Dippy’s on tour - and he has a big job to do

This is a mission to reconnect our children with the natural world

This week Dippy the Diplodocus begins his grand tour of the UK. The beloved dinosaur skeleton cast, which stood in the entrance hall of the Natural History Museum for over a century, will be unveiled at Dorset County Museum on February 10. He carries heavy expectations on his immensely broad shoulders, for his mission as he travels is to inspire us to reconnect with the natural world, and help tackle the urgent crisis facing it.

Historically, Britain has a proud tradition of wildlife-watching. But the chances of any child visiting a green space have halved in a generation. Now we have a critical shortage in the skills needed to identify our flora and fauna. Our children are less able to distinguish a thrush from a robin, or perhaps even a catkin from a curlew, than in any previous age.

For those who grew up charting the shape of leaves and the colour of birds, this feels like a tragic shame. But it is of more than sentimental importance. We actually rely on data gathered by our nation’s amateur naturalists to protect endangered species and vital habitats.

And just as our ability to identify, document and monitor their condition is declining, our need to do so is growing more urgent.

Worldwide, species and ecosystems are being destroyed faster than we can describe them or understand their significance. Yet in Britain we don’t even know what we might be losing. The RSPB’S most recent State of Nature UK report revealed that over half of the species it studied have declined since 1970, and one in 10 could disappear.

It concluded that we only have enough data to confidently assess such changes for 3,800 out of more than 71,000 known UK species. If we can’t tell what’s declining or increasing, or differentiate between invasive and native, we cannot plan our efforts.

Scientifically, it is true, our knowledge of different species and how they are related to one another develops all the time. Still, it is estimated that only around 10 per cent of global species have been discovered, named and classified. Even in the UK, despite it being one of the best studied regions in the world, we regularly discover both overlooked natives and recent arrivals. Building and maintaining a comprehensive inventory of our fauna and flora is a fundamental undertaking if we want to protect our fragile ecosystems.

Worse, studies have found that children who rarely encounter even common species of plants and animals have low expectations of the natural world, low appreciation of the UK’S biodiversity and little support for its conservation. So unless we inspire the next generation of enthusiasts – the twitchers, the turners-over of leaves and log piles and the butterfly watchers who know their purple emperors from their red admirals – our extraordinary natural heritage may be lost forever.

Fixing this is part of Dippy’s mission. The Natural History Museum already operates the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, which helps people and institutions recognise wildlife so that they can record, monitor and preserve it. We also have a citizen science team who train and work with volunteers to carry out

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audits such as our Big Seaweed Survey and Earthworm Watch.

Dippy, however, thanks to the generosity of the Garfield Weston Foundation, will be seen by more than 1.5 million people across the UK. As he arrives in Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow, Tyneside, Cardiff, Rochdale and Norwich, we expect him to galvanise more people to go out and enjoy the many benefits of spending time in nature. The venues hosting him will be working with their local natural history organisations and nature attractions to create a programme of events – such as in Dorset, where the Jurassic Coast Trust is organising geology walks and butterfly surveys to encourage children to explore the rich biodiversity on their doorsteps.

The future of our wildlife depends on partnerships like this: on cultural and local natural history organisations, museums, conservation projects and research institutions applying their passion and expertise to reconnect us with nature. We need to inspire future guardians of our precious natural heritage – and it can start with something as simple as meeting, and naming, a caterpillar.