Wild Britain faces ticking time bomb'

Transforming urban spaces in order to benefit Nature, such as at Waterloo Millennium Green (above), is vital to help Save Our Wild Isles

- James Fisher

OUR environment is facing a ‘ticking time bomb’ unless society acts now, the National Trust, WWF and RSPB have said. The three organisations, which have a combined 8.5 million members, have joined forces to launch the Save Our Wild Isles campaign, named after the latest documentary presented by Sir David Attenborough, who has also thrown his voice behind the campaign.

In a statement, the organisations said that Save Our Wild Isles will ‘engage the UK public and inspire them to act—highlighting not only how Nature underpins everything that makes our lives possible, but also how profoundly threatened it is’. The organisations have commissioned a new YouGov poll, which found that more than 75% of respondents are concerned about the state of Nature. The poll also showed that, despite the UK being in the bottom 10% of countries globally for protecting Nature (according to the Biodiversity Intactness Index from the Natural History Museum) only 5% of respondents believed the UK to be one of the worst countries, with 55% thinking that the UK is on a par with the rest of the world or even doing better. ‘The amazing wildlife and wild places that make the UK so special are being destroyed at terrifying speed,’ say National Trust director-general Hilary McGrady, RSPB CEO Beccy Speight and Tanya Steele, CEO of WWF(UK). ‘Huge numbers of animals, birds and habitats have been quite literally wiped out in our own lifetimes and we must now accept that without urgent and collective action, our economy, the climate and the stability of future generations living in our wild isles all face a ticking time bomb.