The Conversation

Without taking action we’ll soon see the back of many species. Chris Ison/PA

Are birds worth the billions?

Nicola Hemmings, University of Sheffield

Birdlife International’s new report recommends a US$80 billion increase in annual spending in order to fully protect important bird biodiversity areas. This surely poses the question: are birds really…

Even starlings are “red listed” as threatened in the UK. Clive Gee/PA

An $80bn cry for help that will save more than just birds

Stuart Marsden, Manchester Metropolitan University

BirdLife International’s State of the World’s Birds report hopes to demonstrate an urgent need for funding, advocacy, conservation action and monitoring to halt the global loss of birds and other wildlife…

Neither laws nor guns are stopping the poachers. Grø Åmert/Flickr

Misguided ‘war on poaching’ will not save the wild beasts

Douglas MacMillan, University of Kent

Rhinos, elephants and the big cats like lions and tigers are all at risk of extinction as a result of a resurgence in the illegal trade of their body parts. Newspapers in recent days have been filled with…

Extinctions: happening since before we were around, but happening a lot more now. Andrew Milligan/PA

Our role in extinctions cannot be denied

Andrew Goudie, University of Oxford

The State of Nature report published this month showed that of more than 3,100 British species surveyed, 60% are in decline, and one in 10 of those species on the Red List are under threat of extinction…

Britain’s best loved mammal, but no friend to cattle farmers. Ben Birchall/PA

Swapping science for shooting won’t save cattle or badgers

John McInerney, University of Exeter

What do the pilot badger culls due to start this weekend in Gloucester and West Somerset hope to achieve? The official line is a 16% reduction of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle herds over the next…