An action plan to save 600 British species of flora and fauna was presented yesterday by Sir David Attenborough to John Gummer, the Environment Secretary. It is aimed at stopping the extinction of species including bats, mosses and birds and allowing those that are threatened to flourish.
Conservationists said that many species were declining "at a rate of knots" and could be lost within decades. They include ferns and algae and birds such as the song thrush and the skylark, as well as the more high-profile species such as the bittern, down to 16 pairs, and the silver-spotted-skipper butterfly, which has suffered a 74 per cent decline since the 1950s.
Sir David, the naturalist and broadcaster, speaking at the Natural History Museum in London last night, said: "Biodiversity Challenge (the action plan) lists over 150 species which are known, or are believed, to have become extinct in the UK this century. About half of these were only found in the UK and have therefore been lost to the world for ever."
The lost species include the many-branched stonewort, the Essex emerald moth, the peach-leaved bellflower and the burbot, a fish. Sir David said it was a matter of urgency that policies were implemented to ensure other species were not lost.
Biodiversity Challenge is intended to help the Government to meet its commitments to the Rio Earth summit by setting recovery targets, drafting conservation schemes and costing programmes.
Graham Wynne, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said that huge benefits to wildlife were possible for relatively small amounts. The Caledonian pinewoods of Scotland, a unique habitat cut to 12,500 hectares, 1 per cent of their original range, could be managed and expanded by 10,000 hectares for about รบ700,000 a year for ten years.
