Natural England is responsible for England’s protected sites, sites that are home to some of the country’s rarest species and habitats. But budget cuts and a reduced workforce are taking its toll on Natural England’s ability to fulfil its purpose. Peter Marren illustrates Natural England’s plight, and considers what the future may hold for the agency.
Extinction Rebellion has been making the headlines for more than a year. Greta Thunberg, the initiator of the school climate strikes, is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year and one of the best-known faces on earth. Many thinking people now realise that we have changed the natural systems of the planet, perhaps permanently, and that consequences will follow, and, indeed, are already following – and that one of those consequences will be the greatest mass extinction of species since an asteroid hit the earth 66 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs.