The EU Birds and Habitats directives, which have done much to at least slow the tide of wildlife destruction in this country and abroad, are under threat from ‘revision’ at the hands of the EU Commission President who wants to ‘modernise’ them i.e. water them down in favour – as he evidently sees it – of big business and resource consumption growth economics, which is part of the problem in the first place. We urge followers of ‘Bexley Wildlife’ to join the RSPB, WWF and other conservation groups in opposing these moves, irrespective of the views they may have on the European Union as a whole.
Wildlife doesn’t respect national borders, or EU borders, and in any case, if the UK leaves the Union it will undoubtedly carry on for years afterwards, so this is about protecting European wildlife, wherever it lives or chooses to go within the EU. With Mr. Cameron having quickly given up the Husky-hugging in favour of describing protections for the environment as ‘green crap’, and Mr. Osborne wanting to unleash a construction boom and more road-building upon us in the name of ‘progress’ – with little or no objection from the so-called ‘opposition’ – we need all the quality tools we can get to try and face this onslaught down.
This Marsh Harrier, seen from a distance sitting in a Reedbed at Crossness, is currently protected by the EU Birds Directive. (Photo: Karen Sutton)
The EU is running a public consultation on the issue, which closes on the 24th of July. To simply sign a petition supporting the directives, go to:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/joinandhelp/campaignwithus/defendnature/
(note that the supporting text suggests that you will see the RSPB’s pre-prepared comments, but you won’t – the same applies on the WWF website version).
The EU has its own webpage where you can submit your own comments, but this has been unavailable for at least the last two days due to ‘server problems’. We have written to the relevant EU e-mail address asking for confirmation that the consultation will be extended for however many days this problem lasts.
For a well-written piece on why all this matters see:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/martinharper/archive/2014/09/11/why-european-president-juncker-is-wrong.aspx
Chris Rose. Vice-chair, Bexley Natural Environment Forum.
Hi Chris, I just signed the petition on the RSPB website and I was able to see all their pre-prepared answers to the consultation questions (I clicked on the link to see their answers & it was all at the bottom of the page).
The Woodland Trust is also part of this joint campaign, and is gathering extra, personal views from people in order to add depth and detail to the survey responses: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blogs/woodland-trust/2015/06/woods-need-eu-and-you/. After the survey closes on July 24th, the Commission will make recommendations which will go to Ministers including our own Elizabeth Truss, for a decision – at which point it becomes a political decision and anything can happen!