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The Sound of Starvation

Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust member Rob Carlyle puts into perspective the decline of wildlife over the decades, and the importance of taking action for nature.

Why we must take collective action to defend and restore nature - With its focus on reducing ‘red tape’ and ‘liberalising’ planning rules the Government's new Growth Plan has been widely interpreted as a worrying attack on nature. Our sector vociferously spelled out what is at risk, yet in some quarters our heartfelt concern has been portrayed as unjustified and politically motivated.

Here, longstanding Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust member Rob Carlyle, a retired Head Teacher passionate about nature and individual efforts to reduce environment impact, outlines why he believes it is vital that the sector acts collectively to #DefendNature

We’re on a guided bird walk in Bestwood Country Park.

The park is a green haven on the edge of Nottingham. Seven hundred acres of woodland and farmland and heath and lakes and unimproved pasture deeply rooted in our mining heritage. A haven for wildlife and loved by thousands of visitors.

Kingfisher on branch

Kingfisher (📷: Rob Bates)

The walks are always over-subscribed. And we always have lots of sightings to share as we enjoy coffee and cake in the Dynamo House Volunteer café afterwards. Kingfisher. Brambling. Lesser redpoll. Siskin. The talk goes on.

One of our walkers is Norman - one of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust's longest standing members. He’s been walking this park and birdwatching in it for most of his eighty years. He tells another story of the birds around us. And those that aren’t anymore.…

‘Off the top of my head,’ he lists the birds that were once common here but have now vanished. Turtle dove... spotted flycatcher... lesser spotted woodpecker... breeding woodcock... breeding snipe … marsh tit... willow tit... hawfinch... wood warbler... redstart… whinchat... grasshopper warbler.

‘Where have they gone?’ we ask.

In answer, he asks ‘Can you hear that?’

‘What?’ we ask

‘It’s the sound of starvation’.

And it’s food Norman focuses on. Or lack of it. Invertebrate food mainly.

Dr Sheila Wright of Notts Biological Records Office tells us that we’ve lost 90% of our invertebrates in the last century. That’s an awful lot of food gone missing.

The iconic little Ladybird ‘What to look for ….’  series by C.F. Tunnicliffe quite brilliantly created a kind of nature's Domesday Book of post-war wildlife. It is so far from my daily wildlife experience as to be almost a fiction.

We’ve lost so much wildlife.

This year as I walk, no cuckoos. No tree sparrows. Few starlings. No swifts. No corn buntings.

The reason for their declines are complex. But they certainly weren’t fed to death.

Turtle dove on branch

Turtle dove (📷: Amy Lewis)

Norman and I swap reasons for the catastrophic decline being acted out in our lifetimes.

Greater farming efficiency is leaving little room for nature. Professor Dave Goulson tells us that when Rachel Carson wrote her famous ‘Silent Spring’, thirty-seven pesticides were available to farmers. Today, there are more than 1000.

We know that factory farming in the far east is responsible for deadly avian flu. Effluent discharges from intensive units at home too frequently pollute watercourses.

We need to make changes now and need the campaigning voice of the Wildlife Trusts and the other conservation bodies to stand up for nature. Our government needs to make positive change for nature and this must be sustained.

Streams, rivers and the oceans are also awash with human sewage due to lack of investment in water treatment.

When Tunicliffe illustrated the ‘What to look for …’ series there were still red squirrels in Nottinghamshire. Invasive non-native grey squirrels carrying deadly squirrel pox have put paid to our pretty reds. North American mink have brought water voles close to extinction along the Leen. Our own white-clawed crayfish are being eradicating by alien signal crayfish. Himalayan balsam is choking our streams. Fifty million pheasants are released in Britain each year; their total body mass greater than that of all our songbirds.

Red squirrel

Red squirrel (📷: Harry Hogg)

And on we go…

‘But our land is precious’, I hear you say, ‘We need every inch for our farmers to produce food on it’.

It’s true that many farmers face huge pressure. Our weather is increasingly unpredictable. Crops are not accepted if they don’t meet exacting visual standards. Imported vegetables and fruit undercut UK produced food and as a result Nottinghamshire farmers have been left with crops they cannot afford to harvest. Intensively produced meat from abroad threatens to undercut our home grown meat produced to our high welfare and conservation standards. There’s a lot of financial pressure bearing down on farmers.

And two-for-one ‘BOGOF’ deals encourage us to buy double what we need. And then throw it away.

There are the complicating factors of land used to produce biofuels. And vast tracts of land given over for sporting estates that the RSPB and other organisations view as not being sympathetic to biodiversity.

And then there’s climate change…

It’s all so complex. What can we do? We can’t do nothing. We must join together. We must push back.

We need to make changes now and need the campaigning voice of the Wildlife Trusts and the other conservation bodies to stand up for nature. Our government needs to make positive change for nature and this must be sustained.

Ours is a world that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

It’s time to stand up for nature.

Further Reading

Rob runs an informative blog about sustainable gardening and environmental issues.

Read Rob's blog

If you'd like to find out more about how you can help protect our wild spaces, please take a look at our #DefendNature page.

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