Our letter to the new RSPB ambassadors

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The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds recently announced the appointment of nine new ambassadors: Nadeem Perera, Samuel West, Indy Kiemel Greene, Ollie Olanipekun, Megan McCubbin, Deborah Meaden, Steve Brown, Lucy Hodson and David Domoney.

The ambassadors are joining the charity's self-declared mission to 'save nature'. With that in mind the NGO are writing to each of them, inviting them to spend the day with a local gamekeeper who will demonstrate the conservation work that they carry out and the benefits that their work brings to biodiversity on the land they manage. 

Here is the NGO's letter to the new RSPB ambassadors: 

On behalf of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, I would like to offer our congratulations on your recent appointment as an ambassador for the RSPB. 

I wanted to write to you in my capacity as Chairman of the NGO to invite you to spend a day with a gamekeeper in your local area. 

Gamekeepers across the British Isles carry out vast amounts of conservation work every day of their working lives which benefits a variety of bird species, many of which are red or amber listed. This includes  – but is not limited to – carrying out land management practices which create suitable habitats for ground-nesting birds; providing protection and feed for songbirds through the planting of cover crops; maintaining wetlands which provide an important water source and sustain insect life, or by reducing predation threats to both chicks and older birds. Shooting – and thus gamekeepers – are estimated to be involved in the management of two thirds of the rural land area of the UK. 

In addition to the conservation benefits that gamekeeping brings, shooting also has a very important social and economic role within rural communities. As a whole, shooting is worth over £2 billion a year to the British economy, with shooters spending around £2.5 billion a year on goods and services. In many rural areas shooting is often a lifeline to local economies in the winter months, helping to support catering and hospitality establishments and many other small businesses at a time of year when tourist trade can be hard to come by.  

The work gamekeepers do to enable shoot days to go ahead also provides an important social function. Days spent helping or working on shoots brings people together, encourages them to spend time outdoors, and allows them to enjoy an active social life with people of all ages.  

We would love the opportunity to show you some of the ‘on the ground’ work that our members do, and would be delighted to organise something to suit your availability and local area.

Please let me know if this might be of interest and the NGO will organise something to suit. We look forward to hearing from you.

David Pooler

Chairman, National Gamekeepers' Organisation