Please read this...
The RSPB launched the most ambitious campaign in its 122 year history on Wednesday, in an effort to end the continuing threat to wildlife in the UK and across the world.
In 2010, the world failed to meet a global target to halt the decline in biodiversity. A new target was set by the EU for 2020, and UK governments have signed up to it.
The RSPB’s Stepping Up for Nature campaign aims to encourage Government, businesses and individuals to Step Up and play their part for nature to achieve those 2020 goals. Environment secretary Caroline Spelman has welcomed the campaign and will be speaking at the official launch in London on Wednesday, March 9.
Some of our best loved native birds including cuckoos, house sparrows and nightingales are in sharp decline and once-widespread species, like corncrakes, turtle doves and cirl buntings, are desperately clinging on in small pockets. Farmland bird populations have fallen by half.
Our natural and wild spaces are shrinking and changing dramatically around us. At least 16 per cent of Greater London's total area is private gardens. Add parks and community spaces and the area accounts for more than a fifth of the Capital. If just 1 in every 10 Londoners planted native shrubs and wildflowers, it would vastly improve urban wildlife.
80% of lowland heathland has disappeared, 100 hectares of saltmarsh are being lost each year, almost three quarters of rivers in England and Wales are failing European standards and in 60 years we have lost 95 per cent of our wildflower meadows.
With more people than ever living in cities, these losses are slipping past almost unnoticed, having little or no immediate impact on our lifestyles. Stepping Up for Nature is a way to relieve the pressures that threaten our environment.
Mike Clarke, RSPB chief executive, said: “When we missed the 2010 biodiversity target we all failed nature. We can’t let that happen again. Over the next decade we have the opportunity to fix the problems causing the loss of wildlife in the UK and across the world. We have a choice here, and if we make the right choices, we can create space for nature, ensure vital habitats are not lost and bring species back from the brink."
"Everyone can do their bit. If we all take millions of individual steps for nature, then those we elect will be forced to sit up and take notice. From communities creating a wildflower meadow in Hackney Wick right up to ministers creating a vital piece of legislation protecting wildlife in the mouth of the Thames estuary. We all have a part to play between now and 2020."
"This is the most ambitious campaign the RSPB has launched in its long history, and the challenge ahead of us is huge. But the prize on offer is even bigger. A healthy natural world where all life can thrive.”
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said: “The natural environment is one of the areas where the Big Society can really make an impact. The RSPB is the Big Society in action, harnessing the passion, commitment and expertise of its one million members to achieve significant results for the natural environment, and I wish them every success in the most ambitious campaign in their 122 year history. Working together we can make a real difference to our country by reducing the loss of our many species and habitats.”
As part of the launch of the campaign the charity will be handing in its Letter to the Future to Number 10, Downing Street. The letter has been signed by more than 355,000 people and calls on the Government not to cut funding for nature conservation.
These two striking images were made up using all your Letter To The Future signatures...
We are all in this together.... H ;o)