Save CEH: what other experts are saying
"Everything must be done to save the research centres".
Butterfly Conservation chief executive, Martin Warren,
"The Government needs to be able to make decisions based on sound scientific research, and any actions that reduce its ability to do so must be challenged."
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
"The recent disclosure about the fate of CEH is surprising because it appears to be at variance with the Government's concerns about, and commitment to, environmental issues. CEH has a worldwide reputation for excellence in the biological sciences, especially ecology, and has produced some of the most innovative and important work in insect ecology and other areas of biology over the past four decades.
We strongly urge the Government to reconsider the proposed restructuring so that CEH's unique expertise and facilities are not lost in an attempt to save a relatively small amount."
Royal Entomological Society, The Independent
"There is now a far stronger public demand for action on the green agenda, for example, and for policies to spare the world the worst effects of rapid climate change and to avert the impending mass extinction of species.
Closing the UK's leading wildlife research centres will significantly damage our ability to tackle either.
As with climate change, Labour may find there is a tipping-point in credibility beyond which remedial action becomes useless. Several such points potentially lie ahead in 2006. … A third is whether the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology will close. The last one is the simplest to solve, but even here Mr Blair seems reluctant to intervene. If he and his ministers stand by and do nothing, they will have failed perhaps the easiest green test of all.
Tony Juniper, Friends of the Earth
"In my opinion, the closure of the Monkswood, Winfrith, and Banchory stations cannot be allowed, if our government's stated commitment to defending our natural environment is to be taken seriously. If these cuts go ahead, we must surely ask whether NERC is the right agency to have responsibility for such essential long-term research. There is much to be learnt from this sad tale."
Jack Dempster, past director of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (now the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology)
Daily Telegraph
"CEH is an extremely important research institution for ecology due to its scientific expertise, research facilities and data holdings. The BES urges NERC to maintain CEH’s strength in those areas of science that are difficult to replace and are vital to the scientific community’s ability to address current environmental issues."
British Ecological Society
"With CEH currently being the premier organisation, Europe-wide, in terms of facilities, resources, skills and knowledge, ecological research in this country will never be the same again."
Wild about Britain
"The loss of skilled staff, the disruption to the biological recording network and the apparent lack of committment by the Government to biodiversity and climate change research is of great concern."
National Federation for Biological Recording
“What has not been opened up for debate is the extent to which the review process was sound and whether the unhappy outcome may have highlighted the need for science to have the protection of a system of public inquiry.
It is difficult to regard the NERC review process as sound because there is little evidence of a competent strategic context, at least one that would stand up to the scrutiny of an examination in public. Essentially, the review has been little more than accountancy exercise that has made few concessions to the growing demands on CEH science, not least those relating to climate change, biodiversity, sustainable development and threats to food security. Most significantly, the study was a cost-limited process that meant cuts would be inevitable, despite the clamour of wider economic imperatives.”
Dr Colin Hindmarch, chair of the enviroonment committee of the Institute of Biology
(Daily Telegraph letter)
English Nature, the Government's own wildlife conservation agency, says it has "major concerns over the scale of proposed cuts in staff and facilities," which it deems "inappropriate when the outcomes of research are needed to inform key concerns such as climate change, biodiversity conservation and environmental pollution".
The Independent
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