Post 437 - State of Nature & a Petition update

Hey everyone,

I sat down tonight to start Post 437 which was going to be about a brilliant weekend at Spurn Point at Migfest, but something important was released today that made me think I should maybe blog about this instead. (I will come back to Spurn though!).

I'm talking of course about the State of Nature report - you can find the whole state of nature report on the RSPB website but also if you don't want to read it all there's a great summary too.

So why is it important? Well it gives us a big warning about how we are treating our environment. They have collected masses of data to support the findings, there were 7.5 million hours of volunteer monitoring covering 9,670 species, which I guess was on top of experts too.

There are a few headlines from the report that are very worrying....

Nature is in trouble!

It’s not too late to save UK nature but we must act now: https://t.co/DO3PG57Ba3 #StateOfNature pic.twitter.com/HvC8xAnwnS

— RSPB (@Natures_Voice) 14 September 2016

Using modern Red List criteria, which identify species of the highest conservation concern, we assessed 8,000 species. Of these, 15% are extinct or threatened with extinction from Great Britain.


This is horrible news for me, I love nature, I love doing my blog and seeing what I can find, it's my favourite thing to do. If in 50 years time and half of all wildlife is gone (or even 10%) then I'd be more than devastated. So it was quite upsetting to read that the UK is one of the worst countries in the world (189th out of 218) for its biodiversity intactness - basically meaning that wildlife and the environment fares much worse in our country than in most others!

But there are some bits of good news, this tweet from the BTO show some of the highlights...

It's never all doom & gloom! Here's a spot of #ConservationOptimism from today's new #StateOfNature report :) pic.twitter.com/2gJnzr8fPs

— BTO (@_BTO) 14 September 2016

Exactly, this is fantastic news. to know that some species are actually on the rise is amazing news. All the work that we've put into helping species has come off great. If we can all just push that little more and we could get things like Hedgehogs and Turtle Doves on the rise, then hopefully everything would be great again! The report does give examples of how species can and are being helped so we just need to do a bit more.

The report is not the only thing that has been in the news lately about the environment, some MP's are wanting to protect nature too...

Conservative MPs calling on the PM to safeguard EU environment protections & use CAP billions to support nature; https://t.co/e0wSwrG7GP

— Zac Goldsmith (@ZacGoldsmith) 5 September 2016

The National Trust are also supporting changes to farming to help the environment...

Reforms are needed to reverse decades of damage to the countryside we love: https://t.co/KzZzgbVaJi pic.twitter.com/PcPQOhzrFk

— National Trust (@nationaltrust) 4 August 2016

So with all of the conservation organisations involved in the State of Nature report, (there were 50 or more!) and lots of organisations and MP's wanting to protect the environment maybe there is some hope that we can help many of the species that are declining. The headline that is in most papers and articles I've see though is that 1 in 7 species in the UK are in danger of becoming extinct.

There is a lot we can do to help though, like getting involved with some of the conservation organsations like the Wildlife Trusts.

Take action for wildlife. Get involved with your Wildlife Trust and start where you live: https://t.co/Ljn2xX6HYy pic.twitter.com/gKw5rV166a

— The Wildlife Trusts (@WildlifeTrusts) 14 September 2016

You could also support my  petition which I have been promoting for a while which  I started with my Post 430 it's doing OK and is up to 4825 signatures but needs over another 5000 to get a response from the government.

If you want to help defend nature by getting strong laws to protect it when we leave the EU please sign it by clicking the link below...

Protect UK Environment & Wildlife - adopt European environmental legislation.

...and by supporting the Thunderclap I've set up

Post-Brexit Nature Protection

While there is a lot of hope for nature it is so important that we keep telling our politicians, and everyone really, that nature is important and that we want it to be protected.

Hope you enjoyed,

Zach.