newsBritain is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world with millions of birds and mammals facing extinction
The front-page of the “I” newspaper on May 24, 2024
By Trevor Grundy
Senior officials from four of Britain’s best known wildlife groups have issued a scathing attack on MPs from all the major parties for failing to embrace, publicise and implement policies that would save millions of animals from extinction.
The groups are the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds, the Wildlife Trusts and the Woodland Trust.
In an article they all signed and published in the “I” newspaper (14 May 2024) they said- “Our question to MPs is simple: do you really care about Nature?”
Eighty-one percent of UK adults believe that Nature is under threat and that MPs are sitting on their hands doing next to nothing.
The senior environmentalists said that from the public outcry over the discharge of sewage into rivers that it is clear that the British people love Nature.
“Iconic landscapes like the Lake District or White Cliffs of Dover are hard-wired into our national culture. Yet the harsh truth is that the UK is one of the most Nature-depleted countries in the world, with one in six species at risk of extinction.”
The lengthy statement was published next to an article by the paper’s Environment Correspondent Lucie Health
“Wildlife in the UK is in crisis,” she wrote, ”yet it is being failed by every one of the major political parties, the leaders of four charities have warned.”
Much -loved creatures including hedgehogs, haze; dormice and water voles shave suffered steep decline in the UK which to our lasting shame is now one of the most Nature depleted countries in the world.
Drawing on previously published documents about the severity of Britain’s Nature crisis, she said that extinction was more often associated with dinosaurs and exotic species but it is now a very real.
- Skylarks, once abundant in the UK have crashed in number by 56 percent since the 1970s, with intensive farming one of the prime reasons.
- Hedgehogs have suffered even more. They have declined by up to 75 percent since 2000 and it is believed there are less than one million left.
- Birds are under terrible threat with 43 percent of species at risk of localised extinction, while 32 percent of amphibians and reptiles also at risk.
- Eighty percent of the UK’s butterflies have declined since the 1970s.
- More than 90percent of freshwater habitats on England’s most precious reivers are in an unfavourable condition, damaged by farming pollution, raw sewages and water abstraction. None of the approximately 40 rivers with protected habitat in England are in good health.
The scandal continues, day after day, week after week, decade after decade: Page one of “I” on May 17, 2024
Harry Powell, the National Trust’s director of land and nature summed up the problem when he said: ”Political debate is noticeably lacking on the crisis Nature is facing.”
And there is more.
So much more as our inept and dangerously out of touch MPs fall asleep behind the wheel of a fast-moving car without breaks heading towards a cliff called Extinction.