Читать книгу Nature Conservation - Peter Marren - Страница 17

This chapter is about the private sector of nature conservation, the voluntary nature conservation bodies – who they are and what they do. Perhaps few countries in the world have as many charities, trusts and associations active in the same broad field as Britain. Wildlife and Countryside Link, the forum where many of them meet and share ideas, serves 34 national bodies and many more local ones, varying from special-interest trusts (butterflies, reptiles, sharks) to international pressure groups (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth) and world-famous charities (WWF, RSPB, National Trust). Every county in England and Wales has its own wildlife trust (Scotland and some of the smaller counties have federated trusts). Learned societies with small but enthusiastic memberships exist for practically every animal, plant or mineral that occurs in Britain: for example, water-beetles (the Balfour-Brown Club), microscopy (Quekett Microscopical Club), seaweeds (British Phycological Society) and molluscs (Conchological Society of Britain and Ireland). Hedgehogs, sharks and bats have their own societies. There is even a group busily recording the distribution of nematode worms. Some special-interest bodies have recently become active in nature conservation; for example, the venerable British Mycological Society (fungi) now has a part-time conservation officer, responsible for biodiversity projects and compiling a red data list.

In their glorious diversity, ranging from the National Trust to small groups that meet once a year to dine and reminisce, finding an adequate name to cover everyone is problematical. Government refers to them with statist disdain as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Some prefer the term voluntary bodies, but this too, seems somewhat vague and reductionist (what is the alternative to a voluntary body – a compulsory body?). Besides, a voluntary body such as the RSPB has a membership larger than any political party and, if it is voluntary, it is every bit as professional as its official counterparts. Voluntary bodies now campaign successfully for new legislation and assist the Government in its statutory responsibilities, such as maintaining biodiversity. Perhaps the fact that they defy easy labelling says much about nature conservation in practice. Conservation is not, though it is sometimes portrayed as such, a homogeneous mass movement, working to a common programme. Although the ‘vol. bods’ do often pool their resources, as in the campaign to preserve peatlands, they have separate aims, and different sorts of members, ranging from committed activists to folk who simply enjoy wandering in pleasant countryside. They are united by a common interest in nature conservation, but that does not make them the same.

The influence of the voluntary bodies in the 1990s owed nearly everything to their mass memberships – no modern political party can afford to ignore a body with a million members. Their social base has obviously broadened. Nature conservation used to be caricatured as a concern of the urban middle classes, and there is still some truth in that. However, a membership survey of the RSPB in 1982 suggested that a large proportion were in technical and clerical occupations, while 14 per cent were unskilled manual workers (Smout 2000). Today, perhaps one in ten people are members of an environmental pressure group of some sort. Many, of course, are members of more than one. Young people tend to gravitate towards environmental campaigning bodies, such as Greenpeace, where there are opportunities to join in the action. They think they can change the world. County trusts are traditionally the home base of older, reasonably well-off people, interested in wildlife and worried about the effect of developments on the local countryside. They think we are doing well if we manage to save just the best bits of our backyard.

The phenomenal growth of the voluntary bodies is very recent. In 1960, the RSPB had only 10,000 members, not many more than it had in 1945. Membership increased in the 1960s and 1970s, but really took off in the 1980s, when events propelled nature conservation from the hobby of a few to a mainstream issue. With power has come controversy. The assertiveness of some pressure groups has exhumed the old accusation of urban-based sentimentalists imposing their will on genuine countrymen; it is the raison d’être of the Countryside Alliance. There are also contrasts between places where conservation bodies are strong and others where they are weak. Donald MacKay (1995) observed that ‘the more south-east England become agitated over conservation issues in Scotland, the stronger became the Scottish anti-conservation lobby, and the harder it became to recruit to the Scottish conservation cause’. It was not that the Scots man or woman was less keen on nature, but that they were Scots first, and wanted to do things in their own way. They now have their chance. Paradoxically, all this growth has not led to more field study or better-informed naturalists. Although birdwatching is more popular than ever, the expert amateur naturalist, and especially the all-rounder, is becoming an endangered species. Specialists in less popular groups belong to a small and ageing population. Love of wildlife is expressed differently in 2000 than it was in 1900. It has become less ‘hands-on’ (naturalists used to collect their subject), less based on knowledge-seeking, more of a personal lifestyle choice, more of a fashionable cause and less of a hobby.

For ease of reference, in what follows, I treat the main voluntary bodies one by one. For reasons of space I omit bodies whose interests are not primarily in the conservation of wildlife, such as the Ramblers Association and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (CPRE), natural allies though they often are. Similarly, I have to exclude learned societies and clubs, such as the Ray Society, whose main interest lies in promoting field study and the advancement of science. Even so the number of players, each with a different focus or stance, is considerable, and perhaps baffling to some. Possibly if one started again with a clean slate, there would be far fewer ‘vol. bods’. But today’s ‘conservationists’ have a large range to choose from and can pick and mix. In this account of their background and activities, I emphasise the role of the county wildlife trusts, the one body that every naturalist should join, since they cater for what should matter most to most of us – the flora and fauna on our doorsteps.

The Big Three

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)

Britain’s (and Europe’s) largest wildlife and conservation society was formed in 1891 and acquired its Royal Charter in 1904. However, the RSPB’s mass popularity and power are relatively recent. It broke the 100,000 tape only in 1972, but in the 1980s its growth was meteoric, reaching half a million members in 1989 and one million by 1997. The RSPB ‘works for a healthy environment rich in birds and wildlife’. It has good things to offer to its million members: free access to most of its 140 nature reserves and an excellent quarterly magazine, Birds. The RSPB has a grand UK office at Sandy Lodge, Beds, and separate headquarters in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as nine regional offices. It employs around 1,000 full, part-time and contract staff; its network of nature reserves throughout the UK covers some 111,500 hectares and receives over a million visitors a year. With in-house science expertise, RSPB investigates the impact of human activity on birds, as well as the needs of threatened species both at home and overseas. It has acquired matchless skill in presenting the conservation case, and in detecting and admonishing failures of policy. It has also successfully mounted legal challenges over conservation designations, and deals with an average of 350 planning cases per year. With birdwatching a popular hobby on both the Government and Opposition front benches, British birds receive far more sympathetic attention than any other forms of wildlife. The RSPB has been criticised in some quarters as exercising too much power; for example, in buying up a lot of land in Orkney or the Hebrides, where it is seen by some as an inappropriate outside influence. Gamekeepers have also fallen out with RSPB over raptors.

From the start, RSPB has been active in education, with special clubs for children (the Young Ornithologists’ Club, recently renamed ‘Wildlife Explorers’, magazine Bird Life) and teenagers (‘RSPB Phoenix’, magazine Wingboat). It claims to have helped make the national curriculum more wildlife-conscious (though it would help to have more teachers who know their natural history). Internationally, RSPB represents the UK on Birdlife International, and contributes to bird protection overseas (for example, the publication Important Bird Areas in Europe was largely RSPB-funded). The RSPB is now rich: income in 2000 was £38 million, mainly from membership subscriptions and legacies, supplemented by grants, fund raising appeals and sales of goods. Today it often works in partnership with other conservation charities, and also with farmers and land owners. Increasingly RSPB champions wildlife more generally, as well as their habitats. Its slogan: ‘for birds for people for ever’. You can read a sympathetic account of the RSPB’s eventful history in For the Love of Birds, written to celebrate its centenary (Samstag 1989). For hostility, try Isles of the West by Ian Mitchell (1999).

UK Headquarters: The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire SG19 2DL.

Chief Executive: Graham Wynne.

The county wildlife trusts

Membership of the wildlife trust of one’s home county is the logical first step for anyone interested in natural history. Nearly every county in England and Wales has a wildlife trust, many of them based on older natural history societies. Most of them were formed in the 1950s and 60s. Some, such as the trusts of North Wales or ‘Bucks, Berks and Oxon’, are federated, and Scotland has a federal system with different regions under a unified Scottish Wildlife Trust. The purpose of the trusts is to acquire land as nature reserves and encourage interest in wildlife. The founders of the Kent Naturalists Trust (now the Kent Wildlife Trust) spoke for many others who ‘saw the speed of change of farming practice and urbanisation as a severe threat to our lovely county’.

The first county to receive its own wildlife trust (as opposed to a natural history society or field club) was Norfolk. The Norfolk Naturalists Trust was established by Dr Sidney Long in 1926 as a ‘special non-profit paying company to hold and manage nature reserves’. Behind its formation lay a dissatisfaction with the National Trust, which came to the boil when the latter refused to take on Cley Marshes on the grounds that it was only of interest to naturalists. Norfolk had acquired several nature reserves by the 1950s, but although F.W. Oliver’s prediction that one day every English county would have its own county trust proved right, it took a long time. It was not until 1946 that the Yorkshire Naturalists Trust was founded, on the Norfolk model, and again with the immediate purpose of looking after a nature reserve, Askham Bog. The Lincolnshire Naturalists Trust followed two years later, largely through the efforts of A.E. Smith, later Secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves (SPNR). With the support of the Nature Conservancy, many more county trusts sprang up across England in the 1950s – Leicester and Cambridgeshire in 1956, the West Midlands and Kent in 1958, Surrey and Bucks, Berks and Oxon (‘BBONT’) in 1959, Essex and Hampshire in 1960, Cornwall and Wiltshire in 1962. The first Welsh trust, the West Wales Naturalists Trust, was formed in 1956, and the Scottish Wildlife Trust, covering the whole of Scotland, followed in 1964. Many of them emerged from the embers of an earlier natural history society, often through the efforts of a few dedicated local naturalists. For example, the Somerset Trust for Nature Conservation was formed in 1964 by members of the venerable Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, led by Ernest Neal and Peter Tolson. The Cornwall Naturalists Trust took over and much extended the activities of the Cornwall Bird Watching and Preservation Society. Many county trusts have changed their names (and acronyms) two or three times since. Originally they were naturalists trusts. Later some became trusts for nature conservation. Now they are nearly all wildlife trusts – and one rather dreads their possible future reincarnation as sustainability or biodiversity trusts.

Most trusts acquired a full-time conservation officer as soon as they were up and running, with the help of ‘pump-priming’ grants from the NCC and other bodies. During the 1980s, NCC grants helped the trusts to become more professional and to acquire a small corps of promotional, educational and marketing staff, as well as computer systems. In the 1990s, some trust nature reserves profited from English Nature’s Reserve Enhancement Scheme, and still more by the Heritage Lottery Fund which, by 2000, had awarded a total of £50 million to buy land as nature reserves or fund capital improvements. A further £6 million worth of projects came from the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme. At the same time, increased public interest in nature conservation resulted in big increases in membership. For example, the medium-sized Somerset Trust, with 9,000 members, now has an annual income just over £1 million and assets of £3 million, together with about 30 full-time staff housed in beautiful surroundings at Fyne Court. Between them the county wildlife trusts now manage some 2,300 nature reserves, ranging in size from under a hectare to several square kilometres, and extending over nearly 70,000 hectares.

The activities of the county trusts have much in common, but they always reflect the nature of their constituencies. The Welsh Trusts have become adept at running seabird islands and restoring reed beds; the Scottish Wildlife Trust specialises in restoring peat bogs. Among their core activities are acquiring and managing nature reserves and campaigning against harmful developments. More recently, their work has become more inclusive, embracing ideas of sustainability enshrined in Agenda 21 and interpreting them on a local scale (see p. 78), or helping farmers to sell environment-friendly products, as in the Devon Wildlife Trust’s ‘Green Gateway’ scheme. The nature of the membership is also changing. Twenty years ago, most trust members were keen naturalists. Today, many join out of a broader concern for the environment (that is, for our own quality of life), and often include whole families. Trust activities reflect such changes, with a greater emphasis these days on communities, education, and participatory activities.

The Wildlife Trusts partnership, formerly the Royal Society for Nature Conservation (RSNC), acts as a spokesman and administrative centre for the disparate county wildlife trusts. It had its distant origins in the SPNR, which was set up in 1912 for the purposes of ‘securing’ nature reserves and ‘to encourage the love of Nature’. This Society struggled on for years on a shoestring budget without achieving very much (though its surveys are a valuable retrospective source for the state of wildlife in the first half of the twentieth century, see Rothschild & Marren 1997). It did, however, contribute organisation and expertise for the Nature Reserves Investigation Committee in 1942, which produced the original ‘shopping list’ for the subsequent selection of National Nature Reserves and other important sites. In the 1950s the SPNR assisted some of the fledgling county trusts with modest grants to set up their first nature reserves, along with advice on how to look after them. In 1957 the county trusts proposed that the SPNR should act as a co-ordinating body for their activities, in effect as their ‘federal centre’. In the early 1970s a proposal to combine forces with the RSPB was briefly considered, but rejected, largely because the pair were mismatched: the RSPB was already too big. In 1976, the SPNR was granted a royal charter, becoming the RSPNR for a short period, before changing its name yet again to the Royal Society for Nature Conservation (RSNC) in 1981. In 1991, the RSNC joined with the 46 county trusts and 50 urban wildlife groups to form the Wildlife Trusts partnership, which now has a combined membership of nearly 300,000. All receive the wildlife trusts’ quarterly magazine, Natural World, along with a copy of their local trust’s magazine. There is also a junior arm, Wildlife Watch, founded in 1977 with young naturalists in mind.

The Wildlife Trusts partnership provides the local trusts with a common identity, promotes their common interests and campaigns on their behalf. On occasion it has gone too far down the centralising path, for example, when it tried to impose a common ‘badger’ logo (known as the raccoon by disparagers) on all the trusts. But in general the division of responsibility seems to work well enough, with each partner concentrating on its constituency strengths, leaving the umbrella body to organise training weekends, launch national appeals (for example ‘Tomorrow Is Too Late) and making its voice heard in the corridors of power. It has long had its head office somewhere in Lincolnshire for reasons lost in the mists of time, but the Trusts’ director’s office is in London. Its logo: the ubiquitous badger. Vision: ‘the achievement of a United Kingdom that is richer in wildlife and managed on sustainable principles’.

I cover the activities of a particular wildlife trust on pp. 75-9.

Head Office: The Kiln, Waterside, Mather Road, Newark NG24 1WT.

Wildlife Trusts partnership Director general: Simon Lyster.

The National Trust

At the turn of the millennium, the National Trust’s membership was just short of a stupendous three million. The public loves a bargain, and for the modest membership fee the whole of the Trust’s vast estate is open to them. Moreover, to many, the Trust embodies all that is best in the countryside: beautiful scenery, benevolent stewardship and a good day out. However, until recently the National Trust was only on the margins of the nature conservation world. It is not a campaigning body, and much of its work is centred on maintaining stately homes and gardens. Its importance lies in the nature conservation work carried out on its own properties. The Trust is emerging as an important player mainly because, in common with other heritage bodies, it takes a greater interest in wildlife than in the past.

There are two separate National Trusts, one for England and Wales, the other for Scotland. The former, older Trust had its origins in the concern over the enclosure of commons in the nineteenth century. The desire of a few Victorian philanthropists to preserve ‘all that still remained open, for the health and recreation of the people’ led to the formation of the Commons Preservation Society, the first successful conservation pressure group in history. In 1885, the Society’s solicitor, Robert (later Sir Robert) Hunter, proposed a ‘Land Company’ to buy and accept gifts of heritage land and buildings for the benefit of the nation. In 1893, joined by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley’s Lake District Defence Society, this became known as the ‘National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty’, or National Trust for short. Its constitution was based on that of a similar American body founded two years previously. In 1906, Hunter drafted a private Bill that made the Trust a statutory body, and gave it the right to make bylaws and to declare its properties inalienable. This meant they could not be sold or taken away without the Trust’s consent: a National Trust property is the Trust’s for keeps. A separate National Trust for Scotland (see below) was established in 1931, and given similar powers to its sister body. A full account of the National Trust was published in 1995 (Newby 1995).

Although the National Trust acquired many places ‘of special interest to the naturalist’ in its early days, such as Wicken Fen, Cheddar Gorge and Box Hill, its management of them was for many years scarcely different to any other rural estate; modern farming and forestry methods that damaged wildlife often went through on the nod. Management of the Trust’s de facto nature reserves, such as Wicken Fen or the tiny Ruskin Reserve near Oxford, was generally overseen by a keen but amateurish outside body. They tended to turn into thickets. The Trust’s outlook began to change in the 1960s after it launched Enterprise Neptune to save the coastline from development, having found that a full third of our coast had been ‘irretrievably spoiled’. By 1995, some 885 kilometres of attractive coast, much of it in south-west England, had been saved in this way.

Since the 1980s, the National Trust has developed in-house ecological expertise, and belatedly become a mainstream conservation body, managing its properties, especially those designated SSSIs, in broad sympathy with wildlife aims. Some of the basic maintenance is done by Trust volunteers in ‘Acorn Workcamps’. Although public access remains a prime aim, some Trust properties are now in effect nature reserves, with the advantage of often being large, especially when integrated with other natural heritage sites. By its centenary year, 1993, the National Trust owned 240,000 hectares of countryside, visited by up to 11 million people every year. It owns large portions of Exmoor, The Lizard and the Lake District, and about 14,000 hectares of ancient woodland and parkland. Like the RSPB, its membership climbed steeply in the 1970s, breaching the million-member tape by 1981. The Trust is now Britain’s largest registered charity, larger than any trades union or any political party. Members receive the annual Trust Handbook of properties, as well as three mailings a year of National Trust Magazine, and free admission to Trust properties (including those belonging to the National Trust for Scotland). It has 16 regional offices in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as a head office in London.

Head Office: 36 Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9AH [at the time of writing, the National Trust was set to move from its elegant Georgian house in SW1 to a graceless office block in Swindon, to the dismay of most of its staff.]

Director-general: Fiona Reynolds

National Trust for Scotland (NTS)

The National Trust’s sister body in Scotland was founded in 1931, and was made a statutory body with similar powers, including inalienability rights, seven years later. It has the same aim of preserving lands and property of historic interest or natural beauty, ‘including the preservation (so far as is practicable) of their natural aspect and features, and animals and plant life’. The Trust acquired its first property, 600 hectares of moorland and cliff on the island of Mull, in 1932. It is now Scotland’s second largest private landowner with nearly 73,000 hectares or about 1 per cent of rural Scotland in its care, including 400 kilometres of coastline. About half of this area consists of designated SSSIs, among them the isles of St Kilda, Fair Isle and Canna, and Highland estates such as Ben Lawers, Ben Lomond, Torridon and Glencoe. Perhaps its most important property is Mar Lodge estate in the Cairngorms, acquired in 1995, which is being managed as a kind of large-scale experiment in woodland regeneration and sustainable land use (pp. 240-41). Like the National Trust, the NTS was for many years more interested in access than habitat management; for example, it had no permanent presence at Ben Lawers until 1972 and, apart from footpath maintenance, did no management to speak of until the 1990s. Though, with 240,000 members, relatively modest in size compared with the National Trust, the NTS is a mainstream and increasingly important partner in nature conservation in Scotland, all the more so since it is an exclusively Scottish body. It has four regional offices with a headquarters – a classic Georgian mansion – in Edinburgh.

Afternoon sunshine sparkles the native pines of Derry Wood in Mar Lodge estate, now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. (Peter Wakely/SNH)

Head Office: 5 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4DU.

Chairman: Professor Roger J. Wheater.

International pressure groups

WWF-UK

WWF currently stands for the World Wide Fund for Nature. Until 1986 it was known (more memorably) as the World Wildlife Fund, ‘the world’s largest independent conservation organisation’, with offices in 52 countries and some five million supporters worldwide. WWF was founded by Peter Scott and others in 1961, and is registered as a charity in Switzerland. Its mission: ‘to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment, and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature’. The UK branch, WWF’s first national organisation, has funded over 3,000 conservation projects since 1961 (but especially since 1990), and itself campaigns to save endangered species and improve legal protection for wildlife. In the 1990s it produced a succession of valuable reports on the marine environment, wild salmon, translocations, SSSIs and other topics from a more independent viewpoint than one expects nowadays from government bodies. In a sense, it has taken over as the lead body reporting on the health of Britain’s natural environment and the effectiveness of conservation measures. Among its most important contributions has been WWF’s persistent prodding of the UK government over the EU Habitats Directive, which eventually led to a large increase in proposed SACs (Special Areas for Conservation) for the Natura 2000 network (see Chapter 4). All of WWF’s work is supposed to have a global relevance. WWF-UK’s work is currently organised into three programmes: ‘Living Seas’, ‘Future Landscapes’ (countryside, forest and fresh water) and ‘Business and Consumption’ (‘our lifestyles and their impact on nature’). It also works with others overseas to promote sustainable development in ecologically rich parts of the world and good environmental behaviour by businesses. The organisation is funded mainly by voluntary donations (90 per cent), with the rest from state institutions. The UK branch has some 257,000 members and supporters, and 200 volunteer groups about the country. Its youth section is called ‘Go Wild’. It has offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with a headquarters at Godalming in Surrey.

Its logo: the famous panda, designed by Peter Scott. Its slogan: ‘Taking action for a living planet’.

Address: Panda House, Weyside Park, Godalming, Surrey GU7 1XR. Chief Executive: Robert Napier

Friends of the Earth

FoE acts as a radical environmental ginger group, pressing for more environment-friendly policies, both at home and worldwide. It is careful to avoid alignment with any political party or to accept commercial sponsorship, and most of its funding comes from the membership. FoE is particularly effective at ‘media management’ and at shaming commercial interests into adopting more environmentally friendly policies. Founded in America, a British branch took root shortly afterwards in 1971. Its first newsworthy action was the dumping of thousands of non-returnable bottles on the doorstep of Schweppes, the soft drink manufacturers. On wildlife matters, FoE has taken the lead on major issues, such as the protests over the Newbury bypass, on peat products and GM crops, dumping in the North Sea and pressing for stronger measures to protect SSSIs. FoE are a streetwise organisation with a youngish membership, and its language is characteristically urgent and emotional (‘Our planet faces terrible dangers’, ‘We can’t allow environmental vandals to lay waste the earth’ etc.). By persistently hammering away at an issue in an outraged tone, whilst also seeming well informed, FoE builds up a momentum for change. Its quarter of a million UK members receive a highly professional quarterly magazine, Earth Matters, and plenty of appeals, stickers and campaign literature. Its slogan: ‘for the planet for people’.

Address: 26-28 Underwood Street, London N1 7JQ.

Executive director: Charles Secrett.

Greenpeace

The most headline-making of all respectable environmental organisations was founded in America in 1971. The public first heard about Greenpeace when a group of activists sailed into an atomic testing zone in a battered hire-boat. A UK branch was formed the same year. Greenpeace is an international environment-protection body, funded by individual donations. It specialises in non-violent, direct action: front page pictures of activists being hosed from whaling ships, or waving banners at the top of chimneys, or on derelict oil platforms, alerts public opinion and raises awareness of an issue. Famously, its ship, the Rainbow Warrior, was blown up in Auckland harbour by French agents in 1985. Behind the headlines lie quieter activities: producing reports, lobbying governments, talking to businesses and even conducting research. Greenpeace concentrates on international campaigns, such as nuclear test bans, or the banning of drift nets or mining in the Antarctic. Among recent activities that impinge on nature conservation in Britain are campaigns for renewable energy and against GM crops. It exploits ‘consumer power’ by dissuading companies from using products from ancient forests and peatlands. Greenpeace has 176,000 supporters in the UK and a claimed 2.5 million worldwide. Its slogan: ‘Wanted. One person to change the world’.

Lord Peter Melchett, former chair of Wildlife Link and Executive Director of Greenpeace until 2001. (Greenpeace/Davison)

UK Office: Canonbury Villas, London N1 2PN

Executive director: Peter Melchett (until December 2001)

The link body

Wildlife and Countryside Link (and predecessors)

Wildlife and Countryside Link (originally Wildlife Link) is an umbrella body representing 34 voluntary bodies in the UK with a total of six million members. It is funded by the member organisations, which also take turns to chair its meetings, plus donations from WWF-UK, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), English Nature and the Countryside Agency. It functions through various working groups and ‘task forces’, as well as ‘one-off initiatives’ covering a wide range of environmental issues at home and abroad, including rural development, trading in wildlife, land-use planning and the marine environment. Wildlife Link has played an important co-ordinating role in shaping current wildlife protection policies, enabling the voluntary bodies to pool their resources and experience and present a common agenda. It has a small secretariat based in London. In keeping with the spirit of devolution, there are now separate Wildlife and Countryside Links in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The need for an umbrella body to represent the proliferating voluntary societies was appreciated as early as 1958, when the Council for Nature was formed as a voice for some 450 societies and local institutions, ranging from specialist societies to local museums and local field clubs. Headed by the glitterati of the 1960s conservation world, it helped to establish nature conservation in hearts and minds with events like the two National Nature Weeks and the three Countryside in 1970 conferences. It also helped to set up the Conservation Corps, later to become the BTCV (p. 70), while the Council’s Youth Committee, under Bruce Campbell, did its best to ‘make people of all ages conscious of their responsibility for the natural environment’ (Stamp 1969). Its publications were a monthly broadsheet, Habitat, and a twice-yearly News for Naturalists.

Despite its influence, the Council for Nature was always short of money. By the mid-1970s, it was ailing badly, and four years later had ceased to function. Its publication Habitat was continued by the Council for Environmental Conservation (CoEnCo, now the Environment Council) while its function as an umbrella body was taken on by the newly founded Wildlife Link, then a committee of CoEnCo under Lord (Peter) Melchett. Wildlife Link scored an early success with the Wildlife and Countryside Act (see next chapter). In 1993 the name was changed to Wildlife and Countryside Link to emphasise its wider remit.

Secretariat: 89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP.

Chair: Tony Burton (2001).

Members of Wildlife and Countryside Link

Bat Conservation Trust

British Association of Nature Conservationists

British Ecological Society

British Mountaineering Council

British Trust for Conservation Volunteers

Butterfly Conservation

Council for British Archaeology

Council for National Parks

Council for the Protection of Rural England(CPRE)

Earthkind

Environmental Investigation Agency

Friends of the Earth

Greenpeace

Herpetological Conservation Trust

International Fund for Animal Welfare

Mammal Society

Marine Conservation Society

National Trust

Open Spaces Society

Plantlife

Ramblers’ Association

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA)

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)

The Shark Trust

Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

Whale & Dolphin ConservationSociety

The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust

The wildlife trusts

Woodland Trust

World Conservation Monitoring Centre

Worldwide Fund for Nature – UK

Young People’s Trust for the Environment& Nature Conservation

Youth Hostels Association (England & Wales)

Zoological Society of London

The special interest groups

The British Association of Nature Conservationists (BANC)

BANC was founded in 1979, and acts mainly as a forum for practising conservationists and planners through its influential journal, Ecos. Something of a trade journal, Ecos usually contains short articles on a wide range of conservation-related subjects, as well as news and reviews. BANC also holds conferences on particular topics, and publishes pamphlets on issues ranging from conservation ethics to feminism.

The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV)

Established as the Conservation Corps in 1959, the BTCV organises practical tasks for people who wish ‘to roll up their sleeves and get involved’. A sister organisation was formed in Scotland in 1984. It runs some 200 courses each year for up to 130,000 volunteers on habitat management, such as footpath maintenance, fencing, hedge laying and dry-stone walling, along with wildlife gardening and developing leadership skills. It also works in partnership with local authorities and with government schemes such as the Millennium Volunteers. BTCV organises weekend residential projects and ‘Natural Break’ working holidays; for example, 29,000 volunteers assisted the National Trust to the tune of 1.7 million hours in 1994-95, ‘the equivalent of one thousand full-time staff’. Among its publications is The Urban Handbook, a guide to community environmental work. Its hands-on, open air, communal approach appeals particularly to the young. Its quarterly newsletter is Greenwork. Mission: ‘Our vision is of a world where people value their environment and take practical action to improve it.’

Head office: 36 St Mary’s Street, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 OEU.

British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)

The BTO was established in 1933 as a research and advisory body on wild birds. Its main task is the long-term study and monitoring of British bird populations and their relationship with the environment. From just one full-time administrator in the 1960s, it has grown into a leading scientific institution with a staff of over 50 and an annual income of nearly £2 million, mainly from funds and appeals. The Trust’s work is a fusion of ‘amateur enthusiasm and professional dedication’, its members acting as a skilled but unpaid workforce. Among its many schemes are the long-running Common Bird Census and its replacement, the Breeding Bird Survey, which it runs jointly with the RSPB and JNCC. Other projects include a Nest Record Scheme, the Seabird Monitoring Programme, special surveys of wetland, grassland and garden birds, the census of special species such as skylark and nightingale, and the administration of the National Bird Ringing Scheme. The Trust also helps organise special events such as the recent Norfolk Birdwatching Festival, and contributes to bird study internationally. It publishes the world-renowned journal Bird Study, currently reaching its 48th volume, as well as a bimonthly newsletter, BTO News, and a quarterly magazine, Bird Table. Membership: 11,490. Mission: to ‘promote and encourage the wider understanding, appreciation and conservation of birds through scientific studies using the combined skills and enthusiasm of its members, other birdwatchers and staff.

Address: The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU.

Director: Dr Jeremy Greenwood.

Butterfly Conservation

Although we have so few species compared with most other European countries, butterflies are next to birds in popularity. In 1968 the British Butterfly Conservation Society (BBCS) was formed by Thomas Frankland and Julian Gibbs with the purpose of saving rare species from extinction and promoting research and public interest in butterflies. Growth was slow at first, but the Society took on the responsibility for the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme in 1983, and acquired its first nature reserve three years later. Since shortening its name to ‘Butterfly Conservation’ in 1990, the society has acquired considerable in-house expertise. With 10,000 members, it is said to be the largest conservation body devoted to insects in all Europe.

With an office in Dorset, probably today’s richest county for butterflies, Butterfly Conservation has a network of 31 branches throughout Britain and runs 25 nature reserves. It has also opened an office in Scotland. It is funded mainly by grants, corporate sponsorship and legacies. The Society’s most substantial achievement to date is its ‘Butterflies for the New Millennium’ project, a comprehensive survey of British butterflies involving thousands of recorders in Britain and Ireland, culminating in the publication of a Millennium Atlas in 2001 (Asher et al. 2001). Butterfly Conservation is the lead partner for several Species Action Plans, and administers some 30 other projects under its ‘Action for Butterflies’ banner. The Society also helps to monitor butterfly numbers using fixed transects (‘every butterfly counts, so please count every butterfly’), and contributes to butterfly conservation internationally; Martin Warren, its conservation director, co-authored the European Red Data Book. The Society publishes a quarterly magazine, Butterfly Conservation, and a range of booklets. In 1997, it helped to launch a new Journal of Insect Conservation. Aim: ‘Working to restore a balanced countryside, rich in butterflies, moths and other wildlife’.

Address: Manor Yard, East Lulworth, Wareham, Dorset BH20 5QP.

Chairman: Stephen Jeffcoate. Head of Conservation: Dr Martin Warren.

The Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG)

FWAG was the brainchild of an informal gathering of farmers and ecologists at Silsoe College, Bedfordshire, in 1969 to work out how to fit conservation into a busy, modern farm. (For a full account see Moore 1987.) Under the auspices of FWAG a network of local farm advisers was established, generally of youngish people with a degree in ecology but with a background in, or at least knowledge of farming. By 1984, some 30 advisers had been appointed, and a Farming and Wildlife Trust was launched to fund the local FWAGs, supported by grants from the Countryside Commissions and other bodies, as well as by appeals. The FWAG idea has helped to break down stereotypes and change farming attitudes. Its advisers became skilled at spotting ingenious ways of preserving wild corners, and planting copses and hedges without harming the farmer’s pocket. A notable achievement was the creation or restoration of thousands of farm ponds. An external review indicated that FWAG is strongly supported by farmers, with a high rate of take-up of advice.

Some saw the FWAG project as essentially a public relations exercise, and criticised it for being too much under the thumb of the National Farmers’ Union and hence reluctant to criticise modern farming methods. However, it has undoubtedly helped to find a little more space for wildlife on innumerable farms – up to 100 farms per county per year – and has built bridges with the farming community by organising farm walks and training visits, and appearing at the agricultural shows.

Head office: The National Agricultural Centre, Stoneleigh, Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 2RX.

Marine Conservation Society

Formed in 1978 (‘Underwater Conservation Year’), this small but active national charity with 4,000 members is dedicated to protecting the marine environment and its wildlife, especially in the offshore waters of the British Isles. It publishes an annual Good Beach Guide, an Action Guide to marine conservation and a ‘species directory’ of all 16,000 species of flora and fauna found in British waters. It campaigned successfully for protection for the basking shark, and is the ‘lead partner’ for the UK marine turtles Species Action Plan. Among its multifarious activities for volunteer divers and beachcombers are ‘Seasearch’, a project to map UK marine habitats, a schools project called ‘Oceanwatch’, and an adopt-a-beach project for communal cleaning up. Another project, ‘Ocean Vigil’, records cetaceans and sharks. Fund raising is called ‘Splash for Cash’. Internationally, the Society surveys coral reefs in the Red Sea and Sri Lanka, and is helping the Malaysian government to establish a marine wildlife park at the Semporna Islands. Members receive a quarterly news magazine, Marine Conservation. Its slogan: ‘Seas fit for life’.

Office: 9 Gloucester Road, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire HR9 5BU.

Plantlife

‘Britain’s only national membership charity dedicated to saving wild plants’ was established in 1989, and now has some 12,000 members and a permanent staff of 18, based in London. Plantlife aims to achieve for plants what the RSPB has done for birds, that is, to improve their lot through a programme of campaigning, practical conservation work and public education. As a small charity with big ideas, it often works in tandem with bodies with similar aims, for example, as a member of the campaign to save peatlands, and has formal links with botanical societies and institutions nationally and internationally. Under its ‘Back from the Brink’ campaign, Plantlife is the ‘lead partner’ for Species Action Plans on a range of rare flowers, bryophytes and fungi. It also runs 22 nature reserves across 17 counties, mainly meadows, heaths and bogs with an outstanding flora. It contributes to plant conservation Europe-wide via the newly founded Planta Europa network, and commissions research reports on matters of current concern, such as bulb theft, controlling the sale of invasive plants (‘At war with aliens’) and managing woods for wild plants (‘Flowers of the forest’). Its magazine, Plantlife, was recently voted the pick of the bunch. Its goal: ‘A world in which the riches of our wild plant inheritance are not diminished by human activity or indifference but are recognised, cherished and enhanced’.

Address: 21 Elizabeth Street, London SW1W 9RP.

Director: Dr Jane Smart.

Plantlife ‘flora guardians’ clearing invasive ‘parrot’s feather’ weed from a plant-rich waterway. (Tim Wilkins/ Plantlife)

Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT)

WWT is ‘the only charity concerned solely with wildfowl and the wetland habitats they rely on’. In 1946, Peter Scott leased 7 hectares of land at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire to establish the Severn Wildfowl Trust, renamed the Wildfowl Trust in 1954. Slimbridge has become home to the most comprehensive collection of ducks, geese and swans in the world. The Trust originally specialised in breeding endangered species, most famously the Nene or Hawaiian Goose, and Slimbridge later became a major research and ‘discovery’ centre. Nine more autonomous ‘Centres’ were established at Peakirk, Walney, Arundel, Martin Mere and Washington in England, Caerlaverock in Scotland, Llanelli in Wales and Castle Espie in Northern Ireland, all but the first being designed as refuges for wild birds (with excellent viewing facilities) rather than as captive breeding centres. The Trust also helped Thames Water to set up the Wetland Centre, on the site of Barn Elms Reservoir in London. It organises wildfowl surveys and advises on conservation worldwide, for example, on the design of a new wetland reserve in Singapore and on reed-bed filtration systems in Hong Kong. It changed its name in 1989 to reflect the Trust’s wider interest in wetland habitats. In 1992, WWT produced a global review on the conservation and management of wildfowl, and played a leading role on the first international conference devoted to these birds. Today it has some 70,000 members, while up to 750,000 people visit its Centres each year. Its newsletter is called The Egg. There is also a biannual research newsletter, Wetland News.

Main Centre: Slimbridge, Gloucestershire GL2 7BT.

The Woodland Trust

Founded by Kenneth Watkins in 1972, the Woodland Trust has been one of the voluntary movement’s surprise successes, striking a chord with our British love of trees and woods. It acquired its first property, Avon Valley Woods in Devon, near Watkins’ home, in 1972, and its 1000th, Coed Maesmelin, near Port Talbot, in 1999. The Trust’s straightforward purpose is to acquire woods of historic, scientific or amenity value, open them to the public and manage them in sympathy with their character. Although still only a medium-sized charity, with 63,000 members, the Trust has a sizeable income – £16.3 million in 1999 – from legacies, landfill tax credits, corporate sponsorship and appeals. It also sells timber on the Internet. It has offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and a headquarters at Grantham, Lincolnshire. An admirable proportion of the Trust’s budget goes straight into conservation; for example, in 1999, it spent £5 million on acquiring woods and £6.3 on managing them. Many Trust properties are SSSIs, managed by agreement with one of the conservation agencies, and nearly all of them are de facto nature reserves, with nature conservation a primary aim. Today it owns or manages 1,080 sites covering 17,700 hectares.

With its open house policy, the Woodland Trust aims to promote public enjoyment (‘Wild about Woods’) and to ‘engage local communities in creating, nurturing and enjoying woodland’. It publishes an attractive quarterly newsletter, Broadleaf, and many of its properties have their own leaflets. The Trust also contributes towards the national Millennium Forest project. Though on occasion a little too anxious to plant trees where no trees are needed, the Woodland Trust has saved many fine woods from oblivion, and its overall influence on British woodland management has been benign, and considerable. On ancient woods, its aim is ‘no further losses’.

Address: Autumn Park, Grantham, Lincolnshire NG31 6LL.

Chief Executive: Mike Townsend.

Membership of the large conservation societies (in thousands)

Afterword: my own county trust

The county of Wiltshire has been the domain of great naturalists ever since John Aubrey wrote the first county natural history (Memoires of Naturall Remarques) in 1685. Richard Jefferies lived at Coate, near Swindon, and the location of his Bevis stories is preserved today as a country park. The county boasts one of the classic floras – Donald Grose’s 1957 Flora of Wiltshire. Its lep-idopterists include Baron de Worms, who was in charge of a chemical laboratory at Porton Down, and the Marlborough schoolmaster Edward Meyrick, perhaps the greatest microlepidopterist that ever lived, who lies in my parish churchyard. For 150 years we have had a flourishing Archaeological and Natural History Society based at the county museum, with its own journal. Even the county’s coat of arms commemorates its most characteristic, certainly its most spectacular, species, the now nationally extinct great bustard, standing back to back, in their proper colours.

The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, then the Wiltshire Trust for Nature Conservation, was formed in 1962. At that time nature conservation was scarcely more than the hobby of a few hundred local naturalists. As one of the founders, Lady Radnor, recalled, ‘We thought then, very innocently, that if we could stop egg-collecting and the men with butterfly-nets, if we could persuade government to ban some of the more deadly pesticides then all would be well’. Agricultural pesticides were the big issue then. A Trowbridge farmer recalled how, walking through the town centre in the early 60s, there was often a lingering niff in the air: not the emissions of some factory but the agricultural sprays from farmers’ fields.

The transformation of the Wiltshire Trust from a modest local charity to a business with over 50 full or part-time staff and an annual turnover of well over a million pounds has taken place quite recently – mostly since 1990. Financially the Trust’s main benefactors have been the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, both created in the mid-1990s. Lottery grants have provided many trusts with their biggest windfall, enabling them to buy those long-needed fences or set about restoring wetlands by ambitious damming and drainage schemes. Typically the Fund would provide three-quarters of the costs, leaving the Trust to make up the rest from other donations or its own resources. The Wiltshire Trust was among the first to see the opportunities this presented. As it happened, the HLF’s administrative body, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, was already a good friend of the Trust, having helped it to acquire three nature reserves, including Ravensroost Wood, the Trust’s showcase reserve near Swindon. The opening for business of the Heritage Lottery Fund coincided with the sale of a traditional farm at Jones’s Mill near Pewsey, which the Trust was anxious to save. Its director dashed over to take pictures and filed an application that same day. Two weeks later it had enough money to purchase the important part of the site, which is now a well-loved nature reserve. The HLF has since helped the Trust to purchase sites of national importance, including Clattinger Farm, a ‘time warp’ vista of flower meads untouched by the plough or agricultural chemicals, Coombe Bissett Down, one of the best British sites for burnt-tip orchid, and, most recently, a 235-hectare property at Blakehill Farm for restoration to its former flowery glory. The Wiltshire Trust passes on its experience of working with the Lottery by chairing the Trust partnership’s working group on Lottery funding. Gary Mantle, the Trust’s director since 1990, attributes part of its success in this field in part to the Trust’s relatively modest size: ‘We’re lean and hungry, fleet of foot’. It is also, as I am able to attest (wearing my other hat as a Lottery assessor), impressively businesslike. When it says it will do such and such, it does it. The Lottery appreciates bodies that demonstrate value for money.

James Power and Gareth Morgan of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust at Clattinger Farm, which became a Trust reserve in 1997.

Landfill Tax Credit, introduced in the mid-1990s, is the great unsung windfall for voluntary nature conservation. Essentially it is a tax levied on every ton of rubbish buried. Twenty per cent of the tax collected can be retained by the operator and given away to a registered environmental body of its choice. The rules are complicated, but the potential largesse is enormous, with £100 million becoming available for good causes in the first year of operation alone. Wildlife bodies have often been a little slow to spot a potential winner, but the Wiltshire Trust sniffed the air like an emergent vole and pricked up its ears. For several years it had worked with the Hills Group, a large aggregates and landfill operator, on the Braydon Forest countryside management project in the north of the county, in an effort to preserve some glorious countryside close to Swindon and open it to the public. The Trust got itself on the list of eligible charities, and brought along its shopping list of activities. The upshot was that it received a present of £200,000 towards a range of activities. There is, however, a potential conflict of interest between landfill operators and environmental bodies since the latter would really prefer rubbish to be burnt or “recycled rather than buried. A shake-up of how the landfill tax is spent seems imminent.

Like other county trusts, Wiltshire runs a network of nature reserves. Among the 40-odd examples are Blackmoor Copse, famous for its woodland butterflies, which it took over in 1963, and several fine sweeps of downland, including Morgan’s Hill, Great Cheverell Hill and Middleton Down. Two, Ramsbury Meadow and High Clear Down, lie within walking distance of my home. All the Trust’s reserves are run by volunteers; unlike some trusts, Wiltshire has no full-time paid wardens. The Heritage Lottery and other donors have enabled the Trust to specialise in grassland management – an obvious choice since Wiltshire has more chalk downland than any other county, and also a fine series of unimproved neutral grassland meadows. However, the Trust no longer regards nature reserves simply as an end in themselves, but as demonstration sites, and as kernels within a wider area where sustainable and wildlife-friendly land management is the aim. The Wiltshire Trust is ‘farmer friendly’ and many landowners have served it in one way or another. ‘Farmers appreciate a pat on the back,’ says Gary Mantle. ‘It’s nice for them to hear a conservationist say “what a fantastic bit of land”, instead of being criticised all the time, especially when times are hard.’ The trouble nowadays is that managing almost any wildlife habitat has become uneconomic unless it is subsidised in some way, and the kind of stock farmer the trusts rely on most is going out of business.

Most county wildlife trusts contribute to the local planning process by providing details of places of local importance for wildlife which are not quite important enough to be SSSIs. In Wiltshire, these places are called, simply, ‘Wildlife Sites’. They are generally good examples of diminishing habitats, such as coppiced woodland or chalk downs, but also include sites for rare species. Their protection depends on the local authority, generally the district, but in the case of roadsides the county council. ‘Wildlife Sites’ are non-statutory, but in Wiltshire they appear in local plans with a presumption against development. The Trust is given an opportunity to object to unfavourable development, and if necessary defend its stance at a public inquiry. Broadly speaking these places receive about the same level of protection as SSSIs did in the 1970s – perhaps more so, given that local authorities are much more environmentally friendly than they were then.

In other traditional areas of trust activity, the focus has broadened. The county’s local biological records centre, long based at the county museum in Devizes just across the road, is now under the Trust’s wing. This in turn is now part of the National Biodiversity Network, a computerised Wildlife Sites system and public information service. Like all trusts, the Wiltshire one stands up for wildlife at public inquiries, ‘fighting hard to stop the destruction of important wildlife habitats’. But it also joins in the wider struggle to find acceptable policies that would avoid such destruction in the first place, both with ideas and by involving its members and the wider public in local and national campaigns.

Most recently, the Wiltshire Trust has become interested in broader environmental issues. The underlying premise is that it is no longer possible to separate wildlife issues from our own future. The Trust wants to demonstrate that it is doing its bit to promote ideas of energy saving, fair-trading and ‘sustainable gardening’, and practising what it preaches. Behind it lies a conviction that the Trust ought to have the support of at least 100,000 residents in the county, not just its current 10,000 members. To achieve that it needs to come to grips with issues that concern a lot of people, not just those who are keen on natural history. In 1994, the Trust took on the role of managing the county’s local Agenda 21 process. At the time, Mantle went on record as saying he was uncertain whether this would be a complete waste of time or the most important thing they could do – though it would be one or the other. Six years on, having seen the impact of Agenda 21 on tackling issues such as global warming by energy efficiency advice, minimising waste and working for fair trade at home and abroad, he believes they made the right decision. The Trust’s strategy for 2000-2005, headed ‘a sustainable future for wildlife and people’, is upbeat about ‘presenting a positive, hopeful face to the world’: ‘Working to a common purpose we can make a real difference’.

The Trust’s founder, Lady Radnor, recalled a line by Rudyard Kipling: ‘And gardens are not made, By saying Oh how beautiful And sitting in the shade’. Today life seems more complicated than it was back then: ‘the tunnel has grown longer and darker, and taken some very nasty turns’. Wildlife trusts are richer, which enables them to do more, and also to rethink the ground rules about what a local trust is for and what it has to say to the world. Gardens are indeed made by hard work, but they also need creativity and hope, as well as clean rainwater and sustaining soil.

Director: Gary Mantle OBE

Office: Elm Tree Court, Long Street, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10 1NJ.

Growth of a county wildlife trust: Wiltshire Wildlife Trust 1985-2000