Wildlife crisis in our green and pleasant land

Achim Steiner, the United Nations Environment Programme director, warns human survival without biodiversity – the rich variety of all life forms – would not be possible given that the global population is forecast to exceed nine billion by 2050.

Business as usual is no longer an option. Targets set eight years ago for the halting of biodiversity decline by 2010 – the so-called Year of Biodiversity – have not been met.

England has seen nearly 500 species of animals, plants and insects vanish in the last two centuries through changes to land use, pollution, persecution and the arrival of non-native wildlife species. A quarter have reduced in numbers and 942 species are on the

"at risk" register.

In Yorkshire, a huge amount of activity is now aimed at tackling the issue. Last year, organisations, including Natural England and the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust launched a Biodiversity Strategy with a warning that despite some improvements – notably the restoration of wetlands, Pennine hay meadows, and lowland heaths – only three per cent of farmland is rich in native plants. In the Yorkshire Dales more than a third of flower-rich grassland was lost in just six years during the 1980s and 1990s.

One of the biggest declines was in chalk grassland of the Yorkshire Wolds, a rich habitat for many forms of wildlife, which now covers just over one per cent of the Wolds.

At a farming and wildlife conference in Beverley recently, an expert from Wales caused some local foot-shuffling when he

began his lecture by observing, "There aren't many hedges round here now are there?"

Peat digging, water abstraction and agricultural drainage led to the loss of a staggering 94 per cent of raised mire in East Yorkshire.

These figures are a wake-up call for this region which has some of the most valuable – and vulnerable – habitats in Britain.

The Humber is the second-largest estuary in the UK,

and used as a feeding "service station" for migrating birds.

England's biggest area of raised bog is at Thorne and Hatfield Moors near Doncaster, and home to rare insects, adders and the haunting nightjar.

The Lower Derwent Valley is the largest complex of lowland hay meadows in Britain, while the North York Moors National Park contains the largest area of upland heather moor in England. And in Yorkshire and Humber region there are nearly 60,000 acres of wildlife-rich ancient woodland.

Every Yorkshire council now has a Biodiversity Action Plan. Natural England has a full-time biodiversity coordinator in Paul Evans. who is mapping where work needs to be targeted and showing where grant aid, like agri-environment funding for farmers, might reap the highest dividends.

Local organisations like the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust are part of a Regional Biodiversity Forum. Its co-chair is Natural England's Jeff Lunn who says: "We're having mixed successes. At the iconic level, red squirrels have virtually disappeared from Yorkshire except in the far north-west corner of the Dales. Yet other species like corncrakes, which we had completely lost for decades, is now showing the first signs of recovery in the Lower Derwent Valley."

Climate change has also caused some species expand their natural ranges into Yorkshire.

The little egret is now a fairly common sight at lakes and wetlands in Yorkshire and the woodlark is moving up from the south of England. More species of dragonflies are coming north. "But there's still a lot of lesser-known species - fungi, lichens and insects - where we fear the trend is downwards."

Natural England has published a report, Lost life: England's lost and threatened species and their chief scientist, Tom Tew, said you didn't have to be an "ologist" to understand that when we lose wildlife we lose something that reduces our quality of life.

"Every species has a role, and like rivets in an aeroplane or bricks in a dam, the overall structure of our environment is weakened each time a single species is lost. We all lose when biodiversity declines: wildlife does of course enrich our lives but it also underpins vital services that we depend on."

YORKSHIRE'S BIODIVERSITY LOSERS

Stone Curlew:

Until mid-Victorian times, this strange bird, which famously stands still as though made of stone, was said to be present in considerable numbers throughout the Yorkshire Wolds. The unenclosed heaths and sandy warrens that were its main habitat gradually disappeared to farming and the bird became extinct in Yorkshire in the 1870s.

Great Bustard:

Also once common in the Yorkshire Wolds, this large bird was shot for food and lost much of its habitat to the plough. Its last stronghold was around Flixton, Hunmanby and Reighton. A gamekeeper once killed 11 with one shot. Most had disappeared from Yorkshire by the Victorian era.

Northern Bluefin Tuna:

The largest of all tunas, it can grow to seven-feet long. For years it was accidentally caught in the nets of Yorkshire fishermen and in the 1930s a tuna sport fishery developed in Scarborough. By the 1960s the species was almost wiped out.

Marsh Fritillary:

One of Britain's rarest butterflies, it disappeared from Yorkshire in the 1870s. It has vanished from two-thirds of its former UK range because of pressures on its habitat of marshy grasslands in chalk and limestone areas.

Short-haired Bumblebee:

Once common in many parts of the countryside and found in South Yorkshire, it hasn't been seen in the UK since its last underground nest was wiped out at Dungeness in Kent.

Lizard Orchid:

A tall, dramatic orchid found mainly on chalk grassland such as those in the Wolds, it has not been seen in Yorkshire since 1940. It now grows mostly in the south of England.

Lady's Slipper Orchid:

Britain's rarest orchid was once common in the Dales, but was dug up by gardeners and plant collectors through the 18th and 19th centuries until declared extinct during World War One. A single plant was discovered in 1930 and continues to flower each spring thanks to protection measures by Natural England.