The head of one of Britain’s most important wildlife organisations has warned that changes in planning regulations, to be outlined by the government this week, could devastate the country’s fragile natural reserves.
Martin Spray, chief executive of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, used the 100th anniversary of the organisation’s genesis to attack the policies of the British chancellor, George Osborne, who wants to weaken rules that protect wildlife habitats from industrial development.
The timing of Spray’s attack is specific. The trust traces its foundation to the last letter written by Captain Robert Falcon Scott as he lay dying in his tent in Antarctica in March 1912. Spray said: “In his letter, Scott urged his wife to take care of their son Peter and ‘to make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than games’. Peter Scott, his son, became one of Britain’s most steadfast protectors of wildlife.
Read the full story in The Guardian.
