EU Referendum

How do you feel about the UK abolishing the Birds and Habitats Directive, The Bonn Convention, or the Ramsar Convention to name but a few?

What about the EU grants and funds we have access to to protect and conserve our wildlife and habitats? 

What about the freedom of sharing knowledge, resources, and working in partnership with other universities and organisations to protect species in this country and those that migrate?

Do you - hand on heart - believe that the UK government would keep these pieces of legalisation and fund them? Taking into consideration they have not seemed to agree on a ban on wild animal circuses; have not banned driven grouse shoots where illegal killings of our birds of prey is rife, and numbers of hen harriers have plummeted, yet no one is brought to justice; have some of the worst conviction rates against wildlife crime and the illegal trade in the world, never mind the EU; where they're more concerned with the economy and immigration, than putting food on your table, clean air in your lungs, and planting trees so you can breathe.

As a conservation biologist, specialising in benthic ecology, my study site (Dee estuary) has a UCG exploratory license, held over it like a noose at the gallows. It's European legalisation that is protecting it from being churned to hell. 

Do I think any UK government would protect it to the same standard as the European Union has? 

Not a chance in hell. 

Not when the UK government has granted permission for it to be explored for cheap, unsustainable gas.

No one is saying the EU is some infallible beast that can never be changed - it can, it has and it does, all the time. The EU changes as people bring the issues and the solutions to the table; how can you possibly move forward and strive for a better future, when you've turned your back to the issue?

The RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth, World Wildlife Fund for Nature are some of the biggest conservation organisations that are supporting the EU Remain Campaign because they know that leaving would risk everything they've work incredibly hard for, since their inception. 

From a scientists perspective, working with Europe and having that access and freedom of knowledge, expertise, and shared resources is vital to the future of research and the planet. Becoming a powerful force together (by the way, this is not a 'superstate' argument) will only prove to be a better way of advancing our education system, access to health care and a caring for our planet.