The millennium offers us a good opportunity to ask ourselves how well we are discharging the commitment to Cornwall made by our founders. There are new pressures as the natural environment shrinks with economic growth, as the constant threat of pollution of our glorious coastline from the sea grows, and as the changing climate adds southern species and removes northern species from our fauna and flora.
What, then, are the priorities as the pressure grows?
- We must continue to search for and encourage bequests of natural environment to the care of the Trust. It is the only certain way we can protect in perpetuity the natural environment for our children and theirs. Parts of Cornwall important enough to be classified as SSSIs are still being destroyed. The loss of such treasures is irreversible.
- It is sound information about the rates of loss of Cornwall's biological heritage with which we need to confront planners and developers. The LIFE Project GIS has performed a vital role in demonstrating the rates of these losses. The Trust's Environmental Records Centre (ERCCIS) holds the bulk of the available information on Cornwall's biodiversity, including a database with over a million records of 22,000 species. We must maintain and use these unique resources to good effect to promote our cause.
- It is the young who will inherit the Cornish environment. If we want it to be cared for in the way we have tried, we must pass on the environmental ethic by which we have worked, besides the Trust and its reserves. We must actively educate the young, providing them with a knowledge and love of wildlife.
To these ends we must recognise the value of our resources and use them wisely. Highest among the Trust's resources I value the environmental missionaries among staff and members who are prepared to give selflessly of themselves to our cause. We must support and encourage them in the Trust's aim to conserve the Cornish environment and its wildlife.
Tony Stebbing
