The Independent 4th Jul 1998

The tiny lapwing takes on the mighty developer:

On Sites of Special Scientific Interest rare birds should be safe. But Matthew Brace finds that many are still under threat...

The lapwings are dying. The sight of their black, wispy crests and their once familiar pee-wit calls are becoming scarce. Just six years ago, the Complete Book of British Birds said these wading birds, also known as green plovers, could be found throughout Britain and almost always in flocks, some numbering several thousand. However, disturbingly meagre counts have prompted concern that the population is now dangerously low.

In the South-west the lapwing has virtually disappeared, the North Staffordshire moors have witnessed a decline from 306 breeding pairs to 85 during the past 10 years, and in Wales the population has halved, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

We have been here before with other birds and, again, the increasing intensification of agriculture must shoulder some of the blame, but so too should poor management of the 6,510 designated nature sites that are supposed to be sanctuaries for such birds.

So annoyed is the RSPB with the neglect of Sites of Special Scientific Interest that it has just launched a campaign to toughen the laws protecting them, to prevent them 'bleeding to death' through total apathy:

One such SSSI they would love to protect is Rainham Marsh, a scrappy, 80-hectare plot of scrub land lying next to the north bank of the Thames estuary, just beyond the Dagenham Ford plant in east London. It is part of a larger 5551 - the 480-hectare Inner Thames Marshes - and is one of the few sites where lapwings are doing well and where, according to the RSPB and the Environment Agency, the lapwing's fight-back could begin. But the birds are not safe yet. A battle has been raging over Rainham for more than a decade and the latest salvo has recently been fired in the form of a revised planning application from the owners, the London Borough of Havering, and the Government's urban regeneration quango, English Partnerships. The council describes the site as unused and of strategic importance to development, and licks its lips in anticipation of erecting a business park.

The original application included a petrol station, drive-through restaurant and a hotel and caused so much ire in the borough that a revised plan released in the past two weeks erased those items. Think of the jobs, the council argues, claiming as many as 8,600 will be created directly and indirectly, and it is a strong argument, considering unemployment in East London is running at 7.2 per cent.

And would anyone miss Rainham Marsh? On the surface it looks a mess. Its grasses and reeds are blown by foul air from factories and a landfill site. Fly-tippers have left piles of used mattresses and rubbish bags littering the fringes of the site. A new extension to the A13 into London has sliced it in two and an unknown quantity of dirty run-off from an industrial park next door has seeped in to drainage ditches and is being investigated by the Environment Agency.

It is little more than waste ground to those who glimpse it while whizzing past in their cars or from a plane coming in to land at City airport in the Docklands - the kind of place that might come in handy for East End gangsters wanting to discreetly dispose of their enemies. The kind of place ripe for economic regeneration.

What the passers-by are looking at, in fact, is London's biggest SSSI, the capital's only remaining area of extensive grazing marsh and a place of national importance to wildlife that has been virtually untouched for hundreds of years.

A spokesman for the Environment Agency, the Government's green watchdog, which has been carrying out ecological surveys on the site, said it has the potential to be a vital breeding ground for lapwings and other wading birds and a springboard for them to migrate to other nearby havens. It gives them a rare, undisturbed roost spot when high tides force them off the mud banks of the Thames. An EA report soon to be released is expected to classify the marsh as a nationally important habitat for insects, too.

It is home to the rare Roesel's Bush Cricket, the Great Silver Diving Beetle

Back to press index