2011-04-22T10:29:00Z

I've just sent Vince Cable an email and I am asking you to do the same, please.

In a quite breath-taking move, the coalition government has put all environmental regulation up for grabs in the 'Red Tape Challenge'. Potentially this is 'Bye, bye' Wildlife and Countryside Act and 'Bye, bye' Climate Change Act. Surely some mistake, here?

Even to refer to legislation like the Wildlife and Countryside Act as 'red tape' is to belittle the efforts of past nature conservationists and parliamentarians who carefully constructed this legislation which was widely welcomed at the time and whose aims and general thrust have rarely been questioned since.

Now it can't be the case that all existing regulation is perfect, that is very unlikely to be the case, and I can tell you now that it isn't (gasps of amazement). However, to put absolutely everything on the table risks throwing out an awful lot of babies with a few drops of bath water. And the Cabinet Office must know this - that Oliver Letwin is no fool.

Please do act on this - Step up for Nature with the RSPB and make politicians see sense.

Regulation forms an important tool in the conservation kitbox and yet it is generally out of favour with all political parties at the moment. Rather than saying 'No. this is wrong, don't do it' politicians reach for incentives, voluntary initiatives and other weak measures to try to make the world a better place. It's a good job that sensible people passed laws to prevent kids being pushed up chimneys to clean them otherwise would we now face the 'Chimney cleaning operators' voluntary initiative to reduce by a few weeks the average age of young sweeps'?

If you feel as angry and worried about this move as I do then please act - and I see that 38 Degrees is giving you another opportunity to express your views here.

Countdown - 10, non-native species.

2011-04-19T12:01:00Z

Following a blog on reintroductions how about one on reintroductions' evil twin - introductions?

There is a general rule in biology that about one in 10 non-native translocated species becomes established in its new home - and that then one in 10 of those becomes an economic or conservation problem. Non-native species are one of the prime causes of species' extinction and so carting species around the globe is generally a bad thing (please note - Richard Branson).

Many of the non-native species in the UK were allegedly brought here by the Romans (eg pheasant, rabbit) but others were deliberately or accidentally released by the landed gentry (eg little owl, grey squirrel, muntjac deer and Canada goose). But then there is a long list of species whose origins are unknown but which are here as a result of careless trade across the globe.

This blog has commented on ring-necked parakeets (here, here, here and here), pheasants (here), muntjac deer (here) and grey squirrels (here, here and here) at various times to illustrate the practical and intellectual issues surrounding this subject.

It seems likely that we will face continuing and growing problems with non-native species becoming established in the UK. One of the latest arrivals is the scary creature the killer shrimp. What havoc might this species cause in our waterways? What happened to the New Zealand flatworm that was going to take over our gardens about 15 years ago?

Prevention is better than cure, and far cheaper, but difficult to police and ensure. I just have a feeling that this is a growing problem that we will all have to live with. It won't kill us - but it might finish off a few more native species if we aren't careful. And experience shows, we won't be careful enough.

Countdown - 11, reintroductions

2011-04-18T11:33:00Z

Reintroductions stir up quite strong opinions amongst birders, land owners and conservationists alike, yet to me they form just one of the tools in the conservation toolbox, and you just have to bring them out for the right job.

There are sensible international guidelines on where, when and how to reintroduce species, which are always used to steer official reintroduction projects here in the UK. They relate to trying to make sure that any reintroduction project is necessary, will work and won't do harm to other species or to the target species elsewhere.

Reintroductions are different from introductions - reintroductions refer to native species (but how long ago counts as native?) but introductions refer to non-native species. I'll come back to non-native species soon.

Reintroductions of birds in the UK are rather few and far between. People tend to forget that the capercaillie once went extinct in the UK and was reintroduced in the early 19th century by land owners. More recently the bringing back of the white-tailed eagle (to the Scottish part of the UK) and red kite (to England, Scotland and Ireland) have been reintroductions which we can already say have been biologically successful. It's no accident that these two species are birds of prey - they were both exterminated by human persecution, both are slow at regaining lost territory even if the populations are doing well and there is quite a lot of expertise about rearing and keeping birds of prey in captivity through the age-old practice of falconry - and people like them lots (although not everyone by any means).

There have been a few potential reintroduction projects which we, the RSPB, decided not to start or support. We thought about a reintroduction project for choughs in Cornwall but decided that the birds might get back to Cornwall on their own from Wales or Ireland - and we were right, but also wrong in that it seems much more likely given the circumstances that the birds actually arrived from Britanny. And the RSPB did not join in with the osprey reintroduction project at Rutland Water as we thought that the birds would come back to England on their own - and they did in the foot and mouth year of 2001 when a pair was revealed to be nesting in the Lake District.

And then there is the great bustard reintroduction on Salisbury Plain which we were a bit sniffy about for a while but are now helping practically. (see here and here).

We are working with partners on a few reintroductions right now - they are all going well but none can be said to have succeeded completely yet. I'm sure that with continued effort, sometimes a bit more luck and continued funding then they all will.

Current reintroductions projects include cirl buntings, in Cornwall, corncrakes in Cambridgeshire (see here and here), cranes in Somerset (see here, here and here) and a bit of finishing off of red kites in Northern Ireland (see here) and white-tailed eagles in east Scotland (see here).

To embark on a reintroduction project is usually a big decision - it's likely to be a long slog, costs money, is not certain to succeed (whatever it looks like in retropsect) and so should not be entered into lightly - but it is sometimes the only way to make a big conservation leap forward. The track record of success so far in the UK is high. And I always think that compared to land purchase, for example, a successful reintroduction project is cheap in terms of what it can deliver. I am very grateful to my predecessors for the fact that I now very regularly see red kites over my garden in east Northants.

And it's not just birds - other less mobile species are often very good candidates for being given that helping hand too (see here).

But let's finish on the white-tailed eagle - a magnificent bird. Its demise in the UK was due to persecution and its return due to sustained efforts to reintroduce it. Plans to return this bird to its former haunts (though long-distant in time) in East Anglia were put on hold when Natural England took the hint from the prospect of massive financial cuts and announced that it could not be a partner in such a project. The subject of an East Anglian reintroduction was quite a lively subject of debate here on this blog (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here). It's a project which is resting not dead. In fact, I had a chat with someone keen on resurrecting the project only last week. I wonder....?