Cooperation, not conflict is the way ahead for our countryside

TONY Juniper, who writes for today’s Western Morning News setting out his hope for an “ecological revolution” to turn the tide on the loss of wildlife species, was seen by some as a brave choice for the chairmanship of Natural England – and even braver for accepting the challenge.

Heading up the Government quango responsible for overseeing official policy on managing the countryside can be a difficult job for a committed conservationist, especially when he comes in for the close and often critical scrutiny of those he once stood alongside.

For Mr Juniper, former chair of the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth and a candidate at the 2010 election for the Green Party, managing the badger cull, issuing licences for the lethal control of some species of bird and authorising the destruction of certain protected habitats to facilitate improvements in transport infrastructure, would seem, on the face of it, to have him holding his nose and looking the other way.

But all credit to him for taking on the job and for walking what can sometimes be a very fine line between those holding different interests. Yet often those on what appear to be two very distinct sides of an argument can actually have the same aims but take different routes towards achieving them. Mr Juniper has quickly learned to straddle that divide without – for the most part – simply sitting on the fence.

More than a year ago, for example, he spoke on a panel at the Bird Fair to answer a question on whether or not driven grouse shooting – the primary bête noire of many in the conservation movement at the moment – should be banned. The questioner got a cheer in the hall and straight ‘yes’ answers from panellists Chris Packham, the BBC presenter and anti-shooting campaigner, and Dominic Dyer, who campaigns against the badger cull.

Mr Juniper pointed out that a similar question, posed in a village hall on the Yorkshire moors, where grouse shooting is an important part of the rural community and a major economic driver, would have been greeted with boos. He said the manner of the response told its own story: “I think part of the trouble we’ve got with a whole host of conservation questions... is that they are becoming very polarised, they are becoming very divisive; they are becoming very angry and as a result of that what people do is dig deeper trenches...”

Mr Juniper said the issue had to be decided on by the science and then ways found to bring the two sides together to agree a way forward, following best practice. It’s an approach which can be applied much more widely across the conservation movement – something Mr Juniper plainly understands and is doing his best to implement.

He has difficult months ahead, as a range of decisions about the management of rural Britain, changes in farm subsidy support and a background of declining wildlife and loss of habitat have to be made. But putting someone with his background in the chair has helped to build bridges. It’s now time for others – including those with significant public profiles – to follow his lead.