More chicks, less rhetoric
IT would be much easier if conservation could go back to being simple. Until the 1980s, it was generally assumed that wild-life could only thrive where it was protected from the hand of man — in nature reserves. As with so many simple solutions, it was wrong. The RSPB-led State of Nature reports are manifestations of this failure.
Nature reserves cannot possibly protect viable populations of a wide range of species in the long term, because they make up less than 2% of our countryside. Even if we add all the other designated conservation areas, such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), much of which are still working farmland, it is not enough. To truly thrive in our working countryside, these species need to live alongside man.
Our approach to conservation in this country has undergone a revolution quietly. Successive governments have funded a
