John Burton, the founder and long-time Chief Executive of the World Land Trust is stepping down and his successor will be Dr Deborah Pain who is currently the Conservation Director of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.
I hope to persuade John to write a Guest Blog here.
For more on Debbie see her interview in Behind the Binoculars.
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And Baroness Barbara Young has taken over as Chair of Trustees at the Woodland Trust. In their latest newsletter she says:-
“In future the Trust may need to get more crunchy. There’s definitely a point on some issues where we’ll need to say, “Hang on a minute, up with that we will not put.” We shouldn’t be afraid of some controversy”
Perhaps the RSPB could get more “crunchy” too?
Yes I hope the WT can ‘untwee’ itself somewhat, it’s Trafalgar, Coronation woods initiatives etc are great from a marketing viewpoint, but becoming a bit formulaic and some of its corporate sponsorships have been highly questionable, they cut ties with Forest Holidays, but should never have been involved with them in the first place. Being associated with bottled water and non recycled bog roll are insanities no green org should ever do. They could certainly get heavily involved in rewilding our uplands especially where they’ve been devastated by sporting estates. The WT is in a far less compromised position than the RSPB regarding fighting for change re driven grouse shooting, it doesn’t have any existing relationships where there are no trees, so nothing to lose! One hellish problem is the immense pressure local woods are under to be turned into parks – dead wood and trees removed, shrubs grubbed out and ornamental plants put in. This is coming predominantly from Joe Public and needs to be challenged, but public consultation seems to be the thing not public education.
John and Viv Burton created from scratch what to my mind is the most effective international conservation organisation – the World Land Trust. They have quietly worked with small, overseas wildlife charities to establish and expand nature reserves in the tropics, preventing countless global extinctions. This is a huge legacy and I can’t think of a better person than Deborah to build on and continue this incredible work.