George Barker obituary
George Barker, who has died aged 77, was a champion of wildlife conservation in towns and cities. During his long service in the government wildlife service, the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC), and its successor bodies, he became the acknowledged expert on urban nature conservation, a field that had been largely neglected. His openness to new ideas, unusual in a public servant, and gentle advocacy over four decades, helped to make a success of urban wildlife conservation both at home and abroad.
Acting almost alone at first, Barker set about destroying the myth of the “urban wildlife desert”. Long before ecosystem services became a crucial part of urban planning and design, Barker realised that city landscapes can be surprisingly rich in wildlife, especially in post-industrial “brownfield” sites such as quarries
and spoil-heaps. These places were seen as derelict land and were completely unprotected. Barker also understood that urban parks and even gardens can become reservoirs for wildlife if managed in the right way.
As the NCC’s first and only urban wildlife co-ordinator, appointed in 1984, Barker helped to set up and support urban wildlife groups in London and other cities. There are now more than 60 such groups in the UK, all grassroots bodies in which local people can become involved in wildlife projects.
Through conferences and his newsletter, Urban Wildlife News, Barker reached a large audience of practitioners at home and abroad (it was read in 38 countries), offering encouragement, ideas and (modest) financial aid. By 1987 a new journal, Urban Wildlife, was launched. In little more than a decade, Barker had helped to put urban nature conservation firmly on the national agenda.
A milestone along the way was
the publication of The Endless Village (1978), an account by the naturalist “Bunny” Teagle of the hidden wildlife wonders of Birmingham. Commissioned by Barker despite some resistance from senior colleagues, this NCC report caught the imagination of the public in its revelation of rare spiders flourishing under the Spaghetti Junction interchange. Through his patience and perseverance, the UK Man and Biosphere (MAB) Urban Forum, linked to Unesco, was established in 1987, effectively a high-power think-tank on urban nature.
Born in Hendon, north-west London, George was the eldest of four children of Nancy (nee Daldy) and Edwin Barker. In his family he was known by his third name, Aldus. His parents encouraged George and his brother, Andrew, in their interest in natural history and allowed them the freedom to explore the countryside of Sussex and Hampshire. He was educated at Steyning grammar school, where he boarded. In 2001 he self-published and illustrated an entertaining memoir of his schooldays entitled The Slog Smugglers (“slogs” were the thick slices of bread and marge remorselessly served at breakfast and tea).
An active member of the school natural history society, Barker interested himself in butterflies, badgers and beetles (thus providing his school nickname of “Beetle” Barker). He won a Trevelyan scholarship to Queen’s College, Oxford, where he studied zoology.
In 1964 Barker joined the Nature Conservancy as a warden-naturalist based at Old Winchester Hill in Hampshire. Later he was promoted to assistant and then deputy regional officer for the West Midlands. Although based in attractive rural surroundings at Attingham Park in Shropshire, Barker’s responsibility included the sprawling conurbations of Birmingham and the Black Country.
When the newly established West Midlands metropolitan authority asked for advice on nature conservation for its upcoming structure plan, Barker saw an opportunity. It led to the first conservation strategy for an urban area.
Following the positive reception of The Endless Village, not least by the then minister, Denis Howell, Barker was given the special role of the NCC’s urban expert. He had to tread a fine line between expert adviser and activist (for as a public servant he could not be too confrontational). Now based at the NCC’s new headquarters in Peterborough, to which he cycled from his home in Warmington, he was nonetheless allowed a fairly free hand in advancing the cause of wildlife in cities.
Barker wrote a number of reports regarded as classics in their field. People in Nature and Cities (1988) examined the social aspects of planning and wildlife management, with a growing list of examples. Green Networks (1997) offered a framework in which the needs of wildlife could be integrated into other uses within open urban spaces. Barker also saw the potential health benefits of green open spaces long before this became a hot topic. Local Nature Reserves in England (1991) documented the growing list of nature reserves set up and managed by local authorities.
Barker’s modest, quietly humorous demeanour masked a steely determination and perseverance. He was a good motivational speaker. One colleague recalled that when he walked on stage he always seemed to be laughing. Never openly subversive, Barker had a way of putting his finger on the key issue and explaining what was needed simply and without recourse to jargon. He was popular with colleagues, respected and even revered.
In 2000, a year before his retirement, he was appointed MBE “for services to nature”. Six years later he received the MAB’s special green award for “outstanding services to urban wildlife conservation”.
Barker is survived by his brother and two sisters, and by a niece and four nephews of whom he was very fond.
•George Michael Aldus Barker, nature conservationist, born 11 June 1940; died 1 May 2018