A Focus On Nature

Issues in conservation

A Focus On Nature, Issues in conservation

My time at Trees For Life – Sam Manning

After enduring the most dismal six months of weather I have ever lived through working in the lowlands of Scotland, I arrived on what would be the first of an entire month (for the most part) of gloriously hot, clear September days at Dundreggan estate, the operational heartland of Trees For Life. A charity with a remarkable long-term re-wilding focus and the goal of ‘restoring the Caledonian forest’.

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A Focus On Nature, Issues in conservation

Saving species at a landscape level – Simon Phelps

How do you save a species from extinction? It is a question that has challenged the minds of conservationists for many decades.

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Issues in conservation, Species

What can your county bird recorder do for you? by Hugh Pulsford.

Hugh has been fascinated by birds from an early age, initially local patch watching and trips around the UK and Europe, and graduated into the early twitching scene in the UK from the mid 1970’s onwards and has never looked back! Over the years he has been involved in several County bird societies with local surveys and conservation activities and is keen to share expertise and put something back into the UK birding scene. He is now County Recorder for Cheshire and Wirral and Secretary of the National Association of County Recorders (ACRE). He is also an A ringer and trainer with the South Manchester bird ringing group.

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A Focus On Nature, Issues in conservation

What do you want nature to look like, now and in the future?

Matt Williams asks whether you’d like to be a Vision for Nature campaigner over the next few months. If you already know the answer, email mattadamwilliams@gmail.com. If you’d like to know more, read on.

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Issues in conservation, Species

Where have all the Kestrels gone? By Simon Phelps.

Simon is a conservationist, wildlife photographer and passionate naturalist. He currently works for the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust (views his own) and spends as much of his free time out on nature reserves around the country photographing any wildlife he can find. To follow more of his writing you can follow him on Twitter: @wildlifephelps

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Issues in conservation

Memories of Martha

Today has felt very mixed for me, as I sit reflecting on my hotel bed, tapping away at my iPad. The centenary of the death of Martha, the passenger pigeon, is poignant. Mark Avery has just published a book explaining how what was the most numerous bird in the world went extinct in a matter of decades. You can find that book here: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/a-message-from-martha-9781472906250/

Today, the cataclysmic decline of that bird feels like the starting gun on natural loss that’s still going on. Now it’s butterflies, hedgehogs and turtle doves that could be eradicated from our countryside in the UK, made extinct by the way we treat nature.

And today I spent the day sitting in a conference centre with RSPB policy colleagues, asking how we can best turn around that decline.

I spent a few cheeky minutes answering emails on my phone during the course of the day relating to A Vision for Nature. If you haven’t heard me blathering on about this yet, it’s A Focus on Nature’s conference this Friday and Saturday.

Over 100 young conservationists will converge on Cambridge to figure out how they can save nature by 2050. And let’s face it we need to.

Along with organisations like the RSPB, young people who care about nature have a big task on our hands.

So, as many people today looked back to Martha, that bird can become a symbol for the challenge we face over the coming years.

I can’t help but feeling that A Vision for Nature will be the start of something amazing, a spark in the keg of the UK (perhaps international?) youth conservation movement.

If you don’t have a ticket yet, buy one here: http://afocusonnature.org/conference/buy-tickets

I hope I’ll see you at the weekend.

A Focus On Nature, Issues in conservation

We could be superheroes. By Matt Williams.

Matt has been a member of the RSPB since the age of five and has never looked back. He remembers writing to Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth at the age of seven, shocked at the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. His passion for the natural world has led him to work for a range of NGOs as both an employee and volunteer, as well as running his own projects. Professionally, Matt specialises in climate change policy, communications and youth engagement. He has worked and volunteered for the RSPB in a number of roles, including as a membership recruiter, an assistant warden and in the climate change policy team. He is a founding member and former Co-Director of the UK Youth Climate Coalition and attended a UN climate conference in 2011, and holds degrees from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and a diploma from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. During 2013-14 Matt is working in Borneo, Indonesia, as Communications Manager for the Orangutan Tropical Peatand Project.

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Issues in conservation

Glass. By Chris Foster.

Chris is a birder who is slowly evolving into an amateur naturalist, one increasingly keen on finding, learning about and promoting more ‘obscure’ wildlife. Through his writing he tries to get across the sheer beauty of nature, but also wants to highlight just how much fun – for want of a better word – wildlife can be. He is employed by Reading University as a Teaching Associate in the School of Biological Sciences, focussing primarily on engaging students with species identification, biological recording and conservation philosophy. He is in the early stages of a PhD in invertebrate landscape ecology, through which he ultimately hopes to make a contribution to conserving the sorts of bird and insect rich landscapes he loves to spend time in.

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