You're wrong. But do you want to be told?

The wide gap between perception and reality is a challenge for those unwilling to pander to populism

As we go into 2014 we can be certain of one thing - there will be plenty more doom laden conservation stories in the media. Politicians can expect more and bigger e-petitions and polls telling them what to do. These are normally centred on demanding the Government either:


(a)  Protects - stopping someone from doing something,
(b)  Prescribes - demand someone starts doing something or
(c)  Spends - yet more money

This type of campaigning is so much easier to do (and raise funds for) than encourage what can be achieved; with what we have today. Just as a poorly performing school or hospital can't simply demand action from the Government nor should conservation organisations. Clearly the government could always do more but what about the variations in conservation success at different sites right now? What could we do today with what we already have?

Why does the UK's only farmer owned National Nature Reserve (NNR) at Elmley have significantly higher breeding success than other nature reserves on the same marsh? So what if it is owned by a farmer rather than a conservation NGO - surely we should all copy best practice? It's what we would do with schools and hospitals?

I find it interesting that conservation NGO’s have, between them, spent literally millions of pounds over the years projecting messages in the media that:

1)    Simplifying issues

2)    Ignore the many places & people that have achieved amazing success

3)    Mislead or avoid how and why conservation success has been achieved

As a result public views on some conservation issues are entirely a guess. They are not based on reality, other than a few media stories. Yet it is incredibly dangerous to become contemptuous of the beliefs and innate feelings of the majority. It becomes a kind of madness to argue with them – even when you can answer the question with facts and evidence.

I am not a fan of conservation by opinion polls. Just as recent MORI polling reported that, as a nation, we believe 15% of girls under the age of 16 get pregnant each year when the number is 0.6% or we think 22% are unemployed but the actual is 8% - the wisdom of crowds has its limitations.

Perhaps it is time for those in conservation to engage in a bit more of “what makes you think that you are right and everyone else is wrong?” Let’s hope that in 2014 conservation NGO’s can prioritise wildlife before pleasing the crowd. Wildlife needs organisations that tell us we’re wrong when we’re wrong; not one that tells we’re right when we’re wrong.

Social media - are smaller conservation charities getting it right?

Trying to identify meaningful social media statistics is hard. I feel evaluation by counts alone are unhelpful. Below I have tried to look at the number of twitter followers, for a range of conservation charities, relative to the number of members. Whilst we might expect the percentages to be similar, they are not at all.


The crude analysis suggests the social media strategy of smaller charities is more effective. Certainly those at the top are not those with biggest budgets. It's going to be interesting to see how this one evolves. 

1st - Bat Conservation Trust - 5,600 members; @_BCT_ (13,324) = 237%
2nd- Marine Conservation Society  - 7,000 members; @mcsuk (11,952) = 170%
3rd - Butterfly Conservation - 12,000 members; @savebutterflies (14,392) = 119%
4th - British Trust Ornithology - 17,000** members; @_BTO_ (19,650) = 115%
5th - Plant Life - 10,500 members; @loveplants (8,194; 15) = 78%
6th - Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust - 20,000; @gameandwildlife (2,524) 12.62%
7th - World Wildlife Fund - 300,000* members; @wwf_uk (36,064) = 12.02%
8th - Woodland Trust - 500,000 members; @woodlandtrust 41,409 = 8.28%
9th - Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust - 200,000; @WWTworldwide (14,867) = 7.43%
10th - Royal Society Protection Birds - 1,100,000; @natures_voice (76,309) = 6.94%
11th - National Trust - 3,700,000 members; @national trust 190,935 = 5.16%
12th - Wildlife Trusts - 800,000 members; @wildlifetrusts (19,722) = 2.46%


Apologies for any incorrect numbers and those charities not included.

* extracted from 2010 review "people now give us a regular gift"

Beautiful RSPCA pheasant card

Well it is October and pheasants are in many peoples minds. Delighted to see this beautiful card in our local stationers shelves.

If you would like one it is produced for the RSPCA. A good cause and a good buy.

How did we survive last time the climate changed? - start farming

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has, in the course of its research, seen the impacts on wildlife of current changes in our climate. Whilst there are plenty of column inches devoted to these impacts, it is interesting to think about what happened last time man was faced dramatic climate change.

Common sense suggests that humans probably didn't take up farming because they wanted to. After all, who would have wanted to be a farmer? These days it's comparatively easy thanks to modern technology such as: tractors, ploughs, machines for milking, threshing, bailing and harvesting. But that was not the case 12,000 years ago, when people began to sow wild seeds hoping for a half decent crop from which they could make their first loaves of bread.

Compared to the easy life of the hunter, with plenty of game around, the lot of a crop farmer was painful and arduous. For a start, crops could only be harvested at certain times of year, so arable farming was certainly no substitute for traditional fast-food culture of meat on demand.

Unpredictable, unpleasant and just plain hard work - that's what farming crops was like 12,000 years ago. Persuading wild animals to do what you wanted them to wasn't much easier. Thousands of years of genetic modification have led to sweet, easy-to-harvest crops and obedient, compliant domestic animals; but back then it was uphill all the way.

A two words can explain the reason for the rise in agriculture: climate change

There was a 'big melt' of ice which started 14,000 years ago as temperatures rose. This change was nothing to do with man but it had profound consequences for him. The oceans rose by a massive 25 metres in just 500 years. For mankind it meant that many traditional hunting grounds simply sank beneath the oceans. Regions of the world that were once rich forests, ideal for hunting and gathering, were reduced to barren deserts as patterns of rainfall and weather systems rapidly changed.

In many parts of the world people were forced to move upwards into hills, or closer to freshwater lakes and rivers. In some areas the traditional lifestyle of moving from place to place became just too risky. There was either too little good hunting available, or the land was too dry to sustain sufficient vegetation. This warming episode suddenly switched in just 50 years to another Ice Age which would last 1,300 years.

It sounds perfectly sensible that experimenting with sowing seeds themselves and deliberately clearing the land to make it suitable for cultivation grasses such as wheat, barley and rye was undertaken in the face of starvation. Skeletons of early farmers tell us how hard it was: twisted toes, buckled, arthritic knees and in some cases lower backs that are completely deformed due to the exhausting task of grinding grain into flour between slabs of stone.

The legacy of these early farming are dramatic. When the Ice Age suddenly finished, the effect on people living in Europe and the Mediterranean was profound. As the climate recovered to its previous balminess these people were equipped with a raft of potent new technologies, in the form of breeds and seeds that gave them the opportunity of living a radically different way of life.