Whilst politicians of almost every hue are trying to persuade us that growth will be the salvation of all our ills, the RSPB, together with 25 other partner organisations, has shown us exactly what growth has achieved.
Pippa Bartolotti, Leader of Wales Green Party, said, “Growth has brought us pollution, pesticides and unnatural farming methods. It is devastating many species such as skylarks and butterflies to name but two in a long, long list of threatened wildlife.
This is a holocaust on nature, and the outlook is that it will get worse. “Growth for the sake of growth is harming us. No, we do not need to grow the economy. It is big enough, fat enough and greedy enough already. The rape and pillage of the natural world is harming prospects for us all, with pollinators in steep decline and the once common garden sparrow now a rarity. Today it is even hard to find the humble hedgehog.
The environment is not a luxury, it is an essential, and we have an obligation to care for it for future generations.
David Attenborough states in his foreword, “ This important document provides a stark warning: far more species are declining than increasing in the UK, including many of our most treasured species. Alarmingly, a large number of them are threatened with extinction.”
Pippa Bartolotti added,” What we do need to do is to stop and take stock of where we have gone wrong, and put it right quickly. Monoculture farming is causing huge problems for meadow dwellers, and the use of pesticides is indiscriminately killing much of the wildlife we have come to love. Growth of the type we have had in the past will make this worse. We have plenty of wealth and resources. What we need to do now is share out what we have more fairly.”
60% of species have declined over the last 50 years and 31% have declined strongly. For 155 conservation priority species for which we have suitable data, including many of our most threatened and vulnerable species, overall numbers have declined by 77% in the last 40 years, with little sign of recovery. Of more than 6,000 species that have been assessed using modern Red List criteria, more than one in ten are thought to be under threat of extinction in the UK. A further 885 species are listed as threatened using older Red List criteria or alternative methods to classify threat.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/science/stateofnature/index.aspx