Page 12 - Natural World Winter 2017
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PEOPLE & WILDLIFE
An act for nature
The Wildlife Trusts are calling for an Environment Act: an ambitious piece of
framework legislation that would give our wildlife a unique opportunity to recover
AMWELL RESERVE/MATTHEW ROBERTS I magine taking a train journey Everything We have a chance to act now,
through the countryside in 25 we value together, and give wildlife a real
years’ time. From the window, derives chance to recover. If we’re ambitious
you see red kites gliding across from nature enough, we really could be the first
beautiful farmland and woods. Bees generation to leave the environment
are buzzing in the vibrant field dolphins, vast shoals of tuna – in a better state than we inherited it.
margins and thriving hedgerows. they’re a regular occurrence now.
A wildlife-rich world is important
You whizz past a vast wetland When you arrive in the bustling for its own sake, but we also know it
teeming with egrets, herons and, city, the air you breathe is just as is the foundation of our society and
although you don’t see them, water clean as it is in the countryside. economy. Ultimately everything we
voles. There are no stories about Above the urban hubbub, eat and drink; the air we breathe;
flooding in the news – the recent blackbirds, robins and dunnocks our fuel, clothes and shelter derives
heavy rainfall has been locked into are singing loudly. You stroll over a from the natural world. So does
the landscape, caught upstream. river: earlier this morning, an otter everything we value: our health,
swam beneath this bridge, a fat wellbeing and possessions.
Last week, when you went to brown trout in its mouth. In a park
the seaside on holiday, the beach across the street, schoolchildren are Yet, we have taken it for granted;
was pristine: no plastic bottles, having a lesson in the shade of the mined the natural world mercilessly.
rockpools full of life. Seabirds were trees. They look happy and focused. Isn’t it time for us to enter a new era
fishing just o shore. The fish’n’chip in our relationship with nature?
shop was doing a roaring trade This doesn’t have to be a dream.
selling local catch – since the seas Acts of Parliament are an
have been recovering, both people expression of what a nation values.
and wildlife have benefited. Whales, Acts have ushered in healthcare
and education for all, and made us
12 NATURAL WORLD WINTER 2017
