{"id":6789,"date":"2017-04-11T03:49:51","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T03:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6789"},"modified":"2017-04-11T03:50:01","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T03:50:01","slug":"thu-the-shocking-state-of-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2017\/04\/11\/thu-the-shocking-state-of-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"The shocking state of nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is being said that the UK\u00a0has one of the worst records for protecting native wildlife, and intensive farming is largely to blame. \u00a056%\u00a0of the 8,000 species assessed have declined in the past four decades with almost 1,200 species at risk of extinction, the 2016\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.rspb.org.uk\/our-work\/stateofnature2016\/\">State of Nature<\/a>\u00a0report says. \u00a0This has been disputed by farmers' organisations who've\u00a0accused the 53 wildlife groups that compiled the report of exaggerating the impact of agriculture and understating the effect of other factors such as urbanisation and failure to control predators.<\/p>\n<p>Sir David Attenborough, who launched the report at the Royal Society said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cEscalating pressures, such as climate change and modern land management, mean that we continue to lose the precious wildlife that enriches our lives and is essential to the health and wellbeing of those who live in the UK.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The report says that the UK comes 189th\u00a0out of 218 countries according to the abundance of \u201coriginally present species\u201d. \u00a0All other large European countries have performed better than Britain. \u00a0Some depressingly eye-catching stats include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a053% of species declining between 2002 and 2013<\/li>\n<li>the number of hedgehogs halving in rural areas since 2000 and down by a third in urban areas<\/li>\n<li>water voles declining by 90% since the 1970s<\/li>\n<li>wildflower meadows declining in area by 97% since 1945<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The report says\u00a0that various factors have contributed but notes\u00a0that\u00a0changes in agricultural practices have had\u00a0the biggest impact. Specifically, it blames increased use of pesticides and fertilisers, habitat destruction, the loss of mixed farms, and changes to sowing patterns.<\/p>\n<p>The report has an eye on Brexit, of course, and the battle over land use policy and subsidy. \u00a0Farming interests have a similar perspective,\u00a0and there is a lot at stake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is being said that the UK\u00a0has one of the worst records for protecting native wildlife, and intensive farming is largely to blame. \u00a056%\u00a0of the 8,000 species assessed have declined in the past four decades with almost 1,200 species at...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}