Guest blog by Ben McFarland, Suffolk Area Manager
Defending the Directives – urgent help needed to protect Minsmere and Havergate Island!
We are facing one of the biggest challenges in our 126 year history, and I’m asking for your urgent support today.
For the last 30+ years, the Nature Directives have been the bedrock for almost everything we have achieved. They provide the very best level of protection for our most important wildlife. Without them, defending our most precious natural places, including Minsmere and Havergate Island, and the wildlife they support would have been a far more difficult or even impossible task. Without them, would we have achieved the remarkable recovery of the bittern, or defended the Thames Estuary from plans for a new airport? Today, the Suffolk Coast and its most precious sites are under pressure more than ever from development.
The Nature Directives are two important pieces of EU legislation: the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive. Between them they help to protect important habitats and species across Europe. The best wildlife sites have been designated as Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), which are also known as Natura 2000 sites. Minsmere is both an SPA and an SAC, as well as having a host of other UK and international designations.
The Nature Directives are now being subjected to a ‘Fitness Check’ under the EU’s Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT). This will assess whether they are doing the job which they were intended for – to protect European important habitats and species. There is a real concern across the EU that some politicians want to weaken the Nature Directives.
We firmly believe that the Nature Directives are fit for purpose, and that rather than weakening them, the European Commission should be focussing on improving how they are implemented across all European countries. We believe they are better for wildlife, better for business, and crucially better for people.
Today we are launching our campaign to defend the Nature Directives, and we’re asking you all to support this campaign in 3 simple ways:
1. Create a show of force - take two minutes for the one-click action through our website.
2. Get active on Social Media – Post on Facebook or Tweet/retweet a link to our website. Please use #defendnature to help spread the word.
3. Create a movement - share this with your friends, family, contacts, associates... talk to them about the places and wildlife that you and they love, and ask them to take action now by going to our website.
(There is a full consultation on the Commission website here (this should take about 20 minutes) for those who may wish to contribute further, but this should be completed instead, not as well as number 1 above)
If everyone who does this also asks ten more people to do so, that could be a lot of responses. Imagine if we could get a million people to respond? That is our challenge, your challenge.
We’re asking for just two minutes of your time - please help us win this battle. Please act, and act today!
Ben McFarland
Minsmere, from the sluice: help us protect this view and the species that live here
Done, Ian. Places like Minsmere and all their dependent species must be protected.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.