AFON
The conservation movement must change – by Oliver Simms
Welcome to our series of blog posts in the run up (originally) to the general election (7th May 2015). Over this month AFON members will share their own Visions for Nature: what they want the natural world to look like by 2050 and how they want to get there. Despite the election being over, we have decided to continue the series as more posts keep arriving from our members! We have created a hashtag on Twitter so why not join the conversation? What’s your #VisionforNature?
We have seen many superb Vision for Nature posts in the past few weeks outlining how young people want nature to be and be seen in the future but I want to go off script and look at how we can achieve these noble aims. We have also seen endless tedious election analysis in the media so I apologise in advance for doing just that on a series that probably has acted as a welcome respite!
The Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats clearly lost the election but what has been less discussed is that nature also lost the election. I am not referring to the result of a Conservative majority government, although I am concerned about the potential reintroduction of the badger cull and fox hunting, but to how little nature and the environment featured in the election debates. There was not a single question on it in any of the major televised debates and none of the parties really championed it in their campaign. Even the Green party only made occasional references to climate change and even more occasional references to conservation as they focussed instead on economic and social issues. The lack of a mainstream political voice for nature has the potential to have terrible consequences for issues as varied as the protection of greenbelt to raptor persecution.
It would be easy to blame the politicians or the media or the school curriculum or several other factors that certainly played their part but I do think that we, the conservation movement, also have to look at ourselves. For the conservation movement, I do not mean A Focus on Nature but all keen champions of nature and conservation. Our case for why nature is important was largely ignored and we, frankly, lost the argument. We, unlike political parties, do not have a leader and therefore there is no one who needs to resign. However, like the political parties, we do need to consider the reasons why it went so wrong and have a “full, frank and honest debate” (Labour cliché of the week!) of how we can prevent it happening again.
I will set out three principle reasons why I think it went so badly wrong and I’m sure you will all notice that they bear a remarkable similarity to the analysis about the Labour party. Many will disagree with my analysis but I hope this sparks the debate that I feel we really need to have.
We have become seen as opponents to everything – whether it is housing developments, GM food or transport infrastructure investment, conservationists are seen as the obstacle, a view that potentially undermines the great work many do. Every week, I receive numerous requests to sign petitions to ban all sorts of things, from driven grouse shooting to Chinese lanterns. All of these are worthwhile campaigns but they have contributed to the view that conservation is a nuisance – “the enemy of progress” according to the Brazilian President – and allowed Owen Paterson to get away with inventing this ridiculous notion of the “green blob”. I cannot help but thinking that we need to pick our battles more carefully and offer something more positive.
Not enough people in their 30s are interested in conservation – endless things have been written about the lack of young people passionate about nature but to me it seems that this must have been going on for years because I hardly ever see someone in their 30s on a nature reserve. This is the age of many new politicians and journalists so if they are not interested in nature, so it is essential this age group is engaged. The reason for this is not clear but I think conservation organisations have focussed too much on young children and the elderly for too long at the expense of teenagers and young adults which has led to these issues. This is slowly starting to change with A Focus on Nature (AFON) and Next Generation Birders (NGB) but, with a combined membership of under 1500, I think we all acknowledge we have a long way to go.
We failed to appeal to a wide enough demographic – this will be the most controversial part of my analysis but I think it is undeniable that conservation is a largely white, middle-class pursuit. This is not to use “middle-class” as an insult but to state that we do not have a wide enough appeal. This is curious given that nature can be enjoyed for free and conservation stands up to supposedly “upper-class” pursuits like fox hunting. Again I am not certain of the reasons for this but possibilities include the prohibitively expensive conservation volunteering experiences sold to students and, yes I cannot resist saying it, the unpaid internships that make it difficult for people from poorer backgrounds to get jobs in conservation. Whatever the cause, this reality is hugely damaging for conservation as it allows opponents to dismiss it as purely an intellectual issue that most people do not care about.
I could say a lot more but it is easy to come up with problems and much harder to come up with solutions. This post is long enough already so I’m not going to outline them here (convenient excuse for not having many!) but I hope we start a debate so we, the conservation movement, can come up with them.
Nature is important and my vision for nature is for it to be seen as an issue at general elections on a par with the other major issues like the NHS and the economy. Now, we have to work out how to get there.