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8th Nov, 2006
A belated welcome to the latest manifestation of what was once the Nature Conservancy. The Urban Wildlife network welcomes the new organisation and wishes all connected with it well. All the corporate-speak is on its website (www.naturalengland.org.uk) but we will have to wait and see how its aspirations translate into actions, and how effective those actions turn out to be.
A keen-eyed member of UWN has spotted that in their publicity they "have an objective to provide accessible natural space within 300 metres of every home in England for exercise, relaxation and wellbeing." That member goes on to say “Interesting. how? Some demolition of significant areas of our towns and cities will be required, methinks.”
Maybe we will see the three ‘ds’ – demolition, designation (as with Local Nature Reserves) and declaration (as with town greens, see item on this website). Maybe not.
More seriously, Natural England has said that common to all of its work will be “connecting people and the natural environment” and “we will be about the urban as well as the rural environment”.
One of the first major issues to be tackled has to be the paucity of Natural England’s resources. Even with farm support monies its budget is only £500M, and goodness knows how little of that will actually go directly to nature conservation. Every citizen of England enjoys (or at least experiences) their local natural environment. The Government sees fit to devote about £10 per person per year to its provision in this area. Is that enough?
