Chris Packham joins protest after report shows 'devastating decline' in British wildlife

LondonWorld

British wildlife campaigner and tv presenter Chris Packham joined protesters outside the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on Thursday following the release of a devastating report on the state of UK wildlife.  On Wednesday, the National Trust released its State of Nature report which found that one in six of the 10,000-plus species across the UK risk going extinct.  The report found 43% of British bird species, 31% of our amphibians and reptiles, and one-in-four land mammals (26%) are now facing extinction.  Some of those now facing an uncertain future include the turtle dove, the hazel dormouse, the lady’s slipper orchid, and the European eel, the report says.

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00:00 Well I read the State of Nature report some time ago as I'd read the previous three and

00:04 this one merely adds to a catalogue of decline and disappearance when it comes to UK species

00:09 and habitats and these are the things which get me out of bed in the morning. I love life,

00:13 I love wildlife and I've grown up in the UK, I'm very keen to protect it, as are all of

00:18 the other non-government organisations and bodies that are here today. So we've assembled

00:22 all of the most committed conservationists that we possibly could. And these are the

00:27 people with the skill and expertise to make a difference and what the report shows is

00:30 that when we come together and we have sufficient funding, we've got the energy, the skills,

00:35 the technologies and the passion, we can make that difference. The problem is we can't do

00:41 it broadly enough and rapidly enough without government support and what we've seen in

00:46 recent times, again highlighted in the report, is that funding for nature restoration and

00:51 recovery has been cut 5% in the last five years and 50% in recent times. Now what we

00:58 need is more support for our farmers, our foresters and our fisher people to make sure

01:03 that they can afford to move through a transition whereby they can farm fish and forest and still

01:10 allow nature to flourish. We know it's possible, again the report is not ambiguous about that,

01:15 but it does require public sector funding and it requires changes in practices to make

01:20 it easier for those people to implement those schemes and that's essentially why we're here

01:25 today. We have a second purpose and the second purpose is that many of these people have

01:30 very focused interests. We've got people here who are really passionate about amphibians,

01:34 we've got people here who are really passionate about bumblebees or bats, but underneath that

01:39 focused interest is a very recognised commonality of the fact that we want a healthier landscape

01:45 in the UK. We want our wildlife to be able to prosper and in order to achieve that I

01:49 think it's really important that we come together and work more strategically and more cooperatively.

01:56 So I'm very pleased to see this unity of energy, ambition and ability.

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