World Species Congress

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Charles Walker

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Leptodactylus fallax, the mountain chicken frog, is dying not because it is being consumed, but because it gets a very nasty fungus called chytridiomycosis, and zoos are able to protect those frogs because they can take them away from their very small habitats. Nearly all species decline is due to human encroachment, so protecting the habitat has to be the first step in protecting those species.

I was fuming this morning when I read that the Woodland Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts have been complaining about species loss. These people own half a million hectares of land between them and have an income of £871 million, so there is no excuse for their getting cross with everybody else when they have so much ability to protect habitats themselves.

What we have seen over the 23 years that I mentioned in my intervention—it was very good of the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) to take it and she should be congratulated on securing the debate—is a decimation of the variety of pesticides used, which is welcome. However, the hop growers complain to me that the European Union allows far more pesticides than we do. We see the Government taking steps in the right direction and yet we have more—I must not get this word wrong—corvids; after a covid crisis, it is very easy to get in a jumble. Corvids are magpies, crows, jays and all the types of bird that prey on our species.

We have seen decimation of the curlew population. There has not been a curlew fledge for 11 years on RSPB reserves. Yet on grouse moors, where predators are controlled, we have seen huge results. Ninety-seven per cent. of curlew nest failures were the result of predation by mink, foxes, gulls and crows, but red-listed, ground-nesting birds have a 71% success rate in areas with predator control.

The zoos show that if we manage species, we can bring them back from the brink. The gamekeepers and the areas protected for shooting grouse are more successful at protecting rare breeds. It is not okay to go back to the old mantra of, “Shooting bad, conservation good.” This is about management. I do not care why someone is managing an area: if we want species diversity and success, we have to manage. I hope that, having expressed that thought about population pressure and management, any future Government will consider very carefully allowing unlimited migration of people or indeed foreign species.

If we look at golden plovers or grey partridges, we see that they do better with management through predator control. If we do not stop things from eating the species that we care about, they will not be there. It does not seem to me to be okay to criticise the Government when there is so much that we can all do. People can feed the birds, but if they do, are we just going to encourage more corvids, or will we see our precious songbird populations increase? The evidence is that if we look after the birds, their populations succeed.

Food around the year, conservation of habitat and predator control are a three-legged stool. If we get that right, we will see success. If we continue to stand back and allow these organisations that have failed for the last 20 years to continue to run the countryside into the ground, we will not have the diversity that we all want.

I think the example set by the zoos is one that we should copy. We should not be blinkered about management. I am afraid that when it comes to countries such as our own, where there are large numbers of people, management of predators is essential. If we care about species, we have to take the tough decisions, and I hope that in the future both our Government and any future Government will do so.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We now go to the Front Benchers, who have about five minutes each. They can have a little bit longer, because we have a bit of spare time, but I am sure that everyone will want to hear a full response from the Minister.