What should the RSPB be called? (1 Viewer)

Today Mark Avery on his Blog ( http:// markavery.info/blog/ ) posed the question within an entry of what should the RSPB be called. Perhaps its future role should be reviewed too ?

I thought long and hard on what I took to be a quite serious question and have put a full response on my own Blog ( see Http://birdingodyssey.blogspot.com/

The future of bird conservation in the UK is at a bit of a crossroads in many respects and reactions and comments to the sort of question above are of particular interest. What are your thoughts?

I dont really get why people seem to be increasingly complaining about the RSPB not just concentrating on birds though i do agree that I'd expect a bird on the membership card not an Otter.
Yes it's supposed to be a bird organisation but surely the single most important issue in conservation is habitat and creating and managing habitat will always benifit all manner of wildlife not just birds and surely pretty much all RSPB members have a general interest in most wildlife not just birds.
Yes you'd expect birds to be the primary concern but I cant imagine too many people being happy to see a habitat changed just to benifit birds at the cost of other types of wildlife. I think its unrealistic( and quite wrong) to expect any conservation organisation to concentrate on just one thing and not look at the bigger picture.
When it comes to a name change well I think at the end of the day its just a name they can call themselves what they want but it's what they actually do that matters.

I would recommend you read chapter 15 of Mark's book on the subject.

I agree that RSPB is about birds and that we have other NGOs that cover plants, butterflies, badgers etc but to protect and conserve birds in isolation of their habitat and environment would be fruitless - hence why the statement the RSPB use reads "nature's voice".

We shouldn't forget that whether we like it or not, a deep divide exists between those who consider a certain approach to conservation that RSPB, WWT, WT pursue and other's who prefer the shoot-to-conserve attitude preached by many with a commercial sporting interest. Mark's blog provides an illustration of this divide to very good effect. For this reason I personally am not comfortable that the "R" in RSPB should stand forever when we have examples where those in the Royal family support in my view, the wrong type of conservation and for the wrong reasons. I think it is good that Mark chooses to challenge the current situation as conservation needs to move with the times and maybe it's time for the RSPB to dispense with it's Royal charter?

Why not have your say on the matter? And by the way, I don't see this as being a complaint.

Edit - forgot to note that I came to the same conclusion as you have John

Consignia?