The RSPB is issuing its first objections to fracking proposals over concerns that the controversial drilling technique will harm wildlife and the climate.
The charity has lodged a letter of objection with Lancashire County Council to a proposal by Cuadrilla at Singleton near Blackpool (Lancashire). The drilling site is close to an internationally important protected area for Pink-footed Geese and Whooper Swans, and could cause disturbance to the birds. The RSPB is also officially objecting to the contentious plans to explore for oil and gas at Balcombe (Sussex) on the grounds that no Environmental Impact Assessment has been carried out, and because increasing oil and gas use will scupper our chances of meeting climate targets.

 Harry Huyton, RSPB head of climate and energy policy, said: "Balcombe has hit
the headlines as the battleground in the debate over fracking. The public there
are rightly concerned about the impact this new technology will have on their
countryside. These are not just nimbys worried about house prices — there is a
very real public disquiet about fracking. We have looked closely at the rules in
place to police drilling for shale gas and oil, and they are simply not robust
enough to ensure that our water, our landscapes and our wildlife are safe."

 "Cuadrilla boss and former energy secretary Lord Howell claims that when he
made his much-publicised howler about fracking the 'desolate northeast', he
actually meant the northwest. Singleton in Lancashire is right in the heart of
the northwest and is on the doorstep of an area which is home to thousands of
geese and swans who will arrive from as far away as Siberia to roost and feed
next month and stay for the winter. There may not be as many local residents as
in Sussex, but this area is protected by European law because it is so valuable
for wildlife and Cuadrilla has done nothing to investigate what damage their
activities could do to it."

The RSPB has called on Lancashire County Council to ensure Cuadrilla has
carried out a full Environmental Impact Assessment before it goes ahead with any
work. The charity has also joined with other wildlife and environment groups to
call on the Government to rethink its shale gas policies.

 Mr Huyton added: "Government figures show that in the north of England there
is potential for 5,000 sites and a total of up to 100,000 wells. The idea that
these will not have an impact on the countryside is very difficult to believe.
Fracking is technology largely untested in the UK and we really have no idea
what the impact will be on our wildlife. We do know, however, that concentrating
our resources on extracting fossil fuel from the ground instead of investing in
renewable energy threatens to undermine our commitment to avoiding dangerous
levels of climate change."

Despite a public outcry about the proposed culling of Common Buzzards, Natural England has secretly enabled a shooting estate to destroy their eggs this spring.

Last year, an unscientific and unpopular attempt by DEFRA to allow Common Buzzard to be culled by destroying the species' eggs and nests at taxpayers' expense was thwarted by a public outcry partly led by Birdwatch. However, it has been revealed, via a Freedom of Information Request by the RSPB, that the National Gamekeepers Organisation approached Natural England (NE) for a licence to carry out such egg destruction on an unnamed Pheasant shooting estate, and that this has covertly gone ahead.

NE granted the licence but kept the application and permission secret, and the egg and nest destruction was apparently performed earlier this spring. It appears that NE gave in under threat of a judicial review and quietly granted the licences, a move unprecedented since raptor protection was introduced in law some decades ago. The legality of the licensing is currently in question and certainly not in the spirit of the law, but a DEFRA spokesperson claimed, in support of NE, that: "after a thorough assessment, Natural England granted a licence for the removal of a small number of buzzard nests. Buzzard populations are thriving in the UK and this licensed action had no effect on their population."

The RSPB, which has been attempting to work in a collaborative way with all parties concerned after promises by wildlife minister Richard Benyon that there would be "new proposals", is understandably peeved and will be looking into legal methods of redress. As no more than 2 per cent of Pheasant poults are lost to birds of prey (compared to the roughly 30 per cent killed by road traffic), a cull of buzzards would seem pointless and even belligerent.

NE themselves have admitted that investigations into non-lethal methods of keeping buzzards away from Pheasants have been "employed inconsistently", and that the efficacy of egg and nest destruction was also untested.

With this new development, and the inability of NE to prevent the ecologically destructive burning of peat on grouse moors recently, the growing public perception of the government as acting in favour of shooting estates and being environmentally unsound can only be further increased.

And an even worse, long-term case has been exposed.

Lesser Black-backed Gull is an Amber-listed species of conservation concern, of which 40 per cent of its world population breeds in Britain – in fact, Larus fuscus graellsii is a near-endemic subspecies of Lesser Black-backed gull found mostly in the British Isles and the adjacent continental seaboard. A rapid decline in numbers in recent years has led to the RSPB and other conservation organisations under the umbrella of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee  to consider its population in the Forest of Bowland – which comprises 10 per cent of the total – to be worthy of protection as the colonies there are of international importance.

A Freedom of Information request by The Guardian newspaper has revealed that one particular shooting estate has not been toeing the line, with NE's full knowledge.  Despite the species' well-known status among conservationists, NE has been allowing an annual cull of Lesser Black-backed Gull on the 23,500-acre Abbeystead Estate in the Lancashire fells, which has killed up to 10,000 birds per year by poisoning, cannon-netting, gas gun, falconry and straightforward shooting. 

Though initially and apparently legally allowed since the 1970s for the purposes of maintaining a clean water supply, the cull has continued right up to the present day, despite the change in the gull species' conservation fortunes and the last licence being issued in 1999. A former Abbeystead gull surveyor has said in The Guardian that the culling takes place to protect the "economy of the shooting estates" – of which Abbeystead is one – as it has been known to eat the eggs of Red Grouse.

The gullery at Bowland Fells has held up to 18,080 nests at its peak, but numbers have fallen rapidly, being down to around 1,000 at Abbeystead itself. NE claim that despite the gull being declared endangered and Bowland  being named as a Special Protection Area (SPA), the SPA document for Bowland has not been updated and that is why the cull had been allowed to continue. The area already has a bad reputation for thepersecution of Hen Harriers and other birds of prey.  

Clearly NE, which claims its "purpose is to protect and improve England’s natural environment and encourage people to enjoy and get involved in their surroundings", does not mind appearing as the stooge of landed shooting interests. The British people must be wondering what other skeletons are hanging in the public body's closet. 

The RSPB has today welcomed a recommendation ruling out, yet again, proposals for an airport in the Thames Estuary. The Transport Select Committee stated that the plans for a new hub airport in the estuary are too expensive and environmentally damaging, with specific mention of the hundreds of thousands of birds that make the estuary their home. The RSPB's Head of Conservation Policy, Dr Sue Armstrong-Brown, said: "Our fierce defence of the Thames Estuary has been recognised by the Transport Select Committee and we welcome their recommendations not to allow the development of an airport there. However, the committee's report goes on to state that there is a need to expand aviation in the southeast of England. It goes further and supports expansion at Heathrow. We are as opposed to that as we are to the inappropriate development of the Thames Estuary."

Sue added, "Having opposed London Mayor Boris Johnson, the main backer of an estuary airport, we now find ourselves united in our opposition to the Select Committee's recommendation for major expansion at Heathrow in west London. Our policies remain the same, but Mayor Johnson has today voiced his opposition to a third runway, or the new proposal of moving Heathrow westwards, on environmental and cost grounds. Exactly the same points we will be making."

Aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK and by 2050 aviation could account for one quarter of the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions, yet there are no targets to contain this, and these emissions are still not counted in the UK's carbon budget system. The committee were convinced of the economic necessity of expansion put forward by the aviation industry. This was despite the recent submission to the UK Government of a new report commissioned by the RSPB with HACAN and WWF from CE Delft. The study found that once a city reaches a certain level of "connectedness" further expansion is unlikely to significantly affect the economy. London already has six airports with seven runways and more flights than any other place in the world; as connected as it gets.