Earlier this month analysis carried out by the Met Office
about the consequences global warming was reported by the BBC's Panorama
programme. The way they explained this unsettling conclusion caught the
national imagination.
If climate change continues at the current rate white
Christmases will only be found on greeting cards. By the 2040's most of
Southern England will no longer see the thermometer fall below zero in the
Winter; by the 2060's snow will only be found on then most remote parts of
Scotland.
Dr Lizzie Kendon, a senior scientist at the Met Office told
the BBC 'We're saying by the end of the century much of the lying snow will
have disappeared entirely except over the highest ground'.
The news coverage focussed on the idea of a Christmas
without snowmen, sleigh rides or snowball fights, or as Dr Kendon warned
striking a more serious note, a ' shift towards more extreme ' weather events.
The Met office based its unsettling predictions on the
world warming up by just 4 degrees. This was only the latest warning about the
poor health of the Natural world.
In 2018 the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England
warned that the amount of green space lost to development has risen by 58%.
That includes the paving over of farmland, forests, and other green spaces.
The Green Space Index produced by Fields in Trust in 2019,
2.5million Britons live more than ten minutes-walk away from a park or other
green space.
The link between having access to green spaces and better
mental and physical wellbeing is well known. Fields in Trust estimate this to
be worth £3.2billion every hear, as Alison McCann, policy and insight manager
for the charity told the BBC people with access to green spaces nearby are
'reaping some huge rewards'.
The State of Nature report (2019) based on the details of
scientific monitoring conducted from the seventies onwards shows a fall of 41%
in the UK's animal population. Worryingly 15% of wildlife species found in the
UK are threatened with extinction.
There have been some hopeful signs in recent years
including the reintroduction of red kites, bitterns, and other species however
the losses outweigh the gains.
Leading figures in the conservation world expressed their
concerns at the launch of the report to the Ecologist magazine.
Tony Juniper chair of Natural England said, 'more needs to
be so e to reverse nature's decline, so that our children can benefit from a
richer natural environment '.
Rosie Halls of the National Trust said the report showed
that the natural world was 'at a crossroads ' and that we all need to 'pull
together with actions not words to stop the decline'.
Daniel Hayhow, the lead author of the report said that its
findings should make people 'sit up and listen', he added the an urgent and determined response is needed
if 'we are to put nature back where it belongs'.
The crisis affecting the future of the natural world can be
seen in a hand sized version by anyone who visits Cannock Chase in
Staffordshire where fears for the future of one of the county's iconic
landscapes.
The plan put forward to protect and revive the Chase by
campaign group For The Love of Cannock Chase is a determined response to
environmental crisis of the sort recommended by Daniel Hayhow and others. It is
sad that it has met with a negative response from some members of the local
community.
As Sophie Pavelle, a young conservationist who helped to
launch the State of Nature report told The Ecologist, 'people protect what they
love', sometimes that means doing what is right for the long term; not trying
to please a few people right now.
Cannock Chase is a unique and valuable green space loved by
the people of Staffordshire for centuries. As MS Pavelle might have put it, now
is the time for everyone who truly cares about its future to come together, work together; to 'dig deep
and find real hope for a better and sustained future' for the natural world.
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