New Naturalist: Nature Conservation by Peter Marren, Collins, 拢19.99, ISBN 0007113064 Reviewed by Gail Vines
OVER the past few decades, 鈥渟aving鈥� wildlife has become a cause c茅l猫bre across much of Europe and North America. In Britain alone, a once-obscure charity devoted to the 鈥減rotection of birds鈥� now has more than a million members.
Even central government has grudgingly come to add nature conservation to its political agenda in recent years. The plight of the flamingo moss and the narrow-headed ant, for example, are now officially recognised in Britain鈥檚 鈥淏iodiversity Action Plan鈥�. Awesomely boring reports abound.
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But is any of this working? In Nature Conservation, Peter Marren sets out to examine the track record of conservationists in Britain from 1950 to 2001.
His verdict is far from reassuring. More and more people say they support conservation, yet the countryside is far less wild and fascinating than it was only a few decades ago. County by county, the British countryside is steadily losing wild animals and plants.
So who鈥檚 to blame? Marren casts a critical eye at conservation officialdom, which he knows from the inside, having worked for 13 years as local officer, writer and editor for the government鈥檚 Nature Conservancy Council. Now a freelance field naturalist and writer, Marren is in a good position to see where the mountains of plans and committees are taking us.
鈥淭o read some conservation reports,鈥� writes Marren, 鈥測ou could be forgiven for mistaking species and habitats for a substance, like bubblegum, that will roll off the conveyor line in measured quantities once you set up the right inputs.鈥� Libertarian by instinct, Marren is intrinsically suspicious of planners, and of the current talk of grand-scale habitat creation schemes. Such 鈥渄rawing-board conservation鈥� is likely to lead to a 鈥淢cDonald鈥檚 version of Britain, much the same from top to bottom, without meaning or detail鈥�.
Marren longs for the rebirth of old-style popular natural history, where all sorts of people take a knowledgeable interest in the wild birds, bugs and wildflowers around them. Such a grassroots resurgence would do more to safeguard our countryside than any number of official reports, he implies.
It is always a mistake, he argues, to see wild animals and plants as pets or targets, when the wonder of them lies in their very otherness 鈥� their indifference to us and their resistance to human management. 鈥淭o break free, naturalists will have to put the conservation industry behind them for a while,鈥� says Marren, 鈥渁nd rediscover that older quality embodied in the credo of the New Naturalist series, that 鈥榠nquiring spirit鈥�.鈥�