My September copy of British Birds is still mostly unread (and October popped through the door recently) but an item in Adrian Pitches's excellent regular feature News and Comment drew my attention.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service have established that a fifth of the US population 'count' as birders if you include anyone who has travelled more than a mile from home for the primary purpose of observing birds and/or anyone who closely observes birds at home. These yanks spent an estimated $36bn on birding goods and services - about $750 each - annually. This spend generates lots of jobs and lots of taxes for the government and, the argument goes, is a measure of the economic and therefore political clout of we birders.
I wonder how many UK citizens would qualify as birders by the same measure? A fifth of the population? Maybe - I wish the RSPB had 12 million members!
But I also wonder whether this economic angle is the right one. We are so used to seeing 'worth' and 'value' expressed in terms of money. The more these people flew, the less efficient their cars and the higher the price of telescopes then the greater worth to the US economy. Is that really a good measure of the relevance of this activity?
You can't measure everything's importance in financial terms - that's my belief anyway. The economic value is important, but of greater interest to me is that so many Americans make nature part of their lives. That's fantastic - and if you add in the hunters and walkers and fishermen too (obviously there will be lots of overlap) then the number will be very high. If those people ensure that politicians take notice of the natural world in their policies then the world will be a better place in future.
But is there much evidence that recent US Presidents have taken a very pro-nature view of the world (yes! and no!)? Maybe if 48million Americans made their views known to politicians then we would see more sign of environmental sympathy in US international policy. But you do have the chance to make your love of the natural world clear to UK politicians by signing the RSPB Letter to the Future - and please ask a friend to do so too!
I wonder if the situation in the USA is similar in some ways to what we see in the UK in that people look at one topic that they disagree with in terms of policy and see that as a reason not to join an organisation. I remember a dear elderly lady holding court at Marshside a few months ago being slightly critical of the RSPB policy in a ferw areas but it transpired that her main beef was over the RSPB's policy on cats. In fact, her understanding of the RSPB's policy in this area turned out to be wrong and I explained the figures behind it to her. On another occasion, someone seemed to be under the impression that the RSPB had changed its attitude and policy on wind farms. Again, the basic premise was wrong but I suspect these ideas become so entrenched that the person holding them is incapable of going against the tide even when the true picture is given to them. In theory, the RSPB should at least be able to target 3 million members a la National Trust but it seems hard going and those experiences perhaps underline why it is.