working with nature for our future
TRANSCRIPT
WORKING WITH
NATURE FOR OUR
FUTURE
We need a new strategy and a new plan for the future
in order to play our part in tackling the climate and ecological crises. To achieve this we need your involvement and commitment. You will find details of how to respond at the end of this document.
This document is our first step towards finding a shared
new vision for the future.
We will identify some of the key challenges and outline
some of our aspirations.
Our intention is to promote debate and foster creative
thinking. We want your ideas, comments and feedback
to help shape our plan.
Together, we must find a way to live in harmony with
nature, in a world full of opportunities for wildlife,
where we recognise that we are part of nature and that
all life is mutually interdependent.
Our place
Our wildlife trust covers almost half of Wales, with
boundaries extending from Lavernock in the south
east, and the Black Mountains in the north east, to
Skomer Island, in the furthest west, and north from
the Gower as far as the Dyfi, deep in mid-Wales.
The landscape is diverse, with many outstanding
opportunities for nature, including mountains and
moorlands, bogs and fens, woodlands and grassland,
lakes and rivers.
The marine environment is equally important: we are
a coastal trust, with rugged cliffs, islands, sandy
shores, estuaries, salt marshes and, of course, the
open sea.
We have very large areas of urban and post-
industrial landscape - the places where most people
live. These are places which were once ravaged by
the impact of heavy industry, but today are full of
opportunities for nature’s recovery. How green is
my valley and how much greener will it become?
From a distant perspective these are glorious
places, a cultural landscape reflecting much earlier
times when our ancestors found some harmony
with nature. But if we look too closely the detail is
missing: it is a seriously depleted landscape, a
consequence of our recent unhappy relationship
with nature.
The challenge
Welsh wildlife is in peril, it is in freefall, and we are
losing our precious species and habitats. 17% of all species
in Wales are at risk of extinction. Over the past 50 years
there has been a 13% decline in the abundance of species,
with a 6% decline over the past decade alone, and the rate
of decline is accelerating.
There have also been alarming changes in species
distribution (the areas which species occupy). Taking the
UK as a whole, distribution has declined by 5%, but in Wales
the rate of loss is 10%: double the UK rate.
Our wildlife trust has seen some spectacular gains: water
voles have been reintroduced to the Gwendraeth Valley
and the Puffin population on our Pembrokeshire islands
has tripled since the turn of the century. But these are the
exceptions, and we must not be deceived. Turtle Doves and
Corn Buntings have already become extinct in Wales, and
when did you last see or hear a Curlew breeding in our
uplands? You will have noticed the decline in our butterflies
(we have lost 16%), but are you aware of the 25% decline
in our moths?
Unfortunately, we are all too easily deceived by some
of the more obvious, but superficial, changes. Our rivers
may look cleaner, and woodland cover has increased,
but are the rivers full of fish, and how do the ‘new’
plantation woodlands compare with our ancient native
broadleaf woodlands?
The climate crisis is an urgent, escalating problem. We
are already witnessing the disastrous impact on wildlife
and we are also in deep trouble. This is just the
beginning: we will experience more losses to wildlife,
more violent storms, more flooding, more wild fires,
and longer, more frequent, periods of drought. The
global climate has been regulated by nature for millions
of years. It is only now that just one species, humankind,
is disrupting that balance.
Most of us will recognise the need for global action, but
we must not forget that local action is of equal
importance: the globe is nothing more than a collection
of localities.
What nature does for us
In recent years, political decisions have led
to a fundamental change in the perception
of wildlife in Wales. The question, ‘what can
we do for nature?’ has been replaced by,
‘what can nature do for us?’. This is,
unfortunately, accompanied by a common
assertion: if an ecosystem is delivering for
people, then it must also be delivering
biodiversity.
In reality, our seriously depleted habitats
cannot support wildlife or people for much
longer. The focus of our wildlife trust - our
key driver - will be nature. If we look after
nature, nature will look after us. Our survival
as a species on this planet is inextricably
dependent on the survival and prosperity of
all life, human and non-human.
We want 30% of Wales’ land and seas to be
protected and managed for wildlife by 2030.
At least a third of everything we eat is
directly dependent on pollination by bees,
but a third of British wild bees and
hoverflies are in decline.
Then there are the soils. These are the
foundations of life, and yet we saturate
them with chemicals, killing the fungi, the
microbes and the earthworms that are
fundamental to maintaining healthy soils.
We know that nature keeps us alive and
that it can have an enormous positive
impact on our wellbeing in terms of both
our mental and physical health. As we lose
our connection with nature, our health
suffers and our wellbeing declines.
We all need natural green spaces: we need
a connection with nature, and we know that
time spent with nature significantly
improves our quality of life.
We must tip the balance from loss
to recovery
Today, we have a fragmented mosaic of isolated
opportunities for wildlife, but tomorrow we could
create the connections and deliver a larger, more
resilient, sustainable and coherent network of
both healthy habitats and populations of species.
We believe that working with nature, enabling, as
far as possible, the natural processes with minimal
intervention, is the surest way of helping nature to
recover.
We want change everywhere: in our countryside
and in our villages, towns and cities; we want
everywhere to become great places for people and
for wildlife.
We want farming to be at the forefront of change:
driving nature’s recovery, restoring and conserving
precious soils, providing opportunities for wildlife
and contributing to a much healthier and more
prosperous future for us all.
We want all children to grow up with equal
opportunities to enjoy nature: to hear a soaring
spring chorus of birds and the hum and buzz and
chirruping of nature in summer. We want them
to experience clouds of butterflies, wildflower
grasslands alive with grasshoppers and other
insects, and rivers and streams full of fish.
We want more room for wildlife in our towns
and cities, parks and gardens full of wildflowers
and bird song, tree-lined streets and green
places for people. There are a host of plants and
animals which will happily share our urban
spaces with us.
Dealing with the housing crisis is a government
priority but we must ensure that all
development plans maximise opportunities for
wildlife to benefit the health and wellbeing of
future residents.
We want a future where most people care for
our natural environment and our wildlife; we
want them to respect nature and to enjoy
nature.
We want to optimise opportunities for wildlife
wherever and whenever we can. We don’t need
everything everywhere, but there must be a
place for everything somewhere.
People and their values are
important
Despite everything that we know, we continue to
recklessly squander our life support system; this must
come to an end. We must reverse the direction of
change and we must begin today.
Public perception and understanding of
environmental issues is growing. Programmes such as
‘Blue Planet 2’ have opened people’s eyes to the
desperate plight of our global environment. We have
become aware of plastic pollution, of the impact of
palm oil plantations, and our reliance on carbon-based
fossil and biofuels which are driving and accelerating
climate breakdown.
Media coverage of global drought, hugely destructive
storms and the vast wildfires in Australia and the
Americas remind us, almost daily, of the large-scale
climatic changes. There is a surge in public interest
following environmental catastrophes, but this
attention is often short lived.
The impending Holocene, or sixth mass extinction,
should be enough to convince everyone that we need
urgent global and local action today. Although 89% of
the Welsh population claim that they are concerned
about environmental damage, only 7% place
environmental degradation among the critical issues
facing Wales.
We must change this; we must find ways of
convincing people that the health of the natural
world is as important as their own health and that
of their families and friends. People must
understand that our species cannot survive alone
on this planet.
Earlier, we mentioned connectivity in terms of
connecting places with places. An even greater
challenge will be connecting enough people with
nature to foster the changes needed for nature’s
recovery. Together, our island reserves of
Skomer and Skokholm, our Welsh Wildlife
Centre in Cardigan, and our Parc Slip visitor
centre in Bridgend attract tens of thousands of
visitors from all over Britain and overseas, and
many of these become members of the Trust,
but we must also focus on equality, diversity and
inclusion to ensure that everyone has the
opportunity to experience the joy of wildlife in
their daily lives. We are ‘Wild About Inclusion’,
and increasing the diversity of our staff,
Trustees, volunteers and members is crucial to
our success in bringing about natures’ recovery.
We already have thousands of members
throughout South and West Wales, including
many volunteers who are committed to the
purpose of the Trust and who dedicate a great
deal of time and effort to protecting wildlife.
We also work with many farmers, landowners
and businesses who share our enthusiasm for
wildlife.
But this is not enough. Research has shown
that the support of at least 25% of a population
is needed for any large-scale social change. We
want to see 1 in 4 people actively playing a part
in nature’s recovery. We want people to spend
more time talking about nature, sharing their
concerns and taking actions to support nature
whenever they can.
In a recent UK survey, more than half of those
polled said that climate change would affect the
way they voted, and this rose to almost three
quarters of the under 25s. We want everyone
to consider the climate and ecological crises
whenever they vote in an election and to hold
politicians to account.
Legislation
If we are to achieve our aspirations for
nature’s recovery, we need additional and
stronger legislation that is specifically
focused on wildlife.
In Wales we have an Environment Act (Wales)
2016, and a Well-being of Future Generations
(Wales) Act 2015. Under this legislation there
is a responsibility to not only maintain but
enhance a biodiverse natural environment, and
we want to ensure that this basic principle is at
the heart of all Welsh Government decisions.
We also need legally binding biodiversity targets
to start to reverse the decline of species.
Whatever we achieve in terms of legislation,
this must be translated into action. If these
ideas are to be achievable in practice, it is
essential that our wildlife trust should have an
active involvement in both the development
and delivery of these strategies.
We want Welsh Government to recognise the
essential role of the NGOs in Wales. Together, these
organisations can, and do, achieve far more for wildlife
than the Government and its agency are able deliver
alone. We have a consummate set of skills and
experience that put us in an unrivalled position to
deliver the necessary outcomes. However, these
independent groups and charities cannot indefinitely
sustain the costs of continuing to implement the work
that Government should recognise as essential. In
recognition of our successes, we deserve more
support: Government must make adequate funds, in
particular core funds, available to the voluntary sector
in Wales.
We are ready for change:
please join us
Our wildlife trust has grown from modest, pioneering beginnings
to become a formidable force for nature. We have done our very
best to conserve our wildlife, including the creation of over 100
nature reserves: havens for nature which will provide the
reservoirs of species that we need to fuel nature’s recovery. Our
work in the countryside and urban environment has slowed
down the rate of loss and provided the foundations for nature to
recover.
We have worked with many different people and organisations,
advising, inspiring and assisting them to nurture wildlife. But,
despite all our efforts, we have a very long way to go. We cannot
do this alone. We need you to help shape, share and own the
plan: a plan which delivers all our aspirations for nature.
Please help us to develop our new strategy
by considering the questions on the
following pages.
It is better to avoid lengthy text: a series of
sharply focused bullet points would be
preferable.
We look forward to as wide a response as
possible. We hope that you will respond as
individuals, but please also consider
organising debates or establishing
discussion groups.
Together, the Wildlife Trusts want to
achieve these three high-level targets
to tackle the crises we have talked
about here:
• The ecological crisis: 30% of land
and sea managed for wildlife by
2030
• The climate crisis: achieving net
carbon neutrality by 2030
• The disconnect crisis: one in four
people taking action for wildlife
How do you think
the Wildlife Trust of
South and West
Wales can:
• help nature (habitats and
species) recover?
• respond to climate change at
global and local levels?
• encourage more people to
take action for nature?
• have greater influence on
politicians and the Welsh
Government?
Our deadline for responses is the end
of April 2021. Please send your ideas,
views and any other feedback to the
email addresses on the last page.
From your own
perspective:
What are your interests and concerns?
What actions do you currently take, at
home, in your garden, in your
community, on your farm or
landholding?
What would you like to do to help
nature recover?
Most important of all,
how can we help you
to achieve your
ambitions for nature?
