Today, our diverse, eclectic and brilliant sector comes together to report on the state of our nature.
Following on from the inaugural State of Nature report in 2013, 51 organisations have worked together to compile information about what is happening to wildlife populations on land and at sea across the UK, on our Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.
We shall launch the State of Nature 2016 reports and showcase the results at events in London and Edinburgh today and in Cardiff and Belfast over the next fortnight.
This is not a simple update of the 2013 report because we have covered more species and done new work. This includes looking at short term, as well as long term, trends and assessing the most important factors that are affecting species populations.
As a nation of nature lovers, we should be proud that we are able to provide such a comprehensive assessment fuelled primarily by data collected by a dedicated and superb army of volunteers. It is estimated that 7.5 million hours of volunteer time goes into recording nature in the UK each year.
Yet, the headlines serve as a stark reminder that, despite our collective endeavour, we have failed to halt the decline of UK biodiversity...
...56% of the 4,000 species we assessed have declined since 1970
...15% of species are either extinct or threatened with extinction
...species abundance has fallen by 16% since 1970
...priority species have declined by 67% since 1970
As a 1970 baby, it is painfully clear that the report catalogues declines that have happened in my lifetime but it is against a historical context of even greater loss: new science has shown that we are among the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
The situation is not all doom and gloom. There are signs (even if not statistically significant) that the rate of loss is slowing. In the reports for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales we’ve included loads of examples that illustrate how members of the partnership, often working with landowners, businesses and Government agencies, have tried to stop the rot, protect the best and restore the rest. This shows that conservation works. In many cases, we know what needs to be done, have demonstrated the art of the possible and simply need to get more people to act.
Image courtesy of David Slate (rspb-images.com)
And this is where governments have a crucial part to play. They are best placed to make it easier for people to do the right thing through incentives and prevent people from doing harm through regulation and penalties.
Yet, Brexit has created uncertainty about the future of nature conservation laws (the majority of which flow from the European Union) and incentives (wildlife friendly farming schemes in the Common Agriculture Policy supply about 75% of the total incentives available for biodiversity).
The new Environment Secretary, Andrea Leadsom, will speak at the London event (alongside Sir David Attenborough) and I look forward to her response to our report. This has to be the moment when the UK Government commits to being a world leader on the environment, and backs up words with the action necessary to fulfil the manifesto commitment to restore biodiversity in 25 years.
To help make that a reality, we’re calling on all MPs to support this ambition, and sign a Pledge for the Environment. Together with a number of other NGOs we’ve created a petition for you to sign to encourage your MP to adopt the pledge here.
But we haven’t stopped there.
Whether it’s getting involved in biological surveys, volunteering at nature reserves, or reducing our own footprint on the planet we want to encourage people to do what they can. To help this we have produced this infographic (here) which provides a brief summary of the State of Nature 2016 and concludes by setting out five actions that people can take: count, volunteer, manage, campaign and live sustainably. Under each of these sections there are links to just some of the projects that members of the State of Nature partnership are offering.
We hope that masses of people will get involved so please copy this infographic to your friends and contacts.
As the old Swahili proverb says, haba na haba hujaza kibaba – little by little the pot gets filled.
And finally, the answer to my headline question is that these three species are amongst the 1057 species that were assessed against IUCN red list criteria as being at risk of extinction from Great Britain. So far assessments are available for about 8000 plants, fungi, lichens or invertebrates. There are, of course, species from other groups, e.g. (turtle dove), which are also at risk.
Let's work together to get these species off these lists.
Yes, its a startling headline, but is the State of Nature report the right route to political action ? I remember the reaction in Defra when the number of action plan species was raised to over 1,000 - they knew it was impossible to administer and manage, and it was a turnoff for otherwise neutral managers. In contrast, the SSSI target which wasn't supported unequivocally by NGOs flew because it was simple and comprehensible.
The current message from a politician/ Government manager point of view risk being a turnoff: can they ever get it right, will they ever get any credit or just 'you need to do more', and if that is the case why bother ?
Once again, a stark, crucial and more positive (and challenging) message has perhaps got lost in the gloom: it is very clearly a game of two parts: the species/habitats that have had concerted action have actually done rather well - a string of species recovering, sometimes to an extent their fierce3st supporters would never have dreamt of. In contrast, the picture in the broader countryside is pretty unbridled gloom. Far from all being a disaster, we have proved there is a way back: the question is how we include more and more species, more and more habitat in that success.