Conservation

…take all the trees and put them in a tree museum…

So sang Joni Mitchell, and never a truer sentiment was sung. It’s not always obvious either. For example, I live in ‘England’s green and pleasant land’, and, if you take satellite images it is a patchwork of green fields, woodlands, hills and rivers. However, not all is well in this nation. Our rivers are increasingly polluted by irresponsible companies that discharge sewerage rather than deal with it efficiently. Our fields are subject to chemical farming, so intense that nature is lucky to have corners to call its own. Hills may look pleasantly dotted with sheep, but they are cropped so low that native species no longer thrive in the uplands.  Elsewhere, shooting estates favour red deer and allow them to grow to such large herds that they too desecrate the hillsides. Ancient woodland has often been replaced with coniferous plantation, which grows fast, but supports little by way of birds and mammals. Grouse moors virtually farmed for red grouse to be shot each season and birds of prey are eradicated by irresponsible landowners and their gamekeepers. On top of which, species invade, claiming the space needed by native species.

Sadly, many countries across the earth are decimating their forests, draining their wetlands and allowing hillsides to be cleared in such a way that erosion is inevitable. Citizens and governments know it’s happening, but rarely do more than pay lip service for conservation efforts.

 Conservation is not all about rare antpittas in the depths of the rain forest… each of us can help the birds in our own back yards and, by the way we live directly affect the environment in a more positive way. At the very least we can join a society that helps to conserve the object of all our admiration; our own country’s birds themselves.

Each of us individually, and all of us collectively, are responsible for pushing nature back to the fringes. It is our collective responsibility to turn that tide, not just for the sake of nature, of animals, or even especially for birds, but for ourselves. As nature retreats, so do potential aerators, oxygenators, fertilizers, and everything else that nature has been doing for millions of years without our interference. Each of us needs to be part of the solution, for if we are not, we are inevitably part of the problem!

This section has links to websites concerned with the conservation of birds. Some sites are resources to conservationists, others are of conservation movements and organisations or reports on conservation work but the majority are to specific conservation projects around the world. Many of these websites are worth a visit if you are looking to see how you can help.

For websites pertaining to light pollution and its effects on birds, also see the Fatbirder Migration page.