Halting the decline of nature

Campaigns, Climate Crisis

Three of Britain’s biggest conservation charities with a total membership of 8.5 million are joining forces to try to halt the destruction of UK nature. The National Trust, WWF and RSPB are coming together voice to call on everyone to act now to protect the natural world. “We’ve come together because whilst we have spectacular nature here in the UK, it is in crisis,” said Tanya Steele, the chief executive of WWF, which has 1.5m members.

The BBC reports that a YouGov poll commissioned for the new campaign found that 76% of people are worried about the condition of nature in the UK. It also reveals we have no idea how bad things are as 5% of people rated the UK as one of the worst countries for protecting nature. 55% thought the UK was doing as well as the rest of the world or better.

However, according to the Living Planet Index produced by the Natural History Museum, the UK is in the bottom 10% of countries globally for protecting nature.

An RSPB State of Nature Report in 2019 found that more than 40% of UK species populations have declined since 1970 while 30 million birds had vanished from our skies in the last 50 years. A quarter of our mammals risk extinction while 97% of our wildflower meadows have vanished since the 1930s.

Much of our nature and environment is at risk, but the move by the three conservations charities is an important step forward.