Henry is puzzled

Henry is confused – but then, he only has the brain of a bird.

The National Trust sometimes describes itself as ‘one of Europe’s leading nature conservation organisations’ but sometimes it seems to be lurking at the rear rather than leading anything. It’s puzzling for we National Trust members not just for a bird-brained Hen Harrier.

Recently, the NT was highly conspicuous in being absent from an immense EU-wide coalition of organisations that encouraged their members and the public to support the EU Nature Directives. The NT opted out of that collaborative effort – I have no idea why, but as a member I was deeply disappointed in them.  The joint action was very popular with the public getting an unprecedented 500,000 EU citizens’ support, c100,000 of whom were in the UK – but no thanks to the NT (with their 3.5m members).

I was, however, pleased to see the NT join a thunderclap to publicise Big Butterfly Count – that cheered me up a bit. After all, they do have a leading butterfly expert with a book out on the subject right now – and they do have lots of butterfly-rich woods and meadows to promote during the school holidays.

What the NT don’t have is lots of Hen Harrier-rich moorland – even though they have a lot of moorland. They are no different from many other landowners in lacking Hen Harriers because of illegal persecution reducing the number of birds.  They are a bit different from many other conservation landowners in allowing grouse shooting on parts of their land, for example in the Peak District.  I assume that the NT would like to have Hen Harriers on their land, because they are one of Europe’s leading nature conservation organisations, but they have not yet signed up to the Hen Harrier Day thunderclap.

The support of the NT would be a great asset – their absence would be a very notable one. Which way will they jump? I’ll let you know.

It’s going to be quite difficult to explain to Henry why I have a NT sticker on my car windscreen if the NT remains aloof from the simple and uncontroversial message ‘We’re missing our hen harriers – we want them back!‘, isn’t it.

 

 

 

 

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