It’s time for bold new initiatives to tackle wider wildlife crisis

HARDLY a day goes by at the moment without the announcement of a project or initiative designed to preserve precious habitat or try to secure the future of a threatened species of plant or animal.

Today, the Western Morning News reports on the creation of a new National Nature Reserve, with the status conferred on East Devon’s Pebblebed Heaths.

We salute the declaration, made with the endorsement of Natural England Chair Tony Juniper, and recognise the importance of this lowland heath and the many species of plants and animals it supports.

As Mr Juniper said at yesterday’s launch: “National Nature Reserves are the very jewels in nature’s crown. In addition to being among our most wonderful natural areas, they are also at the very heart of our ambition to create a Nature Recovery Network, to restore the beauty, diversity and health of nature across the country.”

In addition to being England’s newest National Nature Reserve, the Pebblebed Heaths are also a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the site is also a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area – a veritable alphabet soup of protections.

So it is depressing that in tandem with all this excellent work, by statutory and voluntary bodies, designed to protect the landscape, we hear almost constant warnings about the threats posed to so many species. Some might conclude that, for all the efforts being made with the very best of intentions, we are failing, collectively, to stem the wildlife losses.

There are, of course, pockets of good news where improvements in the breeding success of some threatened birds or mammals have been recorded and where numbers, once under severe pressure, are bouncing back. But for the layman or woman, concerned about wildlife and keen to see once familiar species thriving again, there is a clear disconnect between the many schemes and projects trying to make a difference and what can seem like a relentlessly gloomy big picture recording ever more catastrophic declines.

Figures due out today, for example, are expected to show that, of all the G7 nations, Britain is doing the least well when it comes to protecting its plants, animals and landscapes. For all the schemes such as yesterday’s creation of a National Nature Reserve, it is clear that either the current methods of landscape and species protection don’t go far enough or a completely different approach is needed.

Might we have to conclude, for example, that, as a heavily populated food producing nation, keen to become even more self-sufficient, we should accept wildlife has a place only at the margins? Not many people would even entertain such an idea and there is strong evidence that we can combine efficient farming with conservation.

But it is becoming increasingly evident that the current ad hoc approach to the environment, throwing lifebelts around protected areas, is having only a modest impact on the landscape and at-risk species more generally. We urgently need to look at a broader approach to the issue.