As the champion of landscape-scale conservation projects across the county, Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) supports a report from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee urging the government to adopt a new approach to halt wildlife and habitat loss.
The committee of MPs warns that government will miss its targets to stop the demise of wildlife in Britain unless it looks beyond protecting a few special sites or ‘islands in the landscape’.
Dr Tony Whitbread, chief executive of SWT says: “Traditional nature conservation has focused on the protection of wildlife havens, but the challenges of climate change mean we must move beyond traditional boundaries and create a large, well-connected landscape for wildlife.
This report clearly supports our call for large-scale conservation and the need for cohesive environmental policies across all government departments. Working together we can expand and create more natural landscapes that benefit wildlife and people too.”
SWT is already establishing green networks for the county, and
endeavouring to develop larger blocks of wildlife habitat centred on its
nature reserves. These include the West Weald Landscape Project covering
nearly 60,000 acres of wildlife-rich habitats in the Low Weald of West
Sussex and south Surrey, protecting rare and endangered species of bat
and butterfly.
For more information on SWT please visit the website www.sussexwt.org.uk
and read more of Dr Tony Whitbread’s response to the select committee’s
report on his Chief Executive’s Blog www.tonywhitbread.blogspot.com
Ends
Copies of ‘Halting biodiversity loss’ - the Environmental Audit Committee Report can be found at www.parliament.uk/eacom
