What can you do in five years?
A lot, apparently – like establishing a battle plan for helping threatened species, says Rich Howorth of Back from the Brink. And that’s just for starters
Five years is a considerable amount of time to achieve a goal. (Or goals.) Well, for some of us, at least.
But what if your aim is to get threatened species back from the brink of extinction and danger? That doesn’t sound like such a good timeline then.
Just think about the activities, the projects, the time, effort, people and places you need to have onboard to make things happen. To even begin.
But it is possible, and it is doable, if you look at Back from the Brink (BftB) – a five-year nationwide initiative in England that sought to rescue the country's most threatened species from extinction, and help them get back to recovery and on their feet (so to speak).
Focusing on 19 species-conservation delivery projects, the core BftB partnership involved eight conservation organisations – one statutory body and seven species-conservation NGOs. They all partnered, collaborated, and contributed their expertise and resources to help recover these species’ numbers; recreate and maintain their habitats; promote their survival; as well as raise awareness and generate more sustained action from the public. These species include animals, plants and fungi.
And BftB just ended in February 2022.
Let’s dive in
After five years and after everything they’ve been through, what does it really take to get threatened species back from the brink?
Rich Howorth, BftB’s programme manager, gives us an idea.
“The biodiversity crisis, with the ongoing and increasing loss of species, is a huge challenge both in the UK (as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, unfortunately) and across the planet as a whole, for which generally there are no quick and easy fixes,” he says.
“There are big external factors at play that are driving the decline of our native species of wildlife, including habitat loss, inappropriate management, adverse land-use policies, and of course climate change. If these can be adequately addressed or mitigated, then species recovery still takes time – certainly more than the five-year BftB project timescale – and is an uncertain and undirected process vulnerable to chance events (such as a year of bad weather, for example).
“However, it’s absolutely vital that we start as soon as possible to greatly increase our efforts and resources directed to natural recovery overall, including targeted efforts for our most threatened species, before it is too late – i.e. we pass a point of no return and species become extinct, locally and beyond.
“Humanity can’t survive, let alone thrive, without the wider web of life that supports us all around being conserved, recovered and functioning healthily.”
And one way to go about it, Rich points out, is “what conservationists call a ‘species recovery curve’”.
“The work of the BftB project focused on around 100 target species going on a journey of recovery,” he explains.
“This starts with understanding enough about their lifestyles or histories (‘autoecology’) and the threats they face. This enables us to design and trial positive interventions (such as tailored management of their habitats and niche requirements), and establish what works through the monitoring of their populations. And then we roll out solutions more widely as ‘business as usual’ approaches to hopefully see their sustained recovery over time.”
The result? “BftB has moved 96 threatened species (including 14 highly threatened with extinction nationally) along their recovery curves within the target areas and species populations that we worked with in England. This is to improve their prospects for future survival and recovery, and so bring them ‘back from the brink’,” he says.
“We have done this through a combination of significant grant funding (£7 million over five years, including £4.7 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in the UK); the commitment to strong collaboration between eight core organisations (led by the public body Natural England, with seven species-conservation NGOs of the Rethink Nature partnership), working with 90 other organisations across the country; and not least the dedication and passion of 40 projects staff, 865 landowners and managers, and almost 4,000 individual volunteers.”
Whoa, those figures
They prove that, yes, time is of the essence, but cooperation is key. So is a good strategy.
In this light, five years now sounds pretty good. And they yielded a few surprises for Rich and the team along the way.
• Exposure
“The huge reach and profile of BftB communications to different audiences, e.g. being the subject of a knowledge-questions round on a national gameshow in 2020,” he says.
• Recognition
“Being voted as the ‘Best Heritage’ project in the National Lottery Awards’ 25th anniversary in 2019, beating more typical built and social heritage projects in the process.”
• Their ability to adapt
“Our relative resilience to the shock and impact of the COVID pandemic for the past two years, which required an extra year of BftB in 2021 to catch up on our delivery work on the ground from the lost field season of 2020 whilst in national lockdown in the UK,” he says.
“One positive aspect of it was to show people’s clear need for nature as well as social contact during the lockdowns – to demonstrate what can still be achieved through virtually working more efficiently in terms of time, and avoiding environmental impacts from travel – as well as encouraging us to innovate and create new digital engagement opportunities, such as online workshops and a virtual arts gallery, instead of an exhibition roadshow.”
He’s also personally proud of BftB “acting as a champion for relatively unknown – and hence unloved – obscure species, bringing them to people’s attention and into their lives, to enrich them and benefit the species’ plight”.
“We focused on young people or ‘next-generation naturalists’, giving them a voice and say in nature conservation work, and connected people with nature, such as through arts-based activities, alongside scientific and technical approaches to saving species,” he adds.
Speaking of saving species
Rich told us about their 19 projects and helping 96 threatened species through BftB. Which are his favourites? (I have to ask. In fact, I will always ask, because it’s what I want to find out.)
“I’m personally most interested in insects, as well as plants, hence I may be biased – although these two big groups of species did make up the great majority of the BftB target list,” he admits. Get to know some of them here, and be inspired to do more.
“A very rare and threatened species, reduced to just one site in England – although this is next to a major busy road, and its colonies even extend onto the verge there.
“It has a complex and fascinating life history, with practical discoveries that have furthered our knowledge made under the BftB project. We’ve experimented with establishing the ant on two further sites nearby to expand its populations and insure against disaster striking one of them.”
“Another very rare species in the UK, with less than 10 colonies known, that I had the privilege of spending a night with together with a professional film crew. We captured this species emerging from a farm barn on camera for the first time to provide some awe-inspiring footage.”
“One of the few areas that it is found in is the wet low-lying ‘slacks’ amongst sand dunes on the northwest coast of England, where I spent a pleasant balmy evening with all of the other BftB projects staff (it was the first time that I had met them), listening to their evocative calling and searching for them by torchlight.”
“A species conservation success story in the southeast of England. This was my first project field visit, in the county of Sussex where I live, to use a survey-and-capture method to ‘tickle’ the crickets to emerge from their burrows, with a number then being moved to a new site to colonise.
“We ran some great public arts sessions that were framed upon this species, including a composer translating their song to perform as a music concert, and an outdoor drawing and crafts workshop for families.”
#5 Willow Tit
“The fastest declining bird in the UK, which our BftB project helped to map and understand how it uses a local post-industrial landscape in northern England.
“The knowledge gained supported a new protected site designation status for the area, and published a species conservation handbook to support others’ efforts to arrest its ongoing loss. Local people and organisations became strongly engaged in the struggle for its conservation, including through practical habitat management and dedicated poetry.”
Hopefully they’ll thrive
And we manage to see them do so for a long time.
In BftB’s achievements and summary reports, there’s a word they use that holds a world of meaning – and that’s “legacy”. I think it’s fitting, given that they’ve helped create a solid infrastructure for these threatened species, left a lasting impact on them, and ensured they have a better chance of survival.
Here’s how they look at it.
“‘Legacy’ is a vital consideration for any project from its outset, as all projects come to a fixed end point (when the objectives are achieved and/or the money runs out),” Rich says.
“It’s important to try to lay a sustainable foundation for the work and the people that come after you to learn from, and use the project’s experience and output in the ‘business as usual’ practices of organisations.
“Species conservation is a long-term endeavour and commitment; hence it’s vital that others know about and build upon the achievements of BftB to continue the recovery of ‘our’ species, and transfer the learning to other threatened plants and animals in the future too.
“The BftB programme drafted a Species Recovery Framework for the sector to inform and guide others on adopting and further evolving our ‘ways of working’ – including a commitment to working collaboratively in partnership, placing species at the centre of nature conservation efforts, and putting people at the heart of these actions,” he continues.
“As for the BftB legacy, we have left in place a body of knowledge and commitments to manage project sites, with a focus on maintaining works for species; a suite of monitoring plans with local volunteers, who are in many cases trained in ongoing species survey; project species information and biological data, which are accessible for others to use; enthused and informed audiences, who wish to do more for species in the future; and a group of experienced projects staff, who in many cases have gone on to related work and projects in the areas for their species.”
Now that he’s mentioned it, the staff is just one of the things Rich loved about working for BftB.
“I’ve really enjoyed and valued the high degree of shared team-working between the BftB staff and organisations,” he says.
“They came together for a common cause, with great individual commitment shown to the work of saving species.”
What’s next?
Although there’s still a lot of work to be done, I feel like BftB has set the groundwork for future campaigns and they’ve accomplished a lot.
It’d be such a shame if that would’ve been it…
Has BftB really ended then? Will there ever be another concerted effort like it?
“There is a clear need for more major funded projects for species recovery along the lines of BftB, given the scale and worsening nature of the biodiversity crisis,” Rich answers.
“BftB has worked closely with our two ‘sister’ projects, now getting going in Scotland and Wales – ‘Species on the Edge’ and ‘Natur am Byth’ respectively – with significant funding and the same NGO partner organisations to support their development and share our learning and tools.
“In England, meanwhile, the focus for now is on building the BftB experience into the core work of the lead public body, Natural England, in its work with partners and other organisations to scale up species recovery efforts.”
That sounds promising. If BftB could have a second instalment, though – a next “life” – how does Rich foresee it?
“Interest exists in the potential to develop a ‘BftB Mk.2’ project proposal or grant programme to seek funding for, the nature of which is yet to be explored,” he says.
“This would likely be focused on a different set of species and their habitats (for example, in aquatic environments or upland areas), involving further organisations working in partnership.
“Watch this space…”
Watch it we will
Because it’ll be exciting to know the next chapter.
But I don’t want to end this post without asking for some of Rich’s personal bests first. I can only imagine what it must be like to be involved in such a project. (I was supposed to say “mammoth project”, but the mammoth is extinct – and I don’t want to jinx anything.)
It must be so interesting – and never boring.
“It’s been great to have been a key part of such a successful, large and ambitious project, with a high national profile and positive impact sought, in my role of managing the overall programme and seeking to get the best out of others for it,” he says.
“I’m also pleased to have been able to ‘finish the job’, despite a lot of challenges to overcome in my time on the project – not least being able to secure an additional year of time or funding to deliver it to address the impacts of COVID.
“As the biggest and most complex environmental project that I have managed to date, it’s been a great professional experience and achievement for me to make a mark for nature at a national scale – something that I can build on in my future work.”
Is there anything else he wishes people knew about England’s wildlife, its threatened species, and BftB? What could have been highlighted more?
“My own perspective is to wish that people knew and cared more about some of the intimate details of the lives and needs of our myriad little-known and less-loved species – despite the UK being one of the best-studied and most active countries in natural history knowledge and conservation action,” he says.
“This is so that we could to a greater extent see the world from their ‘perspective’, and hence develop greater empathy and a more harmonious relationship with the little things that actually make up and run our living world.”
We can do that.
Time for tips
You may not live in England (or maybe you do), but there are still some simple and meaningful projects you can do for the wildlife in your area – yes, right in your own backyard and neighbourhood.
Rich suggests that we:
#1 Go out
“Take a moment for yourself to connect with nature and the outdoors every day, and have a relationship with the non-human world that will help give you perspective and balance.”
#2 Try different things
“Build on this connection and look for practical opportunities to make a positive difference to your local environment – from a wildflower window box for pollinating insects to volunteering to helping manage your local park for wildlife.”
#3 Spread the word
“Share your insights and passion for nature with others around you, and give children the opportunity to learn these values and useful knowledge.”
#4 Join a cause
“Be part of bigger social movements for positive change for the planet and our relationship with nature, with collective culture change being the only way that we can try to avert the worst impacts of the climate change and biodiversity loss twin crises.”
The good news? We don’t have to limit ourselves to five years for these.
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