At a time of reducing funding for nature conservation it is good to be able to talk about some good news. An ambitious programme to return the world’s heaviest flying bird to the UK has been given a considerable lift from the European Union by the award of a €2.2m grant from the EU LIFE+ fund.
The project is run by a partnership of the Great Bustard Group, the RSPB, University of Bath and Natural England.
The Great Bustard Group, which has led the project since its inception in 2004, has battled to cover the costs of the project with a hand-to-mouth existence.Releasing great bustards reared from eggs rescued in southern Russia, the project passed a milestone in 2009, when the it saw the first great bustard chicks to hatch in the wild in the UK for 177 years.
“Despite our great successes over the last six years we would sometimes struggle to find £10 or £20 to put diesel in the old Land Rover; now we have the chance to give this project real wings,” says David Waters GBG Director. He continued: “The funding will provide a properly-resourced project, with four new posts, new monitoring equipment and even the possibility of a second release site.”
David Waters added: “The Great Bustard Group is anxious to point out that the grant will not end the funding worries as a quarter of the project costs will need to be found by the project partners, and the LIFE project is very much about new work. Much of the existing work will need to be funded as before.”
Richard Benyon, Natural Environment Minister, said: “This is a great project – it will see a magnificent species return to England as well as help to conserve the other dry grassland birds of Salisbury Plain. The people working on this project have been doing a wonderful job, and deserve congratulations on their success so far.”
Reintroduction projects are not uniformly popular with conservationists or birders. Generally speaking I am a fan of them. Perhaps it's simplistic but I see them as the species equivalent of habitat restoration - such as re-creating reedbeds in the Fens. We know we've lost lots of habitats so we need to protect the ones we still have and re-create some of the ones we have lost. And similarly, we know we've lost some species so we need to protect the ones we still have and reintroduce some of the ones we have lost if they won't come back on their own. That's how I see it.
But of course the work to protect the less charismatic farmland birds continues too - with the prospect of less government support in the future. The RSPB is working on a host of declining farmland birds such as corn bunting, turtle dove and lapwing. And that work continues too. Reintroductions are a bit of a luxury - at the moment one that, with help from the EU, we can afford, but maybe not for ever if funding continues to fall.
And this EU money is difficult enough to get, and the rules on what type of project it can be spent on are sufficiently strict and circumscribed, that if any of it goes on saving EU threatened birds then that is to be welcomed in my view. There are few enough pots of money around, and each of them seems to be getting smaller,
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Living not too far from Salisbury Plane, this is really excellent news. Many congratulations to both the Great Bustard Group and the RSPB and thanks to you Mark and all those in the RSPB's funding application section for lending your brilliant expertise. Like you I am a great fan of reintroductions as long as good science is applied which it always is when the RSPB is involved. With sound science, I cannot see any real arguement against. After all, it is almost always man's activities, one way or the other, that has caused the loss of the species, so if the opportunity arises for man to give it a helping hand to bring it back, should we do so? I think we definitely should. It makes no sense to do nothing and watch these species disappear one by one. As you also say, so many other benefits can also flow from a reintroduction programme such as, a big increase in the general public's and children's interest in nature, better habitat protection and enhancement and better protection for other local species. I know too that is no good saying this or that should have be done with the money instead . On grant funding there is very rarely that luxury. One has to take the funding when and for what one can.
Just to add, regarding your previous blog Mark on the loss of ALSF funding I am sure you are right, it has all the indications of an action by a rather motely brown coloured Treasury with very little or no green.
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