A former Purdey Awards winner, the Duke of Norfolk is a vociferous conservationist and wants us all to pull together to help reverse nature’s decline. Here, he tell us about the incredible work he has undertaken on his grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales and grey partridge manor in Sussex

Photograph: Nigel Gull

If you are a countryperson who lives on these beautiful Isles, there is so much to be proud of. For centuries we have cared about our flora and fauna, and our custodianship of it has been an example to the world. But suddenly the alarm bells are ringing that all is not right, that we are losing the battle to save nature and are about to lose our sport with it. This is just as likely to happen with our existing government with its trendy and, on occasion, misinformed ideas and lack of action, as with a future Labour government. Just five years could see everything we hold dear disappear.

My major concern is the state of nature in Britain today. All the scientific studies consistently show we are losing nature at an alarming rate. Half of our species are in decline and 15% are red listed meaning they are in danger of extinction in one generation. Extinction means just that, it means losing a species forever – just like the dodo, we have to take all this seriously. So what is the government doing about this? Recently they have set a target that this loss in nature must be halted by 2030 and then there should be a 10% increase again by 2042. This shows a complete lack of urgency to tackle nature’s decline for another eight years, and yet the government describe this target as ambitious. It is an utterly pathetic response to a deeply worrying situation. We in Britain have a habit of criticising others throughout the world about their loss of species and habitat. We talk about the shrinking rain forests, the near extinction of rhinos on the African plains and the tigers in India and Sumatra. Yet the truth is we are by far the worst performer in stemming nature’s decline amongst the G10 nations globally. Recent statistics show this; we have fallen to the bottom of the league. When is the government going to wake up and do something about it?

“MY MAJOR CONCERN IS THE STATE OF NATURE IN BRITAIN TODAY.”

The current economic, political, and environmental backgrounds make for a complicated situation to navigate. We are facing unprecedented challenges from global warming. It is a huge problem facing the world and we are spending billions annually to try and arrest increased temperatures by cutting carbon emissions. All of this is necessary, and we are starting to genuinely wage war against global warming. But alongside this we are losing the war to halt nature’s decline and it is this which will kill mankind long before global warming does. The earth will survive, it is we humans who won’t, like the dinosaurs before us.

The tipping point is maybe only 10-20 years away. There are areas in China and California where natural pollination is already failing. In China, they have tried to pollinate by hand. It’s a total failure and to attempt it in western agricultural practice would cost billions. It would be uneconomic and simply not a viable proposition. In California they already have to bring large truck loads of pollinators down from Oregon. It is costly and what happens when the pollinators in Oregon run out? The war in Ukraine has shown us that if you take just one cereal growing area in the world out of production, its effect on global prices is considerable. The whole global food supply chain is much more precarious than we might realise. We ignore this at our peril.