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.
Mark, I gave the impression on my last entry that I might have been against the EU funding. That is not correct. The Great Bustard Group (GBG) is doing a great job and I wish them all the best. As a Wiltshire resident I know that the County has a pride in this project. The Bustard appears on the county, police, scout flags (amongst others) and in many pub names. I am able to watch Montagu's Harrier and Stone Curlew every year on the plain and it would be lovely to add free flying bustard.
However I do remain a sceptic. Initially this was based on the lack of public scientific information from GBG, the resignation and letter to Defra from their own scientist and what I thought to be a logistic and disturbance problem. After the scientist left the RSPB stepped in and applied their own science and I now have no problems with the first 2 of my concerns. The difference between the plain in the 1800s and now is considerable. The roads, mechanical farming and considerable traffic have appeared and of course the plain is an area for 'war games' which at times can be heard miles away from the plain itself.
There are 3 main projects on the plain. The RSPB's Futurescapes project, which with the Winterbourne reserve is looking at increasing chalk gassland, improving stone curlew numbers, tree sparrows and others right across the plain . There is a similar equally ambitious, but smaller project from Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and there is the Bustard project. 2 of these are habitat improvements and reconstruction and one has a stated aim of creating a population of 50 bustard. I can't help preferring the first 2. In this economic climate there will have to be priorities and I would love to see the first 2 receive more money but it is unlikely.
Having got all that off my chest can I add my congratulations to those of redkite. As a project in its own right it deserves that support and I might even swallow my pride and become a member of GBG.
The Cotswold Water park sightings website
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