rspb’s futurescapes programme

21 AIDAN LONERGAN RSPB’S FUTURESCAPES PROGRAMME

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 48 (2012)

RSPB’S FUTURESCAPES PROGRAMME AIDAN LONERGAN

Introduction I have been with the RSPB about twelve years. Previously I worked in both the International department and subsequently spent nearly six years as Director in Northern Ireland. I returned to take up the Futurescapes Programme Management in late 2009. In this presentation, I intend to briefly outline the nature of the Futurescapes programme and some of the key challenges facing all those seeking to deliver landscape-scale conservation across the UK.

The starting point for the programme is the reality that we are still losing biodiversity and this will be exacerbated by climate change. We are living beyond our environmental limits and we are losing nature because it is not valued in our decision making, or indeed in our government’s decision making. Public support for nature conservation is not making its way through into the decision-making of governments consistently over time.

Climate Change Climate Change is happening and it is going to put pressure on biodiversity in a way that we have never had experience of as nature conservationists. There is no analogue in human history and the nature conservation history of dealing with these challenges. This is going to put pressure on species like we have never experienced before as a sector.

The theme of the conference is landscapes and linking up spaces. Futurescapes fits that billing very nicely. It is all about scaling up. The Lawton Report, produced by a group chaired by Professor John Lawton, looked at protective areas in England and their performance. The synopsis of their findings is easy to remember; these protected areas do not work as a coherent network and they need to be “bigger, better and more connected”. Anybody who works in land management for nature conservation would have known that already, so we have acquisition strategies to increase the size of existing areas. We have targets of improving the conditions of the areas we manage.

Both the Futurescapes and Living Landscapes programmes are about the bits in-between and linking them all up. In doing so we will employ a variety of interventions to try to connect, buffer, soften the matrix, reverse fragmentation and increase heterogeneity. What we are trying to do is to increase the quality and variation of a landscape within these landscape areas. This is a really important point for the NGO community, if you look where biodiversity is and where it is heading and if you look at the challenges of climate change, if you look at the economic downturn, on less money being spent on nature conservation, there is a set of huge challenges in this for everybody involved in nature conservation.

The new target to halt biodiversity loss is now 2020. If we imagine we are now in 2020 and look back. What have we done different, individually and as organisations, to help us reach that target? What are we going to let go of? Are we going to become more real and trusting partners with a whole range of people like farmers, like other NGOs? There is a big challenge for us in


Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 48 22

there and we have to rise to it. So we have Living Landscapes and we have Wetland Vision, a 50-year vision for wetlands and our own Futurescapes, all the other NGOs are thinking along the same line.

There have been a few more important new developments worth mentioning that help create a more positive environment to deliver landscape scale conservation. These include the National Ecosystem Service (NEA) Assessment, an assessment of the natural services we get from the environment which we usually take for granted and don’t value. Two thirds of them are in decline. We are already involving society in an experiment about how much biodiversity loss we can deal with. I don’t want to be part of that experiment, I just happened to find myself living in this place and time. But more fundamentally, the life support systems of the planet are being messed around with. Globally, it is the same figure, two thirds. We are in a cosseted part of the world where we have a high standard of living and we probably feel a little bit removed from pressures like that, but there are places in the world where it is a real hand to mouth existence and these challenges are going to kick in first.

Natural Environment White Paper The greenest government ever, that is what they like to call themselves, but that remains to be seen – and let’s give them a chance. The Natural Environment White Paper and a new England biodiversity strategy, essentially rewrites the toolkit that we’re going to work with here in Suffolk/England. And crucially on the theme of this conference, which is kind of landscape scale, the Natural Environment White Paper clearly signals an intention to develop Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs), the latest in a series of acronyms talking about landscape-scale conservation. We are at a stage where they have had a first round of applications for nature improvement areas in England, they have had 78 and have funding for 12, so it is going to be a bit of a whittling down process. What is interesting is that we will get twelve nature improvement areas. But outside that, there is still going to be a lot of activity and a lot of it on a landscape scale.

Figure 1. Vision statements



The challenges to delivering Landscape scale conservation across the UK In my work over the last two years, I have encountered quite a number of challenges that I think we need to be aware of as we go into this brave new world of landscape-scale conservation.

Are all our approaches the same? Are we working in the most important areas? Where should we put our effort? There are a series of questions that we need to bottom out if we are going to really work together on this. How do we know it works? We have to meet the monitoring challenge. We have to clearly illustrate that they work if we are going to attract or divert public money into these approaches. There is a whole issue of governance around these programmes. There are a lot of people doing a lot of things but can it be streamlined? Can we share data? Can we complement each other’s efforts? You only have to look at a map of the Suffolk coast and see how many NGOs are working here. Whether we like it or not, our efforts are ecologically connected. But we could do more to connect them more effectively.

Probably the biggest challenge here is one I feel quite passionate about. What are NGOs going to do? Because this is the sector I am involved in. What are we going to do differently? It is not about regularising competing brands; there will also be individual marketing and income generation initiatives. But we really need to think about this. The challenges are so big. Are we going to present a joint front to the external world who don’t fully understand or appreciate what we are talking about? In fact, we also speak a different language from them and can alienate them through jargon. It is a challenge for the NGO sector and we need to collectively put more pressure on Government. This is important. There is a long term time bomb ticking away which we know about. We have heard the histories since the 1950s so we have to collectively make every effort to get the conditions right so that that is reversed.

Partnership Within landscape scale conservation programmes, we will concentrate on those areas outside the reserves and protected areas networks. This land s owned and managed by a variety of people/organisations that we need to be in a constructive dialogue with. Is the NGO community sufficiently equipped with the engagement skills to work with these people? Do we have those softer skills? Do we understand the pressures those people are working under? What is driving them to manage the land in a certain way? What language do we use? Do we alienate them before we even start having a conversation with them? These are real challenges because it is the activities of others that are going to deliver nature conservation that will complement the activities of the NGOs and others in core areas.

Money How are we going to fund these programme in the midst of an economic downturn? The work programmes that are seen as nice or optional tend to get axed first. However, nature conservation is not an option – it is essential.



As a sector, we need to get more creative in how we secure funding for nature conservation. We will have to connect it successfully to deliver funding streams far beyond the already small and currently diminishing nature funds. We must investigate all possibilities for funding but ensure there is no sell out/ no licence to thrash. Such investigation into possible new sources of funding does not in anyway dilute the fundamental moral imperative to conserve nature.

Community Engagement I think this is a huge challenge for NGOs. This is about people; we have to take people with us. This isn’t about putting fences around things and getting people to visit. This is about integrating nature conservation into other land uses. It is about getting people to understand that they have a say. As a sector, we need to mature away from sharing our visions with communities but having the skills and bravery to developed shared visions. Long-term relationships with key communities within priority landscapes will be one of the cornerstones of any successful programme of landscape scale conservation

Futurescapes The RSPB’s Futurescapes programme first came about in 2001; it was the first time we mentioned the need to work at a landscape scale. We launched the new programme in June 2010 with biodiversity loss and climate change being the starting points of a programme to scale up the delivery of nature conservation through collaboration with other land managers.

It is about looking at all UK landscapes. They can be sorted into discrete landscapes identifying what is negative, what you need to reverse, what you need to connect, what you need to buffer. The RSPB has written a report on the science behind landscape-scale conservation. To summarise: more diversity in larger areas; presence of key species more likely in larger areas; biodiversity correlates with habitat variety; and (crucially) species are moving already as a result of climate change.

What do we want to do in these places? What are the tools?

• More land in conservation management – The most expensive and the hardest to fund option. If we can do it we will. All the major NGOs who are involved with land management will continue to acquire/manage more land. But it is expensive and our starting point in your budget every year is that bit higher because we have got more land to manage

• Corridors and stepping stones • Improving the general condition – Can we get more farmers into agri-

environment schemes? Can we target them? Can we cluster them? • Buffering protected areas – Protected areas are not performing the

function they were designed to. So within this landscape agenda, can we work to buffer these areas, and try to deliver some of that bigger, better and more connected landscape?

The RSBP has a proud history of nature conservation, particularly reserve development. It manages approximately 150,000 hectares at over 200 sites. The landscape approach builds on those successes, we have core areas that



Figure 2. Futurescapes Locations. 1. Flows 2. Caledonian Forest 3. Living Loch Leven 4. Inner Forth 5. Machair 6. Cree Valley native woodlands 7. Lough Beg 8. Sliabh Beagh 9. Solway Wetlands 10. Lake High Fells 11. Morecambe Bay 12. Bowland 13. Ribble Estuary 14. Humberhead Levels 15. Dearne Valley Green Heart 16. Dark Peak 17. North Wales Moors 18. Shropshire Wetlands 19. Sherwood Forest 20. Trent & Tame River Valleys 21. Fens 22. Broads 23. Upper Nene Valley 24. Suffolk Coast 25. Gwent Levels 26. Upper Thames River Valleys 27. Ray Valley 28. Greater Thames Estuary 29. Cornwall Coast 30. Somerset Levels & Moors 31. Purbeck Heathlands 32. Wiltshire Chalk Grassland 33. East Solent Harbours.



have been managed, in some cases for quite a long time, and can provide us with a reservoir for the recolonisation of the wider countryside. In fact, we have been working at a landscape scale for quite some time. In the Flow Country in northern Scotland we have been working to acquire land and to work with partners to remove forestry from the bogs. We are experienced in managing big complex projects.

People worry, when looking at these maps with their big shaded areas, that the RSBP is being acquisitive. In fact these areas on the map you see are areas of collaboration of joint action, of community relationships and of (in the future) more space for nature. The approach we seek is voluntary and collaborative in nature. The key issue here is that we see ourselves as the catalyst for change, not the owners of change. The Futurescapes programme is RSPB’s contribution to the need to upscale the delivery of nature conservation across the UK. We are going to work with other people and collectively build a better future for Nature.

People and connectedness I have two children and am very conscious that they are being constantly monitored in way I was not. When I was seven, the same age as my daughter, I was with friends learning to swim in a river! There have been studies analysing the distance a child moves from home unsupervised. This has contracted and contracted over the years. How connected are our children with nature? What implications does this have for nature conservation in the future? I suggest there is a real threat in that lack of connectedness.

The EU Dimension The EU has been a massive driving force for environmental legislation particularly over the last 30 years. The Birds Directive dates back to 1979. Three years later, we had the Habitats Directive. These are probably the most disliked pieces of legislation amongst politicians in Europe because they are so good. The EU is also grappling with huge reforms needed to its budget. How do we support rural economies and the farming sector?

The EU is developing a Green Infrastructure Strategy to look at the land mass of Europe; the interconnectivity between farming landscapes, protected landscapes and how we can manage them through policy responses to deliver public goods including food, biodiversity and ecosystem services. The RSPB, under this current emerging thinking, has secured funding for a €4 million project for support of the Futurescapes programme, which we are rolling out at the moment. This will recruit eight additional staff and work towards delivering the Futurescapes ambition throughout the UK. We are also part of BirdLife International, which means that the work we do on landscape scale conservation will make its way through our international department to people who are supporting partners in Europe and developing countries all over the world.

Partnerships As an example of the scale of partnership needed, the Morecambe Bay Futurescape in the north of England is approximately 90,000 hectares – nearly twice RSPB’s reserves’ holding in England. Most of it belongs to people



other than NGOs. We are working with The Wildlife Trusts, The National Trust and with a whole range of other partners up there including the tourism sector. This is a very significant increase in our ambition, but tempered by working with other people on other peoples’ land. It is collaborative.

We are working with an increasing variety of partners. At Stonehenge, for example we are involved with the world heritage organisation, who feel the world heritage site is best surrounded by chalk grassland, which is great for nature.

One of our largest Futurescapes is the Greater Thames. We had somebody seconded into the port of London Authority for six months helping write their environmental policy. We are also working with over 70 other organisations so again stressing the necessity of collaboration with partnerships.

Infrastructure We are also seeing more creativity and innovation in our partnerships. At Wallasea on the Essex coast, we will be using some of the spoil from the cross rail link in North London to prepare the ground to reconnect to the sea; a hugely innovative and exciting relationship. The privatized water companies in some places own quite a lot of land. How that land is managed contributes to the quality of the water. It determines how much money they need to spend to get that water into drinking quality. We have a sustainable catchment management project (SCaMP) with the United Utilities in the north of England. It is producing better water quality and they have to spend less. It is producing SSSI-standard improvements and biodiversity, a ‘win win’ as we call it.

Figure 3. Morecambe Bay.



These are the Futurescapes in this part of the UK also. You can see the overlap with what The Wildlife Trusts are doing. It is a really important to point out how we are going to coordinate effort and make sure that the aggregate of our efforts adds up to something more significant.

Greater Thames Futurescape Since 1974, the number of RSPB Reserves in the Greater Thames area has grown from one to 13, thanks to the generosity of our members over that time. These reserves are a good starting point, areas that have been

Figure 5. Futurescapes in Eastern England.

Greater Thames

Brecks

Fens

Suffolk Coast

Broads



managed for nature conservation, for species and habitats. So we have got these reservoirs of species in there ready to take off as we influence the land around them. The tagline we have on our Thames Futurescape is a world-class city in a world-class environment. It is right on the doorstep of nine million people, we should connect them with it.

The Fens Futurescape A Fens Futurescape is characterised by working intensively with farmers, advisory work, getting them into agri-environment schemes, helping them put the prescriptions in place, clustering them where we can. The other innovative thing there is work with the minerals industry, which for years had a reputation of digging big holes and leaving them, much to the chagrin of local communities. What they now realise is that if they work with NGOs like RSPB in the planning stage and plan to put something back which has biodiversity value, not exclusively, but that is one of the options, they are more likely to get planning permission. You can see that we are trying to improve a necessary evil if you want to look at it that way. There are many examples like that in southern England at the moment.

Suffolk Coast Futurescape On the Suffolk coast we have been involved as well in the NIA process with the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. There is a huge amount of work going on at Minsmere and Dunwich Forest. The RSPB hasn’t fully launched this yet but there is a lot of good partnership work already in place which just needs a little tweaking and a bit of coherent presentation to the outside world. I think we will streamline quite nicely between the huge variety of NGOs working there as we move towards a collective vision for that part of the world.

The Brecks Futurescape The Brecks are another Futurescapes area. This area has included some casework in relation to SPA protection. Such work underpins the application of EU legislation in the shape of the Birds Directive. It can however make one unpopular. So one of the things we need to do is to get on the front foot in terms of biodiversity in places like this. I wonder how many people who live in Thetford have seen of a stone curlew? It is not an easy thing to do, but you could actually manage it, you could reconnect people and get them to understand that actually the area where they live is internationally important for biodiversity. Be proud of it, it could be a destination of choice for people to come to. We are working obviously with the Brecks Biodiversity Partnership there and again it involves the Nature Improvement Areas process.

The Broads Futurescape In the Broads, the other Futurescape, we are working with the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, the Broads Authority, Butterfly Conservation and internal drainage boards – we are starting to get that into shape. Devolution My job has to look at the UK perspective. The environment is now a devolved issue in the UK, which means the legislation in each place is slightly different. The political will to do things is slightly different so you have to lobby at a sub



UK level to get what you want. Looking at landscape scale policies and frameworks, the overarching requirements are at different stages of development. In Wales, they have a national environment framework (NEF) which is spatially exquisite and which would allow landscape-scale conservation. In England, we have the NEWP and the NIA Process. Northern Ireland is slightly behind on this, but RSPB is actually at the forefront of what is happening there and in Scotland there is the Scottish land use strategy. All quite different frameworks within which we have to deliver landscape-scale conservation.

Stepping up for nature Stepping up for Nature is a campaign (www.rspb.org.uk/steppingup) we have got running between now and 2020 as we try to do our bit to kind of galvanise effort as we move towards this 2020 target. Futurescapes is RSPB stepping up to save nature, or help save nature with partners. The question is how can we help others? How can we work in partnership with others? And how can we move collectively towards this better vision?

The British Isles is a relatively small piece of land in north-west Europe, heavily managed, heavily populated; it has pressures unique to us and we have to work out how to deal with them. The challenges we are facing – continued biodiversity loss and the impact of climate change are so big that we really have to do everything we can as organisations and as individuals to achieve this vision of a Futurescape, or a living landscape, or whatever you want to call it. We need to integrate nature conservation into all those other land use policies which means we have to change ourselves before we can truly collaborate with others.

Aidan Lonergan Futurescapes Programme Manager

The Lodge

Sandy

Bedfordshire SG19 2DL

Aidan Lonergan has worked with the RSPB now for ten years, first at the RSPB Headquarters in England as manager in the International Department’s country programmes covering the delivery of conservation support to over sixteen countries across Europe. He has been particularly active in organisational development issues in Eastern Europe, assisting Birdlife partners to achieve their objectives through skilled prioritisation and the wise use of limited resources. Subsequently he spent nearly six years as Director in Northern Ireland overseeing work as the political situation stabilised. Whilst there he and the team successfully lead the first species reintroduction project with the return of the red kite. In September 2009 he returned to the RSPB’s headquarters to lead the Futurescapes programme, the Society’s landscape-scale conservation work.

rspb’s futurescapes programme

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