Fifty years of saving wildlife (From Gazette)

Fifty years of saving wildlife

2:00pm Tuesday 24th March 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

AN ESSEX trust for Essex people to meet Essex problems – that was the aim of the naturalists who started what is now the Essex Wildlife Trust.

That was 50 years ago, and those founding fathers certainly had reason to worry about the state of the county’s wildlife conservation.

Otters and red squirrels were dying out, some bird populations were on the verge of collapse and rivers were heavily polluted.

Other habitats, such as woodlands, hedgerows and coastal marshes were being lost altogether.

Their solution was the Essex Naturalists’ Trust, set up in October 1959, by 102 individuals and eight organisations.

It set out to record wildlife, boost the interest of the county’s growing population and create and protect nature reserves.

That work continues today.

“The problems are somewhat different to what they were in 1959,” said John Hall, who became the trust’s director in 1988.

“These days, many people understand some aspects of conservation and have a passion for wildlife. So the context in which we are working is very different. But the problems are still very significant.

“Regional strategy says we will have many more thousands of houses in the county. It is a case of where all these houses go.

“Then there are the rising sea levels and flooding rivers.”

Against this backdrop, the organisation works to maintain, improve and increase habitats and provide a secure future for the otter and orchid, Brent goose and barn owl, dragonfly and dormouse.

It has a vision: Living Landscapes, covering 80 large areas – river valleys, estuaries, woodland and grassland – which the trust and its partners can improve to the benefit of not only wildlife, but the county’s human population too.

There are also plans for five new visitor centres, two of them in north Essex, at the Naze in Walton, and at Abberton, where expansion of the reservoir means the centre will have to be rebuilt.

In the meantime, though, the trust’s 50th anniversary gives staff, volunteers and members an opportunity to look back over its landmark achievements.

Within two years of its launch, it had acquired two nature reserves, one of them Fingringhoe Wick, whose £4,000 purchase price almost bankrupted the organisation. But it was destined to become its flagship.

Other holdings, including the 683-acre Colne Point at the mouth of the Colne and rare, freshwater grazing marsh at Tollesbury Wick, have been added to over the years.

Nowadays, Mr Hall can look out over 87 nature reserves and a nature park covering 7,250 acres of Essex countryside.

And he is grateful to everyone who has helped achieve that success.

“There is no way we could do what we are doing without volunteers. They are fundamental to what we do. We have a spine of staff who help bring all this together. They work with the volunteers and encourage them,” said Mr Hall.

“The 87 nature reserves we have are very good examples of what we have done and I am sure we will acquire more in the future.

“But I think the time is coming where wildlife will come out of those reserves, go into the countryside and recolonise it.

“If people have the information and are engaged, they will want things to happen and will understand that wildlife is an important part of their local scene and their local life.

“The trust is about wildlife and the environment, but it is about people too. If people want wildlife to survive, then it will.”