TALKING POINT
TALKING POINT
How green are you? Heres a little test: On average are the number of birds breeding in Britain (a) decreasing substantially; (b) staying the same; (c) rising significantly? If you get your information from the RSPB the answer is obviously (a).
In a direct mail shot sent out at the turn of the year it claimed: "Wild birds in the UK face their gravest crisis ever… Dramatic changes in our countryside have seen wild bird numbers reduced by an alarming amount. Millions of wild birds are threatened with food shortages and the destruction of their habitats." Accompanying graphs showed blackbirds, house sparrows, and song thrushes having steadily declined between 1970 and 1998.
In fact, recent mild winters have been good for birds and there are more now than in 1970. For the period 1994 to 2000, 43 of our commonest species increased significantly, 37 were stable, and only 18 were in decline. The blackbird increased by 13% and the song thrush by 12%. Even some farmland birds increased: Red-legged partridge, whitethroat, tree sparrow, and goldfinch all did better.
So incensed was I by the RSPBs selective use of statistics, that I complained to the Advertising Standards Authority, who have just ruled that the leaflet was indeed misleading.
This is a small but I think important example of the way green groups manipulate facts to scare the public about the environment in general and farmers in particular. The organic movement are a prime example. How often have you heard a Soil Association spokesman describing conventional farming as damaging to the environment? It is often claimed that organic farming is good for birds, and Sir Donald Currys Commission supported this view in its recent report. But there is no convincing research showing that organic farming is significantly better for birds. On the contrary, a report into the plight of the corn bunting by the Joint Nature Conservancy Council, governmental advisers, concluded that going organic would not help this endangered farm bird, because organic farmers were becoming as good as conventional farmers at controlling weeds.
As a result of successful complaints by others and me about the outrageous statements made by supermarkets and the Soil Association, ASA has banned claims that organic farming is environmentally friendly or sustainable. This does not stop government ministers like Michael Meacher from claiming that it is – but they are on a mission to appease the organic lobby, and justify to taxpayers the millions of aid pumped into organic conversion.
The RSPB too has been the lucky recipient of government funds, for example to run Hope Farm, which it bought two years ago as a demonstration site for arable farmers. (Needless to say we have not heard a cheep out of them since about its work).
DEFRA has also funded the preparation of an RSPB programme aimed at South Africa (strange but true). So the RSPBs knocking of farmers has certainly helped it to feather its own nest. Unfortunately it has damaged the image of farmers, which has long-term consequences for us all.
The fact is that bird populations are changing all the time, for reasons that are largely outside our ability to control. Some birds lose while others gain. Compared with 200 years ago, we have gained about 40 species and lost very few. Modern farming undoubtedly has played a role, although a complex one, but there are lots of other influences on bird populations. If we really wanted to help birds we would not replace our cats when they died – but its so much easier to blame everything on farmers.
The RSPB, like many
so-called green
groups, is
economical with the
facts when it comes
to bird figures, says
Geoffrey Hollis