Former RSPB conservation director Mark Avery: Feedback all leads me to think the organisation is in a poor state

                                                  

Has the RSPB management got a grip? Mark Avery, a former conservation director, has his doubts

IS the RSPB spiralling out of control?

This once unthinkable question is prompted by controversial remarks made today by its high-profile former conservation director, Mark Avery.

Says he: "All the feedback I get from current and past RSPB staff leads me to think that the organisation is in a poor state.

"Yet another review is happening with some traditional and important areas of work under attack.

"There is a massive amount of chatter outside the organisation about 'brand police' inside the organisation.

"I gather whole areas of conservation work are questioned as not being 'on brand'."  

Dr Avery has also long been highly critical of how the society's management handled the fiasco in which an officer posted a potentially libellous social message in which the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and two cabinet colleagues, Michael Gove and Therese Coffey, were described as "liars"

"Liargate was a high-profile cock-up," he says. "The current state of the RSPB would make me hesitate - probably for the first time in my life - over the wisdom of it being a home for your conservation investment."

He adds: "I'd watch the RSPB carefully before considering giving it money right now." 

Infiltrated by 'brand police'? The RSPB's HQ outside Sandy in Bedfordshire