RSPB CHAIRMAN: "SPEAKING OUT BRINGS POWER TO NATURE CONSERVATION"

 IN the run-up to the RSPB’s 2017 AGM on October 7, we look back at what the society’s chairman, Prof Steve Ormerod, had to say at the corresponding event last year. Reproduced below, his wide-ranging speech covered such as subjects as the decline of Britain’s seabirds, tracking the migration of turtle doves, climate change, the importance of campaigning, the reintroduction of cranes to Somerset and the importance of retaining the EU’s Nature Directives.

One of the main ways we give nature a home is by creating ideal conditions for important species across our nature reserves network.

RSPB reserves have it all - from rugged coastlines to sweeping heathlands, from ancient woodland to whispering reedbeds.

These places support a jaw-dropping range of species, many of them rare and threatened.

Across 214 sites, you can find everything from sundews and shrews to seahorses and seagrasses.

 Altogether, RSPB reserves hold a total of more than 16,000 different species.

You would expect our reserves to be great for birds, and they are - we have recorded 421 species on them.

But our sites are “arks” for all wildlife. They have 93 per cent of the UK’s land mammal species, 75 per cent of its wildflowers, and 97 per cent of the dragonflies and damselflies.

Some 800 of the species on RSPB reserves are classified as rare, but others are numerous enough to be considered nationally or globally important.

Through careful habitat management, we are helping rare and threatened species to recover.

At Geltsdale in Cumbria, we recorded 59 lekking black grouse the largest number ever, up from 55 in 2014.

This success follows 10 years of a new cattle grazing regime, designed to create just the right variety of vegetation for these stunning birds.

Continuing one of the RSPB’s major restoration successes, this year we recorded more booming bitterns than ever before - 157 across 72 RSPB Reserves.

As well as growth in numbers, their range is expanding to new areas, including Ouse Fen and Needingworth Quarry in Eastern England. Habitat restoration for target species really does work.

The avocet also had a record-breaking year. A total of 172 pairs were counted at Cliffe Pools in Kent, the same area where you helped us fight off the proposal for an airport development a few years back.

Speaking out brings power to nature conservation.

Record numbers of woodlarks are breeding on West Sedgemoor in Somerset. And on Coquet Island, we now have 111 pairs of roseate terns - the highest for 40 years and 90 per cent of the UK total.

Our Great Crane Project on the Somerset Levels and Moors gives us some of the year’s most exciting news. Through this pioneering reintroduction project in partnership with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, and with funding from Viridor Credits, we’ve brought over crane eggs from Germany over a five-year period.

These birds have been raised by hand, with their human ‘parents’ dressed in long grey smocks to remove the risk of the young cranes imprinting on people. This year, for the first time, some of the cranes reintroduced into the wild successfully reared their own chicks. Nine pairs of cranes made breeding attempts, and four chicks fledged.

Not to be outdone by birds, invertebrate reintroduction projects have had a successful year, too.

Ladybird spiders were on the brink of extinction in the 1990s but are slowly regaining ground following our reintroduction programme at RSPB Arne in Dorset. And at Surrey’s Farnham Heath, we’ve been reintroducing field crickets, which are starting to flourish.

These successes are the result of years, and often decades, of dedicated, conservation work made possible by public support.

This year the Big School’s Birdwatch turned 15. Our scheme to get pupils counting the species that visit their school has become the UK’s biggest school wildlife survey, giving over a million children and teachers the opportunity to connect with nature. More than 70 species were recorded this year, with blackbirds the most common.

As well as connecting people with nature, initiatives like this and our Big Garden Birdwatch can reveal population trends through time.

Research guides everything we do, and RSPB scientists are among the best in the

conservation world.

Species monitoring reveals the health of populations, and, when a species is found to be struggling, we investigate the causes, and then pioneer solutions to help recovery.

This year saw publication of the latest issue of Birds of Conservation Concern.

It highlighted the extent to which our seabirds are in serious trouble, with puffins, shags and kittiwakes all placed on the red list of high conservation concern.

Seabird conservation has always been a big priority for the RSPB, but we must do more.

As an example, this year we have been running a new seabird tracking project to help identify the risks to our most vulnerable species.

We have fitted GPS tags to seabirds including guillemots and razorbills to find out where they feed.

This technology was instrumental in helping us fight the proposed Hornsea 2 wind farm, scheduled to be built 56 miles east of Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs Special Protection Areas, and the Flamborough and Filey Coast potential SPA.

This proposed site is within the foraging ranges of breeding gannets, guillemots, razorbills and puffins - clearly a serious concern.

The RSPB is not against renewable energy, including wind turbines, so long as they are located in places that don’t impact on important wildlife.

Although disappointed that the Hornsea 2 windfarm has now been given the planning go-ahead, our intervention should provide assurance that the development is less damaging.

We are, of course, concerned that further proposed phases of this project will continue to threaten Yorkshire’s seabirds.

Staying with the marine environment, January 2016 brought the exciting news that, after much campaigning, a vast area of at least 220,000 square kilometres off the UK Overseas Territory of Ascension Island is to become a marine reserve by 2019.

Ascension lies in the equatorial waters of the tropical Atlantic, roughly halfway between Africa and Brazil. It is home to the second largest nesting site of green turtles in the Atlantic, as well as the resplendent angelfish and marmalade razor fish.

Around the island are important populations of tuna, bottlenose dolphins, humpback whales and marlins. Only three per cent of the world’s seas have some form of legal protection, so this success is a major step forward.

Back on land, our Hope Farm in Cambridgeshire turned 15 this year.

When we first broke ground there in 2001, there were two yellowhammers. But last winter, thanks to our long-term efforts, there were 723.

In 2001, there were just 250 birds of 22 species at Hope Farm, but it now has 2,900 birds of 43 species. This demonstration shows that simple but effective measures, such as wild flower margins and winter seed crops, can restore nature’s home while turning over a profit equivalent to that of commercial farms.

Of all farmland birds, turtle doves are in the gravest danger. Numbers have dropped by 96 per cent in recent decades, and, as with our threatened seabirds, we have been tracking them to understand their migration routes.

I told you last year about how our tagged turtle dove, Titan, had crossed the Sahara and back, on one night alone travelling an incredible 700km. Sadly, Titan failed to return this spring. But the kind of detailed information he provided is invaluable in finding ways to save these birds.

You may have seen from our website that more turtle doves are now being tracked.

We are working with partners all along the migration route, from the UK to West Africa, and doing everything we can to keep the turtle dove as a breeding bird in the UK.

Another issue that requires enormous international co-operation is climate change.

In November, 2015, we published The Nature of Climate Change, a report highlighting the ways in which species are being affected.

One example from the Netherlands shows how food webs can be seriously disrupted. Oak leaves and caterpillars have been peaking around 2 weeks early, and chicks of great, blue and coal tits and pied flycatchers also hatched much earlier.

 In contrast, sparrowhawk chicks, which depend on these small birds for their survival, are not hatching any earlier with potentially disastrous consequences.

We took our report to the UN Climate Change conference in Paris in 2015 to coincide with the drafting of the new global climate agreement.

We are pleased that after all our campaigning, the agreement has a large section on the need for reducing carbon emissions and on the role of conservation.

Engaging with decision-makers is vital in the fight to save nature. We are taken seriously when we step up to the discussion table because of our expertise and knowledge, and because of the strength you bring to us.

Having more than a million members - more than all of all the political parties combined - means that we are recognised as a force for nature. But we still have to find innovative ways to motivate more people to get involved in campaigning at our side.

One of those innovations is our new MP Species Champions scheme. Originally launched in Scotland and now rolled out across the rest of the UK , this project carefully matches MPs to species found in their own constituencies and encourages them to become stewards for their welfare.

To get the MPs personally connected with their birds, plants, bugs, bees or fish, we held a special event in Westminster where we presented them with tailored factsheets.

We have also taken a number of the MPs along to RSPB sites to personally see their ‘species constituents’.

Our hope is that the Species Champions will become more passionate about nature conservation, and will go on to support us in other challenges, such as habitat loss.

Nature needs friends in high places. Indeed, it needs friends in all places, from our back gardens and local patches, to the farmed countryside, to the halls of power around the world.

And it was in those halls of power that your voices were heard to remarkable effect this year.

Recently, the legal framework that protects our wildlife - the bedrock of all our conservation activities -came under serious threat.

Collectively known as the Nature Directives, these laws had come to be regarded as red tape in the EU, with some people even suggesting they were a barrier to economic growth rather than the fundamental source of human prosperity and wellbeing.

It was your strength in numbers that helped us in the fight to save the Directives. We encouraged people to write to their MPs, to tell their friends, and to send the message far and wide through Twitter and Facebook.

Well over half a million people told European leaders not to weaken the Directives - three times more than in any previous EU consultation.

One of our major challenges now is to ensure that nature is protected with equal strength no matter what the Brexit decision may bring.

Ladies and Gentlemen, nature isn’t just a ‘nice to have’. It’s a ‘need to have’.

The conservation movement of which the RSPB is a key part is unified by this philosophy. We “fight” - as our strapline says - to give nature a home, but the reverse is also true.

Nature gives us our home.

A world rich in nature is a healthy, vibrant, sustainable place for all of us.

It is in our interest to put the protection of nature at the heart of the world’s priorities.

You are the strength that will enable the RSPB and its partners to do just that - and I thank each and every one of you for your support.