It is with great sadness that I heard of the
death of Sir Martin Doughty, the Chair of Natural England.
His public service with the Countryside Agency, English Nature and,
until his death, as founding Chair of Natural England established
nature conservation and the wise use of the English countryside as
a key priority for Government and the public. British nature
conservation is the poorer for his passing, and we offer our
condolences to his family and to Natural England’s board and
staff.
This coming September, our Managing Director,
Deryck Steer, will be retiring from JNCC. Deryck first came through
the doors at Monkstone House in February 1998, as the interim
Managing Director. Successful in open competition, he became
permanent in October of that year. Through his commitment, and
energy, JNCC has gradually established itself as the organisation
that “if it didn’t exist we’d have to create it”. His
‘Conservation Conversation’ this issue reviews the past and looks
to the future – the Committee and I are already searching for a
replacement, hopefully to be in post by September.
At the end of April, we will bid adieu to Wyn
Jones, currently our Head of Overseas Territories. Wyn has
had a variety of roles with JNCC, and formerly English Nature, and
we will much miss his sage advice and wealth of knowledge. I
should also record the formal recognition of the expertise amongst
JNCC staff, with colleagues David Connor and David Stroud receiving
richly deserved awards.
In other news this issue, it is pleasing to be
able to note the additional £150,000 of funding for our work in the
Overseas Territories from Defra. This will certainly help our
reaching out to the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies
which, after all, contain significant and globally important
biodiversity.
This issue does place a strong focus on our
international work – covering projects in the Falkland Islands,
plus a succession of meetings and conventions for which JNCC
provides valuable support.
On the home front, JNCC arranged meetings of
the Wildlife Law Enforcement Working Group, and an event that
focused on the UK’s global impact on biodiversity – held
successfully and without irony at the London Stock Exchange.
With the continuing and steady flow of bad
economic news, it becomes easier to dismiss any work on nature
conservation as being less important. However, not having
fully functioning ecosystems will have an even bigger impact on our
quality of life than anything national and international economies
can do for or to us. Biodiversity conservation and wise
management is essential to the long-term provision of services from
our ecosystems.
In these troubled times JNCC’s work has become
more important than ever, and we will be playing our part to help
find solutions. As the early paragraphs of this introduction
reveal, conservation is actually about people. I wish you
happy reading!
Peter Bridgewater
Chair, JNCC