British wildlife campaigner and tv presenter Chris Packham joined protesters outside the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on Thursday following the release of a devastating report on the state of UK wildlife.
On Wednesday, the National Trust released its State of Nature report which found that one in six of the 10,000-plus species across the UK risk going extinct.
The report found 43% of British bird species, 31% of our amphibians and reptiles, and one-in-four land mammals (26%) are now facing extinction.
Some of those now facing an uncertain future include the turtle dove, the hazel dormouse, the lady’s slipper orchid, and the European eel, the report says.
On Wednesday, the National Trust released its State of Nature report which found that one in six of the 10,000-plus species across the UK risk going extinct.
The report found 43% of British bird species, 31% of our amphibians and reptiles, and one-in-four land mammals (26%) are now facing extinction.
Some of those now facing an uncertain future include the turtle dove, the hazel dormouse, the lady’s slipper orchid, and the European eel, the report says.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Well I read the State of Nature report some time ago as I'd read the previous three and
00:04 this one merely adds to a catalogue of decline and disappearance when it comes to UK species
00:09 and habitats and these are the things which get me out of bed in the morning. I love life,
00:13 I love wildlife and I've grown up in the UK, I'm very keen to protect it, as are all of
00:18 the other non-government organisations and bodies that are here today. So we've assembled
00:22 all of the most committed conservationists that we possibly could. And these are the
00:27 people with the skill and expertise to make a difference and what the report shows is
00:30 that when we come together and we have sufficient funding, we've got the energy, the skills,
00:35 the technologies and the passion, we can make that difference. The problem is we can't do
00:41 it broadly enough and rapidly enough without government support and what we've seen in
00:46 recent times, again highlighted in the report, is that funding for nature restoration and
00:51 recovery has been cut 5% in the last five years and 50% in recent times. Now what we
00:58 need is more support for our farmers, our foresters and our fisher people to make sure
01:03 that they can afford to move through a transition whereby they can farm fish and forest and still
01:10 allow nature to flourish. We know it's possible, again the report is not ambiguous about that,
01:15 but it does require public sector funding and it requires changes in practices to make
01:20 it easier for those people to implement those schemes and that's essentially why we're here
01:25 today. We have a second purpose and the second purpose is that many of these people have
01:30 very focused interests. We've got people here who are really passionate about amphibians,
01:34 we've got people here who are really passionate about bumblebees or bats, but underneath that
01:39 focused interest is a very recognised commonality of the fact that we want a healthier landscape
01:45 in the UK. We want our wildlife to be able to prosper and in order to achieve that I
01:49 think it's really important that we come together and work more strategically and more cooperatively.
01:56 So I'm very pleased to see this unity of energy, ambition and ability.