Twice a year, my senior conservation team visits part of the UK to see the impact we are having for wildlife and places. There are ten different RSPB countries or regions and so we usually get round to each every five years or so. Nature conservation takes time, so the trips provide useful milestones against which we can judge our impact whilst also providing an opportunity to connect with colleagues in other parts of the organisation. The spin-off benefit is that we also get to see some wildlife.
This week was no exception. We were over in Northern Ireland looking at our work recovering waders such as lapwing, snipe, redshank and curlew. Since we were last over as a group, our NI colleagues have, through its work with farmers, begun to turn round the fortunes of waders through the Halting Environmental Loss Project. But some species remain in a perilous state.
Of greatest concern is curlew.
The UK hosts a quarter of the global breeding population of curlew but since the 1990’s its breeding population has almost halved across the UK and is down by a staggering 82% in Northern Ireland since 1987. The main driver is low productivity caused by a reduction in suitable habitat and predation. The curlew is likely to disappear from some places, particularly in Wales and Ireland, unless we act now and protect remaining strongholds such as Glenwherry in County Antrim.
Picture courtesy of @scribblesbyjohn
We visited Glenwherry (below) on Wednesday and were shown around one of the farms which is taking part in our five year curlew recovery programme. This is one of the largest and most ambitious research projects that we have undertaken. In all, we are working on 6 sites across across the UK including a mixture of reserves and privately owned land. On each trial site we'll deploy habitat management and predator control interventions. In addition to monitoring how curlew respond to the changes we make on these trial sites, we will also monitor how curlew are doing on linked ‘control’ sites that do not have the enhanced management. We're doing this to to inform the development of ‘curlew-friendly’ land management options across the wider landscape to help stabilise the curlew breeding population.
The trial site seemed to be responding well to some of the rush management and we saw a number making display flights. But, we'll have to wait five years before we can demonstrate whether our interventions have made a significant difference. So, when the RSPB's senior conservation team return in five years (with or without me), I hope and expect that curlew numbers will have responded well and government agencies will be ready to adapt their wildlife-friendly farming schemes to help drive the recovery of the curlew.
In the meantime, as the many placards of candidates at roundabouts testify, there is an election on 5 May in Northern Ireland (as in Wales and Scotland). Our friend Bob is back on the campaign trail and he has already recruited 92 Northern Irish politicians (99 in Wales and 138 in Scotland).
We want a higher political profile for nature conservation and so my Northern Ireland colleagues have been meeting the political parties to make the case for nature including action to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss. Not only do we want action to improve the protection and management of the important wildlife sites on land and at sea, but we are calling for the funding for the new Environmental Farming Scheme to be protected until 2020 and this must include advisory support for farmers so they can help halt decline in wildlife.
Action to recover wildlife over the long term requires sustained political support. Only then will the needs of species like curlew be met and mainstreamed in modern farming.
Glenwherry with Slemish mountain in the background and a curlew just flying out of shot (courtesy of Ellen Wilson)