Wild plants - local losses

Plantlife has revealed that recent investigation has disclosed that an average of seven wild plant species are being lost from each county across Britain, every ten years. The report, 'Where have all the flowers gone?' was researched and written by naturalist Peter Marren, author of Britain’s Rare Flowers, and based its findings on standard sources such as Government surveys and County Floras.

In the worst counties of Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, and Gloucestershire, one native species becomes extinct every single year. Until now, nation-wide statistics, with their emphasis on national losses, have unwittingly hidden the shocking facts.

Both Cambridgeshire, mostly farmland, and old Middlesex, mostly suburban,have lost seven or eight species every decade, suggesting that modern agriculture is as damaging as bricks and mortar. This similarity between the losses of suburban and rural landscapes is reflected throughout Britain. Sadly, the losses are mainly native flowers of natural habitats. Any gains in the flora of the counties tend to be vigorous, aggressive common plants, such as cow parsley, stinging nettles or non-native species that thrive on artificially enriched soils or in our waterways, now awash with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The result is an increasingly homogeneous countryside where local variations are becoming the exception.

Orchids, sensitive to change and recognised as being useful environmental indicators, have been hit hard and most counties are losing one orchid species every ten years. Sundews and other carnivorous plants are also disappearing, especially from the lowlands. Less than a century ago, virtually every county in Britain contained sundews. Most also had butterworts and bladderworts. Now, in the agricultural counties of the Midlands and eastern England, it has become hard to find any.

The chief culprits for such a scale of loss have not been difficult to identify. Yet, for plants it appears that the issues of greatest concern are the draining of the countryside and the falling quality of water through pollution from agricultural fertilisers, sewage and vehicle emissions. A farming industry that has been dependent on subsidies for food production has led to significant changes in agricultural practices threatening our farmland flora, while neglect, mismanagement or wholesale destruction of habitats have brought down the axe on other native flowers.

Martin Harper, Conservation Director at Plantlife, commenting on the findings of the report, said "We are all alarmed at the scale of loss to local plants. If it is allowed to continue unchecked, our rich and varied countryside will become bland and uniform. Already, all we often see from the seat of our inter-city train is the emerald green of fields containing nothing but rye-grass, or bright yellow swathes of oilseed rape. Plantlife is urging government administrations to be both creative and courageous when devising strategies to reverse the decline in our native flora."

Flora Guardians go to work

Plantlife's new elite corps of conservation workers, the Flora Guardians, began to change the world on 3rd September. The volunteers were at secret locations on the outskirts of Oxford to improve habitats for Cotswold pennycress, Thlaspi perfoliatum, unique to the Cotswold area, and one of the Britain’s rare and threatened plants.

Martin Harper, Plantlife’s conservation director said: "Since our foundation eleven years ago our responsibility for protecting Britain’s rarest flowers has dramatically increased. Initiating the Flora Guardians volunteer scheme will enable us to increase our plant conservation effort in the county.

"In 1993 we were conserving eight species in England and one in Scotland. Today, our Back from the Brink programme covers 23 vascular plant species, including 5 in Oxfordshire."

Local wild-flower enthusiasts are asked to help look after your local area's threatened wild flowers by becoming Flora Guardians. If you are interested in learning more about Plantlife, or how you can help, please contact Tim Wilkins, Volunteers Coordinator, Plantlife, 21 Elizabeth Street, London SW1W 9RP, telephone 020 7808 0116.

GM crops - another accidental release

More modified genes have been released into the British countryside, this time as a result of accidental use of 'stacked' genes.

Some experimental plots of GM beet in Europe, including some in the UK, have been found to contain not one, but two, modified genes. Plants that should have only been tolerant to the herbicide glufosinate were also found to be resistant to glyphosate. This may have happened during seed production. Since beet plants can become weeds in following crops, and these GM ‘stacked gene' plants have the potential to survive conventional herbicide treatment, farmers might have to use other powerful herbicides to control them, risking yet more damage to biodiversity in and around fields.

The plants concerned have been destroyed and will not endanger the British wild gene pool. But English Nature is concerned with the slip-up.

"Accidental release of transgenes has serious potential for wildlife," said Dr Brian Johnson, English Nature's biotechnology advisor. "If the biotechnology industry can't control the spread of transgenes under experimental conditions, there is little chance of containment if commercial releases take place. English Nature has been calling for more rigorous measures to be taken to ensure that transgenes in crops do not spread either to other crops or to wild relatives if GM crops are ever commercialised."

The SCIMAC code recommends that GM crops are grown with separation distances between them and surrounding crops to minimise ‘gene stacking' and gene escape to conventional crops. English Nature is not convinced that these measures will provide enough protection against either stacking or escape.

Researchers from the cutting edge of plant genetics have contributed to recommendations in a recent report recommending changes in the way GM seeds are made. A sub-group of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment has produced suggestions as to how modification techniques might be improved. The group identifies techniques for eliminating the use of genetic markers, especially those that rely on antibiotic resistance. Methods for ensuring genetic isolation on crops are also highlighted, suggesting ways in which potential gene flow from GM crops could be virtually eliminated.

Best Practice

Nine groups unite for countryside

Organisations with a total membership of more than four million people have united in a group called Rural Futures, to highlight the peril of allowing the sustainable future of the countryside to disappear.

The RSPB, Friends of the Earth, the National Trust, International Society for Ecology and Culture, National Federation of Women's Institutes, National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs, Small and Family Farms Alliance, the Soil Association and The Land is Ours want to provide a voice for a greener countryside. The move comes ahead of the Government's expected Rural and Urban White Papers due out this autumn.

"In considering our 'countryside in crisis' have we, as a nation, listened to all the voices?" asks a spokesman.

"Rural Futures is a new coalition which recognises the need to step back from heated argument to consider in a calm, rounded, fair and objective a manner as possible, the underlying critical issues in order to create solutions for the future of our countryside."

Soil in danger

A recent report from the CPRE has underlined the problems in valuing the soil on which we rely for our food and the wild environment.

"Soil is one of our most precious environmental, economic and social resources, yet it remains undervalued, unprotected and at risk - even for its agricultural value." The report is concerned with the role of the planning system in protecting high quality agricultural land in the light of proposals by the Cabinet Office to weaken protection.

"Essential for producing food and fibre, [soil] regulates water flows, supports wildlife, embodies layers of history, and helps mould the landscape," says Neil Sinden, CPRE's Head of Planning and Local Government. "But soil receives no protection through the planning system except as an agricultural resource - and as the report shows even this is now under threat."

The research has revealed areas where soil resources are under threat from urban development and poor land management. In the Wye Valley large areas of river grassland have been ploughed up for potatoes destroying the distinctive landscape of the Wye, reducing biodiversity, and damaging the water quality of the river which in turn affects the salmon fishing for which the Wye is renowned. In the Nene Valley recent residential development on farmland on the outskirts of and within Northampton exacerbated the serious flooding which affected parts of the town in Easter 1998.

The Performance and Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office suggested in 1998 that current planning policy was reducing efficient use of agricultural land, and damaging the environment. It recommended that the policy to protect the best land be replaced with a new national framework for protecting areas of high environmental value. Such a policy would be a dilution of soil protection, which is already inadequate, says the report.

EU Directive 85/337/EEC requires environmentally damaging land use change to be subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment. The government has still not implemented this, although it should have been done by March 1999. This means that in Britain local people are unable to contest the destruction of valuable and distinctive landscapes by destructive agriculture.

Existing policies already often ignore high quality agricultural land as a factor when deciding on new developments, and the Ministry of Agriculture is already attaching much less importance to the protection of high quality farmland.

New chair for EN

On 27 November Professor David Norman will take over as Acting Chairman of English Nature. His appointment follows the resignation of Baroness Young of Old Scone, who is taking up her appointment as Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, and will cover an interim period until the position is filled permanently.

He has been a Council member since 1996 and is a keen conservationist with a particular interest in birds. He follows Barabara Lady Young, who has raised the profile of EN during a controversial period.

"Barbara Young is a hard act to follow, but I am delighted to be given the opportunity to step up my contribution to English Nature's work," says Professor Norman.

Farmers want compensation for drowned land

The National Farmers Union has responded to the recent warning that rising sea levels will mean flooded farmland by calling for compensation.

The report, 'Coast in Crisis', was produced by the RSPB, the National Trust, the Worldwide Fund for Nature and East Anglia county wildlife trusts. It warns that large-scale habitat losses are likely as a result of coastal erosion, which is being aggravated by global warming-induced sea level rise.

Habitats such as saltmarshes, shingle, sand dunes and freshwater wetlands are being squeezed between rising sea levels and fixed sea defences. About 2,500 acres of saltmarsh has been lost in Essex alone over the past 25 years. The report says a further 10,000 acres of saltmarsh will be lost in eastern England by the year 2050. It calls for a wider policy of 'managed retreat', the abandonment of specified areas of low-lying land to the sea.

Brian Finnerty, NFU spokesman in East Anglia, said: "There is no point in taking a King Canute approach and saying no water shall pass. You do have to be realistic but a compensation scheme should not only recognise the value of the land but loss of production."

Hedgehog cull needed - Bellamy

The famous naturalist Dr David Bellamy has called for one of our best-loved animals to be culled. The hedgehog, he says, has now turned from pet to pest.

A succession of warm winters has led to a boom in hedgehog populations and the increased numbers are now threatening birds. "They are destroying the birdlife completely in some areas," says Bellamy.

His call to kill hedgehogs came at the Conservative party conference, where he told a fringe meeting on the environment that people should set aside their perceptions of hedgehogs as lovable garden friends. "For birds they are ferocious killers," he said. "The best way to get rid of them is by using traps baited with poison."

Among the worst-hit areas are the islands of Benbecula and South Uist off the west coast of Scotland. Hedgehog populations on the Isles of Scilly, off Cornwall, are also surging, aided by their habit of producing two litters a year with up to five pups in each.

Such islands include important breeding areas for Britain's wading birds, especially vulnerable to hedgehogs because they lay their eggs in nests on the ground. Hedgehogs were first brought to South Uist in 1974 and soon spread to Benbecula. Dunlin numbers have fallen by 64% on South Uist to fewer than 700 breeding pairs, with similar reductions in other species. Meanwhile, bird numbers on North Uist, which is largely hedgehog-free, have remained static.

New badger cull areas named

The latest areas in which badgers will be culled have been named as Devon and Gloucestershire.

There are now ten such areas, as proposed by the Independent Scientific Group, which had asked for a commitment that ten would be on stream by the end of the year. Both the new areas have a high incidence of TB in cattle.

Each will be divided into three separate trial areas. In one area badgers will be left alone, in another they will be culled when found to be infected and in the other they will be cleared. The TB status of cattle in the trials will then be checked with a view to ascertaining whether badgers are responsible for passing on TB.

"The Government has a wide ranging strategy to control TB in cattle and the badger culling trial is one important element in that strategy," said MAFF minister Baroness Hayman. "I am very encouraged that the trial remains on course to provide robust scientific results."

She said the trials were subject to strict welfare safeguards and would not endanger badger populations.

An audit of the culls, by Dr James Kirkwood of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, made a number of recommendations covering training, procedures and future studies. It held that, overall, the culls are humane, but the the National Federation of Badger Groups has reservations.

"They are still killing badgers during the mating season," said Dr Elaine King, of the National Federation of Badger Groups. "The auditor expressed concerns in this report that badgers are killed during the mating season and that cubs are being left underground."

By the end of 2004 the results of the trials should be available.

Cumbrian bug new to Britain

Stephen Hewitt, keeper of natural sciences at Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, has found a bug which has never been recorded in Britain before. But it has probably been here all the time!

He found the bug, Saldula melanoscela, on the banks of the river Wampool at Kirkbride. "It wasn't a species I had seen before and I couldn't find it in any British reference books. I eventually went to a French book and even though I couldn't read the text very well I recognised this bug," Mr Hewitt said.

The Natural History Museum in London sent him samples and he was able to confirm the identification. But, on checking the Tullie House collection, he found that the bug had been lurking there all the time! "Out of curiosity I went back into the files in Tullie House and discovered we had this bug in here all along. It had been handed over to the museum and had been wrongly identified as another, which looks very like it," he said. "It was an understandable mistake given the old books available to them at the time."

"Previously it was only found as far north as Denmark and had never been identified on these shores. It is remarkable that such a relatively large insect has gone undiscovered for so long. It is very exciting to have discovered a species new to British entomologists."

Military airbase plan will destroy countryside

Plans to expand the military airfield at Farnborough in Hampshire will involve the destruction of over 70 hectares of surrounding countryside, 'scalping' nearby hills which need to be lowered to allow landings and felling hundreds of trees. The development is opposed by eco-warriors who warn that the site could see a struggle unmatched since the Newbury bypass protest in the early 1990's.

TAG Aviation is leading a consortium of developers who want to expand the capacity of the small military air base to cope with up to 28,000 flights a year. The new airfield would accept planes up to 80 tonnes - the size of a Boeing 737.

The hills which are affected by the works, Miles Hill and Eelmoor Hill West, are within the Bourley and Long Valley SSSI, itself part of the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area proposed for its rare and vulnerable birds. The SSSI is part of a military training area, and the government intends carrying out the development under special powers, rather than under normal planning procedures. English Nature is concerned about the effects of the land works on increased siltation of the Fleet Pond and Basingstoke Canal SSSI's. It feels, however, that if the work is properly carried out, the SPA status will not be affected, and tree felling may actually improve the environment of the Canal and heathland, which has sufferesd from reduced grazing in recent years.

Outline planning approval for the area under their control has been granted by the local authority.

RSPB warns of danger to rare birds

Some of Britain's rarest birds could become extinct in their native Scotland due to the climatic changes resulting from global warming, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Darren Kindleysides, the RSPB's marine policy officer, said top of the endangered list was the elusive snow bunting, found predominantly in the Cairngorm mountains.

"Birds are clearly the 'canary in the mine' heralding our changing climate," he said. "Already we are seeing climate change affecting birds - warmer temperatures mean that birds such as the snow bunting are facing extinction in Scotland whilst almost two-thirds of common birds are now nesting earlier than in the 1970s. We urgently need action to tackle climate change to protect our native birds from such man-made change."

There are currently around 100 breeding pairs of snow buntings in Scotland, but the species faces being driven further north to areas such as Scandinavia if the current climatic trends continued.

Members of Scottish Environment Link, representing around half a million members of voluntary environment and conservation groups, handed MSPs a 10-point action plan on climate change recently. They called for the Scottish Parliament to address the points raised and bring together social, environmental and business interests to reduce emissions and improve quality of life.

Warmer Britain - Not!

Global warming will not result in a warmer Mediterranean-type climate for Britain, according to a new study from the Public Marine Laboratory in Plymouth. Instead it will get much colder, with Cornwall becoming a centre for winter sports, ports around the country ice-bound for much of the year and icebergs a frequent sight around the western coast. In an even more extreme scenario American scientists are predicting that the UK could develop a climate similar to that of Spitsbergen, the island 400 miles north of Norway's mainland and just 780 miles from the North Pole.

The new research suggests that the Gulf Stream may be "pushed south" by global warming, which would mean that as the planet heats up, Britain, paradoxically, could actually get much colder. The melting of the polar ice cap, triggered by man-made climate change, could result in average temperatures that are three to five degrees Celsius colder and a year-round climate more like that of Newfoundland on Canada's eastern coast, where the weather-beaten landscape is cooled throughout the year by Arctic currents.

The change could begin to take effect within a few decades. Within just a few hundred years, perhaps only 200, the landscape would be dramatically altered.