RSPB campaign calls for environment to be spared spending axe

Finance | Gareth Jones | 25 Aug 2010

The RSPB has launched a campaign aimed at sparing the environment from the government’s imminent spending cuts, announcing plans to send campaigners to key constituencies and run a billboard campaign.

In order to make the case that funding for environmental projects should be protected, signs carrying the charity’s message will appear on banners in towns and villages, on billboards erected in fields and at busy road junctions, and will even be pulled through the streets by bicycles.

Meanwhile, campaigners will this week head for the constituencies of chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, cabinet office minister Oliver Letwin and secretary of state for the environment Caroline Spelman.

Osborne and Letwin have been targeted by the campaign, which will take place in the run up to the government’s comprehensive spending review, as they are members of the so-called ‘star chamber’, which will decide on spending plans.

Dr Mark Avery, the RSPB’s director of conservation, said: “The members of the star chamber have a huge responsibility. They have to make meaningful cuts without harming vital services.

“We have been arguing very strongly that the natural environment is not the place to make swingeing cuts.”

He added: “Defra’s budget amounts to just half a penny out of every pound the government spends, yet that modest investment brings huge returns in the form of wildlife, clean air and water, flood alleviation, carbon sequestration and pollination.

“Such things are beyond price and their loss would be too high a price to pay to balance the books.”

Pictured: The River Blythe, which flows through Spelman's constituency of Meriden in the Midlands and which is classed as being in ‘unfavourable condition’. Photo coutesy of Amanda Slater.

Directory: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)

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