Below is an opinion piece from my boss, Dr Mike Clarke, which appears in the Daily Telegraph here.
Have a read and let me know what you think.
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Next summer, if you happen to be journeying along a country lane, you may be lucky enough to hear the joyous song of a skylark, high above a field of golden wheat. You may stop to capture the colour of butterflies dancing amid a blaze of wildflowers. Or, you may hold your breath as a nesting bird emerges from the depths of a leafy hedgerow.
These are the sights, sounds and smells of the British countryside. They’re part of our national heritage. They’re timeless.
Or are they?
Those of us who value this landscape and wildlife are increasingly concerned that, far from being timeless, a time bomb is ticking. This week, the EU will be discussing issues that have far-reaching consequences for our continent.
70% percent of the UK’s land area – and most of what we think of as “the countryside”- is farmed land. As well as feeding us, a huge proportion of our wildlife lives, breeds and feeds there. Farmers are not just food producers, we need them to be the vital guardians of our landscape and wildlife.
Farms are also businesses. What they produce, they sell to the market. Times are tough for the market, so they’re tough for some farmers too.
But for the birds, bees and butterflies, times are even tougher. Who is paying for wildlife? The market will always find a way of paying for food, even if, as in the recent case of dairy farmers, it isn’t always a fair price. But who will pay for the birdsong that gladdens your heart and the bees that busily pollinate the fields and hedgerows? The business of being a bee is even harder than the business of farming.
You can’t put a value on them, but they matter, in an almost visceral way. It’s indefinable but it touches your very soul.
It’s pretty unfashionable to say anything positive about the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Its reputation is not entirely unjustified but we’re stuck with it for the foreseeable future.
But the CAP does some good things. It has, in recent years, no longer been coupled solely with food production. It has provided farmers with an incentive to safeguard wildlife, through agri-environment schemes, funded out of the so-called “Pillar 2” of the CAP.
That skylark, singing joyfully over your head, probably isn’t there by chance. Less poetically, it may be there because the local farmer applied for agri-environment funding and provided a small patch of uncultivated land for it.
These are tough times in Europe and, quite rightly, spending is under scrutiny. But it’s Pillar 2 of the CAP that’s under threat. There’s a strong chance that the cuts will fall disproportionately on Pillar 2, rather than on the less discerning Pillar 1 – the Single Farm Payment, which provides far fewer and less effective environmental incentives.
This seems illogical and perverse. The part of the CAP that’s under threat is the part that’s not supported by the market and which provides real value for the taxpayer. They’re scrutinising the wrong bit. No wonder the CAP gets such a bad press.
Pillar 2 isn’t perfect but it is based on sound principles and is home to some of the best examples of value for money found anywhere in Europe. It provides a lifeline for iconic species like the turtle dove, as well as helping farmers to provide important public benefits that the market doesn’t reward, like clean drinking water and landscapes to attract tourism.
This is happening at a time when nature needs more investment, not less. If we lose funding for wildlife friendly farming, we know that the vast majority of farmers will stop doing the things that wildlife needs.
We shouldn’t simply accept the simplistic view of Europe ‘meddling in our affairs’ that often prevails. It’s a generalisation and risks throwing the baby (or, in this case, the birds, bees and butterflies) out with the bathwater.
It also means that the UK fails to engage in the big debates, the outcomes of which could make a fundamental difference to our quality of life and the things that we hold most dear. It took years to combat the worst excesses of the CAP and ensure it had an environmental element , but it would take even longer to put the life back into our countryside if the rug were pulled from under it.
You can help by emailing David Cameron in advance of his meeting this week – our PM may have been ‘given a mandate’ by Parliament to cut the budget but we must urge him to recognise that some bits of the budget need to be spared the knife.
Why not tell the politicians that, while having a full belly is undeniably, unquestionably essential, having a full heart is just as important.
Please click here to find out how you can help our campaign.
The 44 million birds lost report was interesting. I wrote the following to my local ornithological circle and beyond:
"This statistic was put out by the RSPB in a report a couple of days ago
I got to wonder whether this was a big number or not ! A simple calculation shows it is 733 individual birds per Tetrad within the UK (@ 60k Tetrads). It kind of puts it into perspective for me.
Translated into another subjective view, this years North Cotswold Ornithological Society (NCOS) dawn chorus event around Chedworth Woods, while wonderful, was noticably relatively quiet in terms of singing birds. Nothing like the crescendo I used to experience when I worked night shifts all those years ago! Is that your perception also? Can anything be done?
Earlier this year, I had been urging NCOS as an entity, as opposed to the individual members, to adopt a collective voice in highlighting this worrying state of affairs but was blocked on the basis that this is not what you do - that the likes of the RSPB (a campaigning and conservation organisation) will sort it out. But will it? Not from my experience, as an individual, of trying to get them to act against UK organised slaughter of Turtle Doves in Morocco (a full exchange is available on request) nor apparently by witness of an astonishing attack from the floor by an ex-colleague of the well regarded Dr Mark Avery at this years Bird Fair who alleged he (Avery) failed to act against a significant Breckland development whilst RSPB Director of Conservation.
Whatever the realities of those illustrations, maybe an alliance of bird clubs, ornithological societies and general nature lovers would present a way more powerful voice in keeping the RSPB and their counterparts on their toes? Similarly, we were told at Bird Fair of the threat to the East Asian-Australasian "Flyway" where rapid development of coastal "feeding stations" is posing a genuine threat to a very significant number of the world's migratory water birds. The one piece of encouraging news to come out of that report was the growth of societies and clubs in China who are fighting for these birds and the environment there. Would a show of solidarity and support from counterparts around the globe help? It's hard to see how it could harm the cause? Is there a will to act?
Finally, please note this will be my one attempt to highlight this and other environmental issues before I fall silent and I hope you are not irritated by my initiative. I just hope Rachael Carson's "Silent Spring" does not come to pass in the not too distant future! but if James (Mr Gaia Theory) Lovelock's warnings of cybernetic positive feedback effects is true - let's hope he is as much an idiot as I - it will be quicker than we all think!
Finally , finally - As I write this the field below my house has a river running through it as the ground around @@@@@@@@ is totally saturated."
I wrote to Mike Clarke recently as part of his "million ideas for nature" suggesting the RSPB and its counterparts around the globe partner up with Jonathon Porritt's "Forum for the Future" and his "5 Capitals Framework as detailed in his book "Capitalism as if the World Matters" - just about the best blueprint for the future I've come across. If there is anything better please let me know.
We all know contempory capitalism behaves as an open system (infinite growth is the message) but is actually closed, bounded by the bio-sphere and human society. Try getting a group of nature lovers (as above) to act as a unit - impossible. What chance with the masses of citizens turned consumers??
In hope
Phil
A good piece indeed. It could kick in a lot harder re Tier 1 that 80% of CAP goes to people like large dairies and Tate and Lisle, the arable barley barons etc and that the battle on openness and accountability has to be re-fought etc etc but very good.
Peter Plover
I think this opinion piece by Mike Clarke is excellent. I totally agree with all he says. It is good to have some sensible voices, (mostly from the RSPB), amid the maelstrom of inaccurate and incorrect platitudes that pour out from the media and politicians concerning most subjects but especially the EU. Let's hope that Mr Cameron and the other EU ministers take Mike's message to heart and act upon it tomorrow and Friday.
redkite
Yes, of course the funding and budgets at the top of the 'pyramid' are vital, and need big organisations like the RSPB to fight their corner, but it's the small areas at the bottom that are being constantly chipped away; so that one day, maybe, the whole pyramid will collapse. The wildlife organisations don't seem interested in fighting for the small things. We are about to lose our Turtle Doves in Alcester, Warks to development. So what? Just a handful of birds most people don't even see or care that they're there. It's another contraction of their range, but no-one will miss that soft purring call, except me.
"You can’t put a value on them, but they matter, in an almost visceral way. It’s indefinable but it touches your very soul." (Quote from above)