War and the Development of Nature Conservation in Britain

The paper marks the fiftieth anniversary of the wartime beginnings of the modern nature-conservation movement in the U.K. First a Conference on Nature Preservation in Post-war Reconstruction, and then a Nature Reserves Investigation Committee and a special committee of the British Ecological Society, explored the concept and requirements of a series of national nature reserves. Lists of such sites were drawn up. Through the increasing participation of ecologists in such discussions, the word “conservation” was adopted to imply a more positive, forward-looking approach to nature protection. It was recommended that the reserves should be made the responsibility of the science, rather than the planning, sector of Government, as part of a wider institutional development of post-war ecological research in the U.K. The appointment of the Nature Conservancy in 1949 marked the realisation of those aspirations.