Reflections

Mark Avery

Description

In this informed, incisive and passionate commentary on the state of nature and conservation, Mark Avery reflects on our relationship with the wildlife around us. From the cats that pass through his garden to the chronic decline of farmland wildlife, from the Pasqueflowers he visits every spring to the proportion of national income devoted to saving nature – everything is connected, and everything is considered.

This book analyses what is wrong with certain ways we do wildlife conservation but explores some of its many successes too. How can we do better to restore wildlife to everybody’s lives? We know how to conserve species and habitats – it’s time to roll out conservation measures on a much bigger scale. This is a societal choice in which every nature lover can play their part. Reflections sets out what is needed, and what part the state, environmental charities and we as individuals can play in making that happen.

This highly personal work from a life embedded in and dedicated to nature does not shy away from the harsh realities we face, but its message, ultimately, is one of hope.

Preface

Some explanations

1 Glimpses of wildlife

2 The state of wildlife in the UK

3 What is wildlife conservation?

4 Wildlife conservation successes

5 Why are we failing so badly?

6 What wildlife needs (and how to provide it)

Recapitulation

Notes, references and further reading

Acknowledgements

Index

Sujets

• Sciences de la nature
• Sciences de l'environnement
• Life Sciences
• Environmental Protection
• Environmental Conservation
• Biology
• General officer
• Ecology
• General
• 454 Life Sciences
• Nature

Informations

• Publié par: Pelagic Publishing
• Date de parution: 04 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781784273910
• Langue: English

Extrait

‘If I were “king for a day”, Avery would be instantly installed as the benign dictator of conservation in the UK. If you love wildlife, read this, think about this, and act upon this.’
Chris Packham, broadcaster and author of Back to Nature
‘A timely, brutally honest, yet inspiring account on what has gone wrong with wildlife conservation, and how we can put it right.’
Stephen Moss, naturalist and author
‘Mark Avery has been a guiding light in conservation all my life; a constant north star. This important book bears witness to what we’ve lost, what we’ve done about it, what works and what we must do next. It is both a reckoning and a resounding call to real action, at the most crucial time of our lives – of all our wild lives. Here is hope, predicated on action. There is work to do; and we’d better get on with it.’
Nicola Chester, RSPB columnist and author of On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging
‘ Reflections is a work of distilled campaigning wisdom, told with the irrepressible optimism of a passionate advocate for nature who’s spent decades working tirelessly for wildlife. With wit, verve and clarity of prose, Mark Avery lays out a strikingly radical set of proposals for how to turn around the decline of wildlife in these isles.’
Guy Shrubsole, environmental campaigner and author of The Lost Rainforests of Britain and Who Owns England?
‘Mark Avery has written a love letter to Nature. Yes it is well written and academically sound and all that you’d expect from a person of his track record, but the real pleasure of the book is that under all that patina of propriety and science you feel a Mr Darcy launching himself into the lake because nothing is more important to him than capturing our hearts with his passion. A real triumph.’
Sir Tim Smit, Co-founder and Vice Chairman of the Eden Project
‘Dr Avery must be congratulated on this important book. He hits the nail on the head. I found myself nodding my head vigorously while reading it. The time for action is now.’
Baron Randall of Uxbridge, RSPB Council member and peer
‘Mark Avery is uniquely qualified to write this immensely stimulating and thought-provoking book. Reflecting on his lifetime in conservation he discusses the successes and failures of the past, and draws important lessons for more effective conservation in the future.’
Professor Ian Newton FRS, ornithologist and conservationist
‘A clarion call for more nature in Britain and how we can get it. Wise, knowledgeable, provocative and good humoured – Mark Avery is a national treasure.’
Patrick Barkham, author of Wild Green Wonders and co-author of Wild Isles
‘A brilliant, thorough book full of insightful observation. A must read for those who care about natures future and wish to understand the character of our contorted relationship with it.’
Derek Gow, author of Bringing Back the Beaver
‘Deeply felt and clear eyed, this book admirably achieves its aim of being “realistically hopeful” about a wildlife renaissance and what it will take for us to get there. You don’t have to agree with all its conclusions. But the questions it intelligently explores, based on a lifetime of experience in conservation, of “what sort of world do we want to live in?” and “what should I do about it, then?” are the essential ones of our times. Read it and be both enlightened and challenged.’
Beccy Speight, CEO, RSPB
REFLECTIONS
REFLECTIONS
What wildlife needs and how to provide it
MARK AVERY
PELAGIC PUBLISHING
Published in 2023 by
Pelagic Publishing
20–22 Wenlock Road
London N1 7GU, UK
www.pelagicpublishing.com
Reflections: What wildlife needs and how to provide it
Copyright © Mark Avery 2023
The moral rights of the author have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Apart from short excerpts for use in research or for reviews, no part of this document may be printed or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, now known or hereafter invented or otherwise without prior permission from the publisher.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78427-390-3 Paperback
ISBN 978-1-78427-391-0 ePub
ISBN 978-1-78427-392-7 PDF
ISBN 978-1-78427-447-4 Audio
https://doi.org/10.53061/UMDF3032
Typeset in Minion Pro by S4Carlisle Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To Megan and Renée, great-grandmothers born in 1926, and James, their great-grandson, born in 2021
Contents
Preface
Some explanations
1 Glimpses of wildlife
2 The state of wildlife in the UK
3 What is wildlife conservation?
4 Wildlife conservation successes
5 Why are we failing so badly?
6 What wildlife needs (and how to provide it)
Recapitulation
Notes, references and further reading
Acknowledgements
Index
About the author
Preface
T his book is about wildlife and wildlife conservation in the UK. It is grounded in the early 2020s but looks back over recent decades and forward to decades to come. Since I am in my sixties, I have more experience and action behind me than ahead of me, but the aim of this book is to give a nudge to a better future for UK wildlife by giving the reader an insider’s overview of the challenges facing those who wish to help wildlife to thrive. It is, in essence, a hopeful book, but a realistically hopeful book, which gives pointers to what needs to be done and some tips on the part readers themselves might play in delivering a better future for UK wildlife. There are no quick fixes; there’s a lot of hard graft ahead.
There is no way that a book of 85,000 words could be comprehensive in its treatment of the delights we find in wildlife, the problems it faces, and how we could give it more of what it needs. Well, if there is, such a book is well beyond my capabilities. Instead, I have tried to provide enough case studies and explanation in each chapter to carry the reader forward into the next wanting to know how the tale unfolds.
The book has six chapters, each including my personal reflections at its end. There is a narrative trajectory which starts with local observations of wildlife around my home as an introduction to some species and to some issues. My day-to-day relationship with wildlife in the house, in the garden and close by leads me to ponder the overall state of UK wildlife – that’s the subject for Chapter 2. There is no escaping the conclusion that our wildlife has been in long-term decline for many years, in fact for centuries. Maybe this is an inevitable consequence of human so-called progress, with our material wealth increasing as wildlife richness declines. If so, we ought to take a close look at the aims and objectives of wildlife conservation, an enterprise in which I have spent most of my life, because it doesn’t seem to be living up to its name very well. That is the subject of Chapter 3. How does looking after wildlife fit in to the way that we see the future? Lest this seems like a very gloomy road to travel, I believe that wildlife in the UK is far from doomed, and there are plenty of reasons to think that we can do much better over the next few years. Chapter 4 highlights wildlife success stories from conservation policy and practice which demonstrate the scope for a wildlife renaissance if only we get things right. Chapter 5 looks at ways in which we aren’t getting things right at the moment, and in Chapter 6 I set out my thoughts on what we should do to make things better. Wildlife decline is a problem caused by our society, and the achievement of a wildlife recovery will have to be a shared achievement.
Mark Avery
Some explanations
Wildlife or nature?
The distinction between nature and wildlife is a fine one, but my view is that nature is a broader concept that includes wildlife. Nature, for me, and there is support for this view in many dictionaries, includes landscape, geology and geomorphology, and that’s not what this book is about. Wildlife itself isn’t a completely clear and unfuzzy concept but, in this book, it refers to non-domesticated animals and plants, fauna and flora. And I haven’t used the term biodiversity because it’s a ghastly word.
If you were to search for the word ‘wildlife’ in this book you would find it over 1,000 times and discover that I refer to wildlife conservation and wildlife reserves where others might have used nature conservation and nature reserves. Search for ‘nature’ and you’ll find it fewer than 100 times, and those are mostly in names such as the Nature Conservancy Council and in phrases such as ‘in the nature of things’. ‘Biodiversity’ occurs only where others have used it and I am quoting them. There are a lot of instances of the word ‘wildlife’ in these pages, but it’s a pretty good word, I think. In meaning ‘living things that are in the wild’ it does a very good job in eight letters.
Species names
I have only very rarely used scientific names in this book. I just don’t think that telling you the scientific name for the Nightingale is going to make this a better book – so I haven’t. But it is Luscinia megarhynchos .
I have not stuck to any list of authorised species names. I’ve used whichever vernacular name I usually use in conversation. I don’t think this will lead to any confusion, but if it does – sorry! This means that I write about Nightingales but don’t refer to them as either Common Nightingales (they are getting rarer, after all) or Rufous Nightingales (it’s usually too dark to tell how rufous they are).
When it comes to writing the English-language names for species, there are two options: capitalise species names or not. I have a marginal preference, and an ingrained habit as a result, of starting species names with capitals, as in Common Gull and Shy Albatross, for the reason that not flagging them up as species in this simple way can lead to people thinking that one is writing about all those gu