Lockdown provided the opportunity to try to explain the complexities of international conservation, its ‘CoPs’ now part of public parlance. In a May 2021 interview upon the book’s publication, David explained that “not only do these treaties establish some of the most important conservation objectives, but they provide a means of learning from other experience. Typically, international treaties set a broad goal, but are much less prescriptive as to exactly how this will be delivered nationally. They also provide important drivers of national conservation policy, an example being the international obligation to phase out the use of lead gunshot in wetlands by 2000 which created legislation across the UK to that effect from 1999.”
However he points out that this legal requirement has been widely ignored, with another of his papers recently documenting the 13 million ducks killed illegally with lead shotgun ammunition in England since 1999, thus indicating that enacting environmental legislation is insufficient without follow-up enforcement. Asked about the implications of leaving the EU, David stressed that many aspects of environmental protection are inherently international in nature with neither species and habitats nor many of the factors which drive their decline adhering to national boundaries.
“Indeed, as climate change influences the distributions at continental scale, more nationalistic approaches to conservation will be inherently less successful. Accordingly, UK governments need to take pro-active steps to rebuild lines of communication and forums for engagement although so far there is little evidence of this happening.”
Reflecting on his time at Bradfield, David remembers being set on a career path to conservation thanks to the Biology Department trio of Potts, Thompson and Argyle. “Being a low academic achiever, Potts completely fired me to ‘go for it’ and always had such a genuine personal interest in his pupils. We kept in touch for many years until his death and I think of him often as he was such an inspiring mentor. Tim and Malcolm were great in encouraging thinking on environmental issues in the 1970s when, in some respects, it was all kicking off.”
He was also inspired by Bradfield’s ‘Quest Week’, once described by Richard Osborne (SCR 67-88) as “the single most thrilling education experience in pupils’ lives for many of the those who were lucky enough to experience it.” Memorably organised by the anthropologist John Sayer for many years for the Lower Sixth, the experience had such an impact on David and his peers; “I simply learnt more about the wider world in that single week than I had throughout my five years at Bradfield. It was gripping and his anthropological framing of culture and religion influences my thinking to this day.”
David Stroud retired in 2019 after 28 years as the Senior Ornithologist at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the public body advising UK government on national and international nature conservation. Renowned for his expert knowledge and his work on international treaties, his contribution has been described as ‘immeasurable’. His roles included providing JNCC steering to national bird monitoring schemes whilst also providing UK input to a wide range of international wetland and bird conservation initiatives both in Europe and more widely. This allowed David to exchange ideas and initiatives from the international to the national arenas and vice versa.
In December 2018 he was made Honorary Patron of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds Agreement (AEWA) with which he has been involved since its inception in the early 1990s. In his acceptance speech David stressed the vital roles that AEWA fulfils in linking countries used by these migratory birds, emphasising the restoration of threatened waterbird populations. “People need birds and birds need people to do the right things”, he said.
Alongside his public work, David’s personal interest in the Greenland White-fronted Goose, which he has held since studying Zoology at University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, resulted in a lifetime’s study of this rare goose throughout their international range and advocacy of its conservation of which he says is “real world therapy for a conservation bureaucrat.” He was appointed Member of the British Empire, for services to nature conservation, in 2011.
David’s passion and career also led to him to writing and contributing to multiple publications.
After his successful career, David’s ongoing consultancy and advisory work ensures that he continues to help and contribute to nature conservation both in the UK, EU and more widely.
