EPISODE 16 ATTACK ON NATURE

The podcast is back after a summer break! Stephen and Kate are joined by Senior Policy Officer Isobel Mercer to discuss the Westminster Government's attack on nature and the RSPB's response. There's nature news and Stephen has been visiting Scotland's rainforest. Let us know what you want the podcast to cover @RSPBScotland on Twitter or podcast.scotland@RSPB.org uk

LINKS
Capercaillie Survey

National survey results reveal capercaillie numbers at critically low levels (rspb.org.uk)

 People’s Plan For Nature

 People's Plan For Nature (peoplesplanfornature.org)

 Attack On Nature
Attack on nature: the story so far | The RSPB

 Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest

Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest (savingscotlandsrainforest.org.uk)

Transcript

Intro  0:22 
This is Nature News from RSPB Scotland.

Stephen Magee  0:32 
Hello and welcome to our podcast Nature News from RSPB Scotland. I'm Stephen Magee. This is where we bring you stories about nature, from global news to the little things we're noticing every day.

Kate Kirkwood  0:43 
And I'm Kate Kirkwood, there's never been a time when staying in touch with nature and acting to protect it has been more important.

Stephen Magee  0:50 
We are keen to hear your nature news, whether it's the little moments you've experienced or your thoughts on the big issues affecting the planet. You can contact us on Twitter at @RSPBScotland or you can email us at podcast.scotland@rspb.org.uk

Kate Kirkwood  1:04 
And please subscribe and leave us a review because it helps other folk find us in the podcast jungle.

Stephen Magee  1:17 
Hello we are back after a little bit of an absence, Kate.

Kate Kirkwood  1:22 
It's been in a while.

Stephen Magee  1:23 
It has been a while, apologies. We did mean to take a summer break, right. But that summer break kind of then kind of grew into slightly longer break. There's various excuses- I do feel a little bit like a school kid who's forgotten his homework, you know, either left on the bus, fell behind the radiator or a dog ate it- but I got COVID, things happened, bird flu, all this kind of stuff, anyway we're back that's the important thing. And also we are in the autumn, beautiful, sunshine.

Kate Kirkwood  1:53 
So warm on my back it's lovely.

Stephen Magee  1:55 
It's absolutely gorgeous. In my garden today, for various other logistical reasons which I won't to trouble you the listener with, right, but, but we are outside. So far I've heard, like, this morning while I was setting up I've heard wren, robin, goldfinches, house sparrows, blackbird, so you know there's plenty of nature about.

Kate Kirkwood  2:15 
Oh, absolutely. Feels like it's quite abundant in your street actually.

Stephen Magee  2:19 
There's a really big wasp behind us just now. Anyway, we are joined by senior policy officer Isobel Mercer.

Isobel Mercer  2:25 
Hello guys. Thanks for having me back.

Stephen Magee  2:27 
Yeah, excellent, you know, long term friend of the podcast. And you're here mostly to talk about what we're going to talk about later on, which is Attack On Nature, and a whole bunch of stuff that people are probably aware has been happening over the past few weeks. But as ever, we start with our nature news. So, Isobel, what is your nature news?

Isobel Mercer  2:46  
You want me to start? I can start. So mine is actually from a couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to go to Mull for a few days on holiday with my dad, which was just amazing. I think it's one of my favourite places to go to in Scotland, it's just magic. And at this time of year, the light, and it was just, yeah, very blissful. And I got to see my first ever sea eagle, white-tailed sea eagle. So that was a really special moment.

Stephen Magee  3:11 
Fantastic. And what kind of a sighting was it? Were you like on a trip? Or did it just fly past, or what happened?

Isobel Mercer  3:17 
It was from afar. It was a you know, a kind of a large speck in the sky, a distance away. But it was still, yeah, really, really nice to see. There was a few of them actually around. So that was great.

Stephen Magee  3:28 
Yeah, never a bad day when you see a white-tailed eagle. Kate?

Kate Kirkwood  3:32 
Oh, mine's a bit more local than that, less exciting than white-tailed sea eagles. But I can completely appreciate your enthusiasm for them because they're awesome. Do you know what it is? It's my rowan tree in my front garden. And over the last week, I have been watching with utter glee, the colour change in the leaves. Now some years, it'll go from green to kind of dingy brown, and then drop its leaves almost immediately. But at the moment is this glorious burnt orange, red, yellow beauty at the moment. And I'm really just enjoying the autumn colours that are beginning to, kind of, come out it. I think it's down to the kind of the weather we've had this year, the very, very dry period, and then periods of wet, windy weather. The leaves are, it's going to be a bit of a show this year. I think. If you've been up north I suspect that's pretty much happening already. But every now and again I spot a tree just, sort of, urban trees, and I'm just like, that's amazing. Just beautiful colours and really just very nice and kind of, I don't know an enjoyable part of autumn despite the wind and the rain.

Stephen Magee  4:44 
It also makes you understand why there's that, there is like a Scottish cultural thing, right, of like rowan trees being lucky, and planting a rowan tree where you live, and it's like, I think, who knows why that is, but I like to think it's just because they are just a gorgeous little thing to have, that has the seasonality about it, and the fruiting and all that kind of stuff. It's just all good stuff.

Kate Kirkwood  5:05 
Definitely. How about you?

Stephen Magee  5:06 
Right? I am cheating slightly. And it is news. It's not all that new. It's something that's happened to me a few times over like the period since we've been, since we've last done a podcast. So I was in Shetland. And then I was in a couple of places. Glen Affric, and then in Ben Chonzie, in Perthshire right? What would link all these places together? I hear you ask, or maybe not. But anyway, I'm going to tell you, and it is golden plover. Right. So um, and when I was in Shetland, there were breeding golden plover, and they're just gorgeous in their full breeding plumage, and like showing really well, you know, trying, I think- I think trying to distract you from where they're nesting, I think that's why the make a big noise, I think. I mean I'm not- maybe I should ask a grown up. But I think that's what it is. And then, later in the year, kind of after the breeding season's finished, I then saw them in a couple of, you know, where they go next, you know, to really high ground. And it makes you really think about like Scotland's landscape, and how we've got this amazing mix of, kind of, like, habitats are almost like Arctic habitats. But at weird different elevations. So the Shetland birds were like, pretty much at sea level. And the other ones were like three, four thousand feet up. And yeah, just really special bird for me.

Stephen Magee  6:32 
As ever, it's not just our own personal nature news. It is things that are happening in the wider world as well. There's a couple of stories we wanted to talk to you about. One is something which is... anyway you frame it not good news, right, which is the results of the latest capercaillie survey are out. Now we talked about the survey in a previous episode of the podcast, it happens every six years, it's an exhaustive survey where people go and walk, I think it's about one and a half thousand kilometres of transects, i.e you know, walking set routes through habitat that might or might not contain capercaillie, and seeing if you see birds, and the results of that are that there are just over 500 birds as population estimate in Scotland, which is round about half of where it's been in the past. So that is, that is bad news. There's a very complex set of factors that are contributing to this, you know, factors like, you know, obviously, the right amount of the right habitat in the right state, you've got predation, you've got, you know, weather, you've got disturbance, you know, and other things as well, those are the main kind of things and the extent to which those things interplay with each other is super complex. And we and other partners are trying to understand that. I will post stuff in the show notes, to help people understand what we're doing, and other people are doing to try and arrest in the first instance, the population decline, and then hopefully get to a position where we maybe see capercaillie bounce back, but is a very serious situation, indeed. And the other thing we want to talk about was People's Plan For Nature.

Kate Kirkwood  8:14 
Yeah, we were wanting to talk about the People's Plan For Nature, you may have seen our sharing of this. But this is a really exciting opportunity for members of the public and wider population in the UK to really shape the discussion around nature for the future. And this is really an extension of the work that we do working in co-design with communities and people, individuals, across the UK. And we'll include some details in the show notes of how you can get involved and how you can have your say.

Stephen Magee  8:14 
Yeah and, Isobel, for us, you know, as an organisation, trying to engage with as many- because I know a lot of the work that you do in campaigning work and policy work, right, is often done in partnership with a whole bunch of organisations through things like LINK and other organisations. This idea of co-design, of cooperation, of partnership, of building big, you know, getting a lot of people in the tent. It's really important.

Isobel Mercer  9:05 
Yeah, it is really, really important. I think it's just, kind of what Kate was saying, like bringing more and more people on board and getting people more involved in the decision making process, in the designing process and helping them to feel empowered in their local areas to take the action that they need. You know, it's this spreading, spreading action for nature across all these areas and getting people to, kind of, supporting and empowering people to pick that up and roll with it rather than necessarily RSPB having to do everything. It's really important, I think, that we kind of grow that wider movement and support other people to do things.

Stephen Magee  9:38 
The main thing we wanted to talk about today, is what has come to be known, Isobel, as Attack on Nature. Right? So So explain to us what that is, and how it started.

Isobel Mercer  9:58 
Okay, so this Attack On Nature moment has come about because of three things that the UK Government has done, or announced, over the last few weeks. So I'll just quickly go over what those three things are. The first one is that they've introduced a bill called The Retained EU Law Bill. And that basically seeks to "sunset" or end all of the retained EU law that we have, so these are kind of regulations, protection standards laws that originally came from the EU, they will end at the end of 2023, unless steps are taken to roll those laws over into our domestic law. Right. So that's one thing. The second thing is, in Kwasi Kwarteng's mini budget, they published a growth plan, which announced this idea of investment zones, which are areas potentially that could have lower, or weakened, or remove environmental protections in certain areas in order to fast track development, basically. And the third thing is rumours of a potential rolling back of something called Environmental Land Management Schemes, this is basically about the direction of agriculture policy in England. And the government has announced that they're going to be reviewing the future of those policies.

Stephen Magee  11:18 
And just to make sure that people understand this, this is about the Westminster Government, right? But for a variety of reasons, including the fact that some policy areas, you know, are the responsibility of the Westminster Government, rather than devolved governments in different parts of the UK, and also the fact that there are often knock on impacts from things that are done even by the Westminster Government that only apply to England, or England and Wales, that can have an effect. This is something that could affect people across the UK, but in a way that probably we don't completely understand at this point, because these are really just proposals.

Isobel Mercer  11:58 
Yeah, that's right, Stephen. I mean, it is, as you say, a bit complex about which bits apply, in which parts of the UK, the agriculture stuff, as I said, does apply just in England, but the other things do have, potentially, major consequences for nature in Scotland and the other devolved countries as well. And what I would say is, those three things I just talked about, any one of those things could be really detrimental for nature, but as a package of things happening all at once, that's what's causing this real alarm, from us and a lot of other supporters, members of the public and other NGOs and organisations, is that together, they really do amount to what we think is an unprecedented attack on nature with major consequences, at this moment where, you know, we should really be looking at moving from just protecting nature to actually restoring and recovering nature right across the country. But this could undermine that.

Stephen Magee  12:49 
Because one of the things that's been really noticeable has been the intensity of the response?

Kate Kirkwood  12:55 
Absolutely, I think myself and colleagues have been really heartened by the public response to this, I think it's- people have really understood that this is a big threat to nature. It's a big attack on the policies that really benefit nature. And we don't necessarily know what the outcomes are going to be. So people are standing up in solidarity and saying, "You know what, this is not acceptable.". And was it over 100,000 people took part in the e-action, it called for.

Stephen Magee  13:31 
Yeah, to de-jargonise that for people-

Kate Kirkwood  13:33 
Sorry!

Stephen Magee  13:33 
No, no, that's fine, I'm as bad for it as anybody else. The e-action is where we basically ask people to get in touch with their MP and let them know that this isn't alright, right. And ask for an answer to that. And yeah, within a week, like 100,000 people did that, which is fantastic. Right? And there's been so much, you know, people are now, you just look on, like, social media and other places and you will see people trying to think about things that they can do to make it absolutely clear that they really care about nature, and that they're prepared to speak up for it. And I think the crucial thing for people to understand about this is this is not party political as such. Right. This is about a threat, which has been proposed, admittedly with a lot of the detail left to be filled in, and then a response to that potential threat.

Isobel Mercer  14:26 
Yeah, I think that's right, Stephen. I mean, firstly, I'll just say the, kind of, outpouring we've seen on social media and beyond, from the public and other organisations has been really amazing. And energising, I think, for those of us working on this, but it also actually just shows that we are justified in the kind of level of outrage that we've shown for these proposals, because it's just showing that the public is genuinely worried about what these proposals might mean for nature. And we know that there's a massive public mandate for actually doing more to protect and restore nature. I think that, like, a recent YouGov poll recently found that 81% of adults in the UK thought that nature is under threat and more needs to be done to protect and restore it. So we know that there's a huge kind of public backing for ensuring nature continues to be protected. And the problem is really that we have not had the reassurances that we need from the UK Government, for us to believe that this isn't a threat. So as you said, there's a lot of detail that isn't there at the moment. There's a lot of uncertainty about what these proposals might mean. But we've quite clearly set out what our concerns are and what we'd like to see in response, and we haven't yet had the reassuring response from the UK government that we need. But if I could just talk briefly about the Scottish Government, given that a lot of our listeners will be in Scotland. So we have had quite a reassuring response from the Scottish Government about some of these proposals. So they put out a couple of letters last week, and the First Minister also made a statement in parliament in response to an urgent question, basically saying they are still committed to maintaining and exceeding EU level environmental standards, which is what we want to see. They're not going to be weakening protections here in Scotland, and they'll be doing everything that they possibly can to make sure that these proposals don't lead to a weakening of protections for nature here. So that is obviously really welcome. And reassuring to hear. But we are concerned about the fact that some of the proposals could make it really difficult for the Scottish Government to stay true to those commitments. And actually deliver on that, it could be undermined.

Stephen Magee  16:33 
And achieve the existing commitments they've got.

Isobel Mercer  16:35 
Yeah.

Stephen Magee  16:35 
I think one of the things that's really noticeable about this is when we've been talking about these issues before, right, or we've been talking about how we enhance protection for nature. And it feels pretty depressing, to then be going back to- even just trying to hold the line on what we've got.

Kate Kirkwood  16:56 
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really, really difficult to be put in a position where you are wanting to enhance and protect something, when you can't even get basic protections, or potentially have threats to those basic protections. And it sometimes does feel like three steps forward and two steps back. But with that momentum from our public support, that public mandate for maintaining pressure on the UK government around this, and also maintaining those good relationships with the Scottish Government, because we do have good relationships with them, to work as collaboratively as we can to ensure they are able to stick to those agreements that they've made.

Stephen Magee  17:40 
And there will be more, well, I suppose there's potentially more to come depending on what happens, right? So we are thinking seriously as an organisation, and crucially, together with other organisations in the same space, right, who have enormous memberships and can potentially mobilise, a lot of people. We're thinking about what the next steps have to be, but that's kind of dependent on what the response is from the UK Government. Right?

Isobel Mercer  17:40 
Yeah, that's right, Stephen. So in terms of what happens next, the short answer is, we don't know. And as you said, it will depend on if we get reassurances from the UK Government and what those announcements are. So there's lots of uncertainties. But what we hope- there's a few things we hope will happen next. So one of them is that we want to see the UK Government revoking plans to potentially rip up key wildlife protection. So most notably for us, the one we're interested in is something called the habitats regulation. So without getting too technical, these are some of our most important wildlife protections that protect our key habitats and species from things like inappropriately placed development. So we want to get a clear commitment from UK Government that they're not going to be removing or weakening those regulations. We also want a commitment that these investment zones won't involve any weakening of environmental protections within them. That's really important, and a commitment from the UK Government to retain its plans for Environmental Land Management Schemes in England. And then as I said, in the devolved countries, we're also calling on all of the other devolved administrations to make clear commitments that they will continue to protect and restore nature in their countries, kind of regardless of the path that the UK Government might put us on in terms of deregulation, or you know, what's quite often called a race to the bottom.

Stephen Magee  19:26 
And crucially, just to tie things up, in case you hear otherwise, anywhere, right. As Isobel has clearly demonstrated, this is about trying to achieve some things for nature in terms of protecting the existing protections we have and enhancing them in the future. If you happen to read or hear somewhere that this is part of a coup attempt by the RSPB and other environmental organisations, or it's a membership drive, this is just about a charity which was founded as a campaigning charity, doing a job for nature, in a straightforward, transparent, legitimate way, right?

Isobel Mercer  20:13 
Yeah, I think that's right, Stephen, I mean, to be honest, you've set it out pretty well yourself. The only thing I'd add is, I'd say, we pick our battles carefully. There is a reason why we have been outspoken on this issue. And that's because as I said before, these three things do amount to what we think is an unprecedented attack on nature. And the consequences of getting it wrong, on nature at this moment, are massive. So the only thing I'd add at the end of this chat is, this is a big year, right? We've got this huge international conference coming up in Canada in December, called COP15. You guys remember COP26? This is basically our COP26 moment, but for nature. So we're going to get a new global agreement with international nature targets. And we need the UK to be going into that on a strong footing to be able to negotiate a strong deal for nature on the global stage. But we can't do that if at home, we're undermining it and not not delivering on commitments to protect and restore nature here in the UK. So I think that's that's the context we're working in. That's the reason why we have been outspoken on this issue. And as I said, I think until we hear some reassuring words from the UK Government we'll continue.

Kate Kirkwood  21:28 
Absolutely. And I think as well, if this is something that maybe you've not ventured into too deeply, personally, it's worthwhile taking a look at some really well done and broken down sort of information on the social media accounts that really guide you through that as well. Isobel has really, kind of, really clearly and accessibly kind of explained to us what's going on here. But if you want to go and do some more reading, go and check out the social accounts. We'll put the links in the show notes, but it guides you through what happens, and what happens next as well. So go and check it out if you're not completely up to date on what's going on.

Stephen Magee  22:04 
Right. I had a lovely trip to the Glenborrodale reserve in Ardnamurchan, right and Ardnamurchan is cracking. Used to go there on holidays as a kid, amazing place, loads of nature and Glenborrodale is a little slice of Scotland's rainforest, right. You might not know that Scotland has rainforest, but it does. So I went there I spent a bit of time with Izzy Baker to find out more.

Stephen Magee  22:37 
So I am sitting in a dappled woodland glade in Scotland's rainforest, specifically Glenborrodale our reserve in Ardnamurchan. And I am joined by Izzy Baker. Izzy this is your patch!

Izzy Baker  22:55 
This is my patch.

Stephen Magee  22:58 
Just describe to people what's around us because it is stunning.

Izzy Baker  23:03 
So as we look around, we can see some pretty magnificent oak trees. They're all different shapes. We've got different things growing on them. It's morning, the light's coming through the leaves in the trees, and we can hear the river behind us.

Stephen Magee  23:23 
It is, I mean, the remarkable thing of it- so this is a bit of Scotland's rainforest, a lot of people won't know that Scotland has a rainforest actually. So maybe we should start there. What is Scotland's rainforest? And what's special about it?

Izzy Baker  23:36 
So yeah, Scotland's rainforest is temperate rainforest. And it's here because we have very mild temperatures in the summer, mild winter temperatures and a lot of rainfall all through the year. We also have very little pollution. And we have these magnificent woodlands that support, rainforest habitat and species.

Stephen Magee  24:02 
Now I've been here for a couple of days filming right, and you've been showing me around. And one of the things that's remarkable about these trees is, you've got the trees, which- there is an oak tree right in front of us. That is an oak tree, right?

Izzy Baker  24:15 
That is an oak tree, yeah.

Stephen Magee  24:15 
I am learning! Like my tree ID is getting a bit better, so, right. So there's an oak tree in front of me. And it is all kind of twisty and twiny and gnarled looking. And it's not- there's not a single straight line on it, right? So it looks old and natural and everything. But every surface of the tree has something growing on it. And even some of the things that are growing on the tree have other things growing on them. Right, so how much stuff is there on that one oak tree?

Izzy Baker  24:42 
Yeah, It's life on life on life. And there's very little of the actual bark of the tree that you can see. Even some of the bits that look like the bark. There's actually lichen that is so close to the bark. You know, it doesn't sort of grow out from the bark, it just looks like the bark. So even the bits that you think are just the tree probably aren't just the tree. So we've got a whole range of different mosses. There's probably four or five, just at the base of the tree, different types of mosses are creeping up. And within that we've got beautiful wood sorrel growing, there's blaeberry growing as well. And then as we come up the tree, there's a range of different lichens. There's some that are quite, sort of, beardy looking, some that look quite a lot like coral, and some again, that look like the bark of the tree. And then as we look even higher, there's some beautiful, sort of, moss-laden branches, vertical and horizontal branches, with ferns growing out of them. So there's just so much piled onto one tree.

Stephen Magee  25:51 
It is amazing. Now, Scotland's rainforest does face challenges, right, what are the main challenges it faces?

Izzy Baker  25:58 
So the main challenges that we have are over-browsing so that inhibits a woodland to regenerate.

Stephen Magee  26:09 
Over-browsing is basically as too many herbivores at one time, whether it's deer or goats or anything else that's coming and eating the baby plants essentially.

Izzy Baker  26:15 
Yeah, so it's the young seedling trees that really need to establish, and eventually replace some of the older trees as they might die. So without that regeneration, the woodland, you know, wouldn't exist in a couple 100 years time. And when you are thinking about woodland management, you are thinking of that sort of duration of time that you're trying to influence. So yeah, getting browsing by herbivores to the right level's really important. Herbivores have a place in the woodland, but there also needs to be the right balance. The other big threat is non-native species, particularly the invasive non-native species rhododendron. So Rhododendron ponticum was introduced to walled gardens and yeah, beautiful, ornamental gardens. But it absolutely thrives in this environment that we have here.

Stephen Magee  27:16 
We saw some yesterday and it just it completely chokes everything else out when it gets a hold. It's really it's really stark. So you know what you were talking about with these incredible trees that are covered in life, and then literally, these dark corners that become dominated by rhododendron.

Izzy Baker  27:32 
Yeah, so if if Rhododendron isn't removed, it just becomes denser and denser and completely smothers everything else out, and the place we visited yesterday, we walked into complete darkness, the rhododendron was probably twice our height, and there was nothing underneath it. It was just a complete dense, dark grove with no lichens, no mosses, and no light and life sort of reaching the bottom, the sort of understory.

Stephen Magee  28:06  
Now that's all a bit depressing. But don't be downhearted because there's a tonne of stuff going on, specifically for us as RSPB Scotland. This is a super exciting time up here. Right? Tell people why.

Izzy Baker  28:19 
Yeah, it's a really, really exciting time for us as the RSPB in the area, but also for the habitat in the area. So we've just added a second reserve to this area. It's called Glencripesdale reserve, it's fairly similar to Glenborrodale in that it's beautiful, ancient, mixed woodland that supports this temperate rainforest. And it's a much bigger scale, six, more than six- times the size of this reserve. So we're really able to increase the impact that we have for this habitat. And also, in the meantime, build the sort of pool of people that we have working in the area, and then it gives you a better chance to help with other people's issues that they're facing that're very similar to ours. Rhododendron doesn't...

Izzy Baker  28:19 
It doesn't recognise the state boundaries? It doesn't go "Oh there's a fence here. I better not go through.".

Izzy Baker  28:29 
Absolutely.

Stephen Magee  28:31 
It's, like, it's a landscape-scale problem. And it needs a landscape-scale solution.

Izzy Baker  29:24 
Yeah. And we can't in isolation, fix the problem. We can't clear the reserve and expect for it not to be receded by rhododendron on neighbouring grounds. So all of these issues really are a landscape-scale issue and it really involves working well with neighbours and different organisations in the area to really, sort of, head in the right direction together.

Stephen Magee  29:50 
We are going to need to move on from here because, despite the fact it's late September, it is a beautiful sunny day but unfortunately that means the midgies have come out. You've been very patient about that by the way. Last thing, what is it like coming to work in a place like this every day?

Izzy Baker  30:08 
It is a, sort of, pinch yourself is this really my office, sort of thing. So, yeah, it's a fantastic place and it's always changing and the migrating breeding birds, they're here in the spring and really noisy and then this time of year, they start to leave and it gets quite quiet and it becomes a bit more of a reflective place. The trees still have the leaves but the bracken's, sort of, starting to turn colour and soon the leaves will be dropping. So it's definitely a place that changes a lot. It's also a very wet place so we wouldn't have rainforest if we didn't have rain. So yeah, generally you get through at least one pair of waterproofs a day.

Kate Kirkwood  31:03 
That sounds like such a beautiful place to visit Stephen. I'm very envious.

Stephen Magee  31:08 
It was lovely.

Kate Kirkwood  31:08  
It's definitely on my on my to-visit list. But also fun fact, also, Ardnamurchan, home of Hamza Yassin, wildlife photographer but also turned dancer on Strictly Come Dancing. If you've not been watching it, he's doing quite well.

Stephen Magee  31:23 
Is he? I have to say, I am feeling like the almost 50 year old man I am, like, Strictly slightly passed me by but is he doing all right on it?

Kate Kirkwood  31:32 
He's doing well. He's learning lots and showing he's got some good hip movement on the go.

Stephen Magee  31:37 
Now, in your job, Isobel, the rainforest, Scotland's rainforest is a big priority for us. Right?

Isobel Mercer  31:44 
Yeah, it's a massive priority. So it's one of our, kind of, most, I suppose, treasured, and rich and diverse ecosystems and Scotland. But it's hugely under pressure. So becoming much more fragmented, it's really struggling. And we need a, basically, a concerted programme of ecosystem restoration at scale, to ensure that these habitats can thrive and be restored in the future.

Stephen Magee  32:08 
Yeah because actually, it's really interesting. So one of the things that we're talking about there with Izzy, right, is the fact that, you know, we made this new acquisition up there on the other side of Loch Sunart from where our existing reserve, Glenborrodale, is over at Glencripesdale. And when you're in a landscape like that, you begin to understand this problem of fragmentation. You know, that if you end up with just islands of this very special habitat that it doesn't do the job it could do, if it's properly linked up. And crucially, that means that the RSPB alone, or any other organisation can't solve this, it takes a really big partnership approach.

Isobel Mercer  32:46 
Yeah, that's absolutely right. So RSPB is part of the Alliance for Scotland's Rainforests, which is a group of- quite a diverse group- of different organisations operating in that space on the west coast that you mentioned. And it's really important that everybody comes together, because as I said, what needs to happen is restoration at a landscape-scale. And that means all working together across different areas to deliver this restoration, it can't be done piecemeal, a lot of the problems that this habitat's facing, like invasive, non-native species, you can't just, like, remove it and a little bit and then think, oh, that chunk's now restored, we can maybe think about a piece over here, like it's all connected and has a massive knock on impact to the other areas around it. So it has to all be done together, really.

Kate Kirkwood  33:30 
Yeah, I think what really struck me was when Izzy was describing the life on the oak tree in your interview, just "life upon life upon life". And I think that, in my mind is a really good metaphor, or a kind of visual example of actually how we need to be working, it needs to be interconnected. It's all very dependent upon each other. And actually, if you take central tenants or large parts away from that environment, or they're working against each other, it's not going to thrive is not going to be as bountiful, it's not going to be as full of life. And I think that's something I come back to again and again, in any kind of conservation conversation, is that it has to be working together as a system, it can't, we can't stand on our own. We have to work with other organisations, landowners, farmers, community members, really key members of those communities to really be part of something much bigger. So I think, yeah, I think that was a really beautiful example of how we can how we can work together.

Stephen Magee  34:34  
Okay, can I just say double kudos to Kate, right, because a, mind blown on the analogy between between an oak tree and conservation practice, and also "conservation conversation"-

Kate Kirkwood  34:48 
Easy for me to say.

Stephen Magee  34:49 
Almost impossible to say! Right, it remains, like an A1  autumn morning here.

Kate Kirkwood  34:59 
Ten out of ten, would do again.

Stephen Magee  35:00 
Absolutely gorgeous. Thank you for taking the time, Isobel much appreciated.

Isobel Mercer  35:06  
Thanks for having me.

Stephen Magee  35:07 
We will endeavour to be back a bit more quickly than they were last time?

Kate Kirkwood  35:12 
We're grinning and giggling like school children.

Stephen Magee  35:14 
We're really sorry we will do better in future I promise. Just so you know, life got in the way. But anyway, we'll be back... not sure what we'll be doing.

Kate Kirkwood  35:22 
Something to do with nature possibly.

Stephen Magee  35:24 
Yes something to do with nature and hopefully some positive news on this Attack On Nature stuff, but for now, thank you for listening. Do make sure that you let us know what you think either Twitter @RSPBScotland or podcast.scotland@rspb.org.uk. Also, like and subscribe.

Kate Kirkwood  35:42 
Indeed. It helps other people find us in the rain-

Stephen Magee  35:45 
Podcast rainforest?

Kate Kirkwood  35:47 
 No, right, podcast jungle, those are the words.

Stephen Magee  35:57 
That's all for today. We'll speak to you soon. Cheers.