The report State of Nature published this week by twenty five conservation bodies paints a worrying picture of the decline of wildlife in the UK over the past 40-50 years. While there have been great individual success stories such as the reintroduction of the red kite and the large blue butterfly, the news that many birds, butterflies, mammals and molluscs have had a bumpy ride makes for uncomfortable reading.
It pulls together and presents in a readable way, yet again, the evidence, if any more were needed, that our countryside and our seas are becoming more impoverished places than ever. Where declining populations of fewer species fail to thrive against a backdrop of inexorable pressures from climate change, habitat fragmentation, urbanisation, agriculture and pollution.
But the report begs the question that if we want more red squirrels, capercaillie, stag beetles or speckled woods in future, where do we start? Continue with a myriad of individual interventions or develop some more radical new approach to conserving the countryside? Only the latter will do, in my view.
Of course we have come a long way in recent years in articulating a new way of conserving nature. The Lawton Review talks about creating resilient networks of habitats in the future across the wider countryside which requires habitat expansion as well as protection of special sites, connected rather than fragmented habitats. A more resilient landscape will be good for a whole host of individual species, the habitats that they depend on and the valuable functions which nature offers to society ‘free of charge’.
What we now need is a an extended coalition of conservation interests to agree not just on the evidence and not just on the new paradigm of landscape scale action, but on the specific tools and mechanisms to create a landscape and seascape richer in wildlife for all of us. Nature Improvement Areas and Local Nature Partnerships are part of the toolkit, but we need other novel ways of engaging a wide range of landowning and managing interests. The real challenge is how to build the kind of collaborative action which must involve us all and how to harness that evidence, knowledge and concern to drive real and concerted action for all our wildlife for the future.
Hilary Allison, Policy Director








New environmental indicators announced
You may have missed it; yesterday the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs launched the England Natural Environment Indicators. Yeah, we all go, what? Why?
Well the why is easy to answer, the Coalition Government in the Natural Environment White Paper made a commitment:
90 We will develop a set of key indicators by Spring 2012 to track progress on the ambitions of this White Paper.
European hare
Yesterday’s launch was the publication of the report on those indicators. This is not a new idea and we have had biodiversity indicators before, but these are aimed to address some of the underlying themes of biodiversity conservation.
But what are the indicators and what relevance do they have? Many of us are involved in formal or informal monitoring of the natural world; in my little patch I have seen an increase in the numbers of hares but a decrease in the number of hedgehogs, but are either of these facts significant and should we be looking to take action to deal with any potential causes of the changes?
The UK has a long history of collecting information on species and habitats. Repeated surveys over significant periods of time can be used to evaluate the impact of policies and actions to conserve biodiversity. But data analysis in this form is scientific and impenetrable to the untrained, hence the idea of a headline suite of indicators, easily understood and communicated to all, supported by additional data and background information to aid interpretation and provide more detail.
There are a number of elements that go to make a good indicator: detailed, reliable, responsive, policy relevant, etc. Indicators can be a great way of demonstrating that action is valuable to a sceptical public or Treasury. But there is always the risk that the policy tries to fix the indicator rather than the underlying biodiversity issues.
Green woodpeckers are woodland specialists
What does this new suite of indicators tell us about woodland? Of the old style indicators, both widespread breeding birds and butterflies in woodland showed long term declines (comparing 1990 to 2011) but more recent stability. However, this masks some interesting individual stories with coal tit, amongst others, increasing by more than 25% whilst willow tit has declined by up to 92% in some areas. Many of the declines in both groups are linked to changes in woodland structure caused by cessation of active management and increases in deer browsing, but the some of the bird species worst hit are long distance migrants where non-UK impacts are causing concern.
One of the newer indicators introduced is seeking to assess the management concerns by monitoring the percentage of woodland in active management. There is no long term data but the short term analysis suggests that the situation is improving.
There is an indicator of forest carbon stock (improving) and a new indicator of ease of access to local woodland, which has yet to be developed but will be based on the Woodland Trust data from Woods for People.
What is obviously lacking is any measurement of either woodland cover or rate of woodland creation. Unfortunately this indicator set pre-dates the Government Forestry and Woodlands Policy Statement of January 2013, which set a new target of achieving 12% woodland cover by 2060, but this is a good example of where indicators can be really useful. Monitoring an indicator over a five or ten year period would allow us to judge whether the policy and actions set in place are likely to result in the aim identified or whether intervention needs to take place.
So, indicators, interesting and useful, but not in themselves the solution to declines in biodiversity.
Frances Winder, Conservation Policy Officer
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