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Anger as top wildlife research sites are axed
13 March 2006
The Government must urgently intervene to prevent the closure of four of the UK's top wildlife research stations, Friends of the Earth said today.
The environmental campaign group has condemned the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) decision, announced today, to close the research centres. Experts, including Sir David Attenborough and 31 leading scientists, say that closing the sites will undermine the Government's ability to make policy decisions on the environment and wildlife [1].
Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said:
"Closing these sites will seriously undermine the UK's ability to protect the environment. The justification for these cuts is not at all convincing, and is opposed by many hundreds of experts and organisations. It is quite amazing that an unaccountable public body can disregard such a broad body of expert opinion and in so doing inflict so much damage. Since the decision-making process has been so deeply flawed it is now up to Ministers to intervene to prevent these vital research stations from closing".
"If the Government does nothing about this, yet another blow will fall on its crumbling green reputation. Climate change, pollution, intensive agriculture and development have all placed a massive strain on the UK's wildlife. Closing these research stations will have a serious detrimental effect on the Government's ability to make policy based on sound scientific research in the future."
The Monks Wood centre, which hosted the BBC's Spring Watch programme, pioneered work on DDT and pesticides in the 1960s, and more recently revealed how changes to the climate were affecting the behaviour of wildlife, suggesting a fundamental shift in the pattern of the seasons, with spring arriving three weeks earlier. The research centres were also involved in assessing the impacts of GM crops on wildlife, with their findings contradicting claims made by industry that no harm would be caused.
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jun 2008
