New builds to help the birds – the RSPB’s hard sell

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/09/new-builds-birds-rspb

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Meet your friendly, neighbourhood property developer: the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Britain’s biggest conservation charity is in a spot of bother in Congleton, Cheshire, over its support for hundreds of new homes. Conservationists and developers spend so much time in combat that we become suspicious when they work together. But some Congleton residents are incensed by RSPB plans to sell eight hectares left to it 12 years ago by a local woman, Lavinia Rhead, who asked that it would not be built upon.

Conservation charities are routinely left houses and other assets, which they sell to fund their work. In Congleton, the RSPB was given good agricultural land, which it claims has no wildlife value and is too small to “rewild”. But its value to developers may be as high as £6m, which could fund a lot more conservation elsewhere.

According to Andre Farrar of the RSPB, Rhead did not make her gift a binding one – so the RSPB can legally sell the land, despite her wishes. “I’m absolutely confident that she attached a non-binding condition to her generous gift because she was aware that things could change,” he says.

Beyond ethical concerns, there is a truism that a housing estate with gardens and trees is better for wildlife than a prairie field of barley doused in chemicals, and Congleton isn’t the only area where the RSPB is working alongside developers. It has entered a partnership with Barratt Homes to add “green infrastructure” including orchards, hedgehog highways and newt ponds to 2,450 new homes near Aylesbury. Once again, some local residents are furious that this construction will cover an already wildlife-rich place.

For developers, such partnerships are a win-win: they get great PR and nature – water views, green spaces, wildlife – helps sell houses for premium prices. For conservationists, I’m not so sure. Pragmatically, they help make inevitable new homes better for wildlife, and built in the best places they can be. But charities can become embroiled in energy-sapping local disputes and lose a lot of goodwill. People forget, for instance, that the RSPB is still fighting many wildlife-damaging developments, such as the 5,000 new homes earmarked for Lodge Hill, Kent, a brownfield site that’s England’s best place for nightingales.

Not very pheasant

Our countryside is changed more profoundly by one bird than any other: the pheasant. About 40m of these voracious, non-native birds are released each summer for the autumn shoots. Now startling new evidence shows how the feeding stations stuffed with seeds for game birds actually support a panoply of other “pests”. A two-year study has found that 67% of pheasant food is devoured by rats, pigeons and corvids – all of which are increasing in number in Britain. Pheasants are perfect ambassadors for us in the bird world: quite jolly but also noisy, careless and wreaking more havoc than we intend.

Altruistic by nature

I’ve struggled to explain our attraction to coastal landscapes in my book, Coastlines, by making the obvious point that contemplating something as grand as the ocean is profoundly comforting because it makes our lives, and fears, seem trivial and tiny. In a post-religious era, perhaps we don’t feel small often enough. Is this just an individualistic argument? Enlightenment arrives in unexpected places. Psychologists led by Paul Piff of the University of California, Irvine, asked volunteers to spend a minute gazing at a grove of 200ft tall Tasmanian eucalyptus trees. Another group gazed at a less awe-inspiring building. The psychologists then “accidentally” dropped a box of pens. Those who had been admiring the lovely trees helpfully picked up more pens. So wild grandeur is not just good for us – it makes us better people, too.