I notice that colleagues I have worked with in Defra and statutory agencies are moving on - some are taking early reitrement others are taking voluntary redundancy and yet others have lost their jobs.
Natural England is, as much earlier revealed in this blog, shedding 400 jobs this year of the 800 that will go from the organisation over the next few years.
Here at the RSPB we are making difficult decisions about which projects we can take forward and which we cannot. This year there has been quite a lot of juggling to try to protect our conservation work - but that can only be done at the expense of other things. Other things like salaries, computer upgrades, pension contributions etc..
I've had to halt conservation projects because of the sudden and unexpected disappearance of external funding and that hurts. And there is great uncertainty about which projects may be funded by agencies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency next year - and next financial year starts in about 9 weeks time.
Similar things are happening across all sectors so I am not saying that nature is being hit hardest of all - although it is being hit hard (and nature is blameless in our financial difficulties). I'll share more of the consequences over the next few weeks.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Hear hear Bob lets hope he stays in conservation as although it is often nice to have a change of occupation for the individual it is sad to have all that knowledge lost.