Kevin Cox: Podcast Q&A

David was recently in conversation with Kevin Cox, the Chairman of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), to explore potential solutions for restoring our planet's natural resources.

Kevin's career has been diverse and multifaceted. Initially, he served as the joint Managing Director of Future Publishing. He later ventured into establishing Origin Publishing, a company dedicated to publishing specialised magazines.

In addition to his professional career, Kevin has also been involved in various activist pursuits. For the past 12 years, he has served as a trustee of the World Land Trust. In 2008, he played a crucial role in assisting BirdLife International in establishing a protected area for the critically endangered Blue-throated Macaw in Bolivia. Kevin's commitment to conservation is further evident through his involvement on the Council of Devon Birds, where he most recently held the position of Chair.

How did you get into the conservation world?

I think my fascination with nature began when I went fishing with my dad. We’d sit there for hours catching nothing, and I just became obsessed with spotting wildlife. Waiting for various species made me fall in love with watching ecosystems in action. 

I still remember when I was about eight, an exotic bird came into my garden in West London. My parents hadn't got a clue what it was. Because we were reasonably close to Heathrow Airport, we assumed that it was an escapee from a foreign flight. I went to my Newnes Pictorial Encyclopedia, which I used to devour, flicked to British birds, and there it was - it was a jay. 

This clarifies that the disconnect from nature isn't recent. It has been there for a long time as people have moved from rural to urban areas, which can be shown by my parents being unable to identify the jay.

Tell us about your publishing career. 

I started as a magazine journalist and then gradually moved into being a publisher. 

About 27 years ago, my wife and I went backpacking around the world for a year, and when we returned to the UK the two of us set up our own publishing company made up of specialist magazines. 

We were based in Bristol, where BBC Wildlife Magazine was being published, which I had been a reader of for many years. I approached the BBC about publishing it under license which it said it wasn’t prepared to do, but it did suggest buying us as a company, so we could then publish BBC magazines as a subsidiary of the BBC. At first, I was not keen on the idea, but eventually we ended up selling the company to the BBC and publishing BBC wildlife, BBC Music, BBC History, and a whole range of their specialist titles in Bristol. 

Publishing BBC Wildlife was how I made my way back into conservation. It allowed me to nurture my passion, and led me to meet John Burton at World Land Trust of which I became a Council Member. 

Tell us about your activism in the conservation space.

As a trustee of World Land Trust, I became involved with the Paraguayan partners and went out with John and others to Paraguay and then to Bolivia to participate in restoring the Blue-Throated Macaw, an endangered parrot in Bolivia. 

When I visited there for the first time, there were probably only 150 to 200 pairs. Nobody knew where they were breeding and there was no protected area for them. BirdLife International and the World Land Trust donated and raised money, and we bought a 5000 acre ranch, which has since doubled in size, for the Blue Throated Macaw. The ranch has helped to mitigate the big problem of the loss of one of the species’ main food sources, the Motacú palm fruits, of which quantities have reduced because of overgrazing. 

When did you become Chair of RSPB?

My time chair started in 2017. I did five years, and for a number of reasons I was asked to stay on for another term but I truly believe an organisation needs to remain fresh and welcome a new and diverse range of people, so I will step down next October.

How do you see the RSPB’s role in the future of natural capital? 

The RSPB has always worked on policy and advocacy, I think our advocacy is moving into a different direction and we are becoming more propositional. We’re focused on describing what good looks like, not just being oppositional to things that governments propose. 

If we do oppose, we describe what we want to see. We’re also mobilising our supporters, to understand the big issues and to really give them a sense of excitement about what change could deliver.

Through our outreach to the corporate world, the idea of natural capital will increase in the coming years. Putting a monetary value on nature will allow our case to be economically visible and therefore, of greater concern to more people and businesses.

Do you see a role for regenerative agriculture in stitching back the fabric of the countryside?

I see a big role for regenerative agriculture and agro-ecological approaches in farming. The farmers within the Nature Friendly Farming Network, are spearheading this, demonstrating that you can produce good quality food in a nature friendly way, so that biodiversity can thrive alongside food production. 

Is the RSPB working in the area of regenerative agriculture?

The RSPB has got its demonstration arable farm in Cambridgeshire, which I think has been great in showing farmers the evidence that any negative impact on yields is nonexistent, and changing their model will only bring benefits. 

Is it enough to change our methods of food production?

Probably not. We need a much more fundamental change to our food system. 

40% of our farmland at the moment is producing livestock directly and another 45% of arable land is producing feed for the livestock. We cannot keep expecting to produce livestock. We have all the other issues around methane and nitrous oxide and the impact on the environment, and that’s without considering the chemicals going into the land. 

 We need to educate and empower people to change their habits to reduce demand, our diets affect the environment, whether it is the use of pesticides, air pollution or river pollution because of farm run-off, we need to see change. 

If there was one thing that could be done to reverse biodiversity loss what do you think it would be? 

I think changing our food and farming systems, as they cover such a large area of our land. It’s about getting businesses to change their models and recognising their impact on biodiversity, which is exactly what The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TFND) will encourage corporate businesses to do and then account for. 

Plus, I think it is necessary to get our uplands into good condition. If we start to see our uplands for a range of different purposes, rather than just for food production,they will have the greatest ability to combat the climate and nature crisis. This is because we’ll be able to make sure our peat lands are sequestering and storing carbon rather than omitting it. We’re working on this at the RSPB currently. 

In Missouri, they have a sales tax that means 1/8 of 1% of all economic activity in that state goes into nature and conservation. Do you think that might work in the UK? 

The honest answer is no, for two reasons. Number one is that I don't think you get political support and number two is I think the money that would raise is nowhere near enough to the crisis that we face. 

Saying to corporations that they will be taxed unless they address the impact that they’re having on biodiversity, that seems to me a good way of using financial incentives rather than increasing the tax burden.

In terms of your career, to date, which change makers do you admire? 

There's a huge number of people in the RSPB who I admire, and I can’t name them all.

Working with Becky Speight as the chief executive has been fantastic since she joined the RSPB. She’s been a revelation. 

Hilary McGrady, director general at the National Trust has shifted the way people perceive this body of protected sites. The land on National Trust locations was previously seen as an adjunct to the cultural heritage of the sites, but she has been instrumental in shifting the way this land is managed and regarded. 

Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree at the Knepp rewilding project in Sussex have encouraged other larger estates to think of innovative and effective ways of managing their land.

One good friend Mary Colwell has also done a fantastic job highlighting the plight of the curlew - one of the UK’s most important and threatened species. Also, the work she's done on the natural history GCSE is really important in educating our young people and repairing that disconnect with nature.

Finally, I'd choose my wife Donna, who set up Moor Meadows in 2015, which has now got over 2000 members. It's a community group that encourages people to create and manage hay meadows. I think she's uncovered a demographic of people who want to do something good for nature, but didn't previously have the knowledge or confidence to make a change on their land. 

Do you feel optimistic about the future of nature restoration?

I wouldn't be in this field if I wasn’t hopeful. 

RSPB reserves always fill me with optimism. Recently, I was at the Frampton Reserve in Lincolnshire, which has the highest density of breeding waders in England. 

16 years ago, Frampton was all potato fields. It is now absolutely heaving with‌ wildlife, particularly our breeding waders, such as black-winged stilts and spoonbills, which aren’t breeding there yet, but they will. 

Organisations like the RSPB can't turn the tide on biodiversity loss on their own, the money needs to come from politicians to address this. I’m hugely optimistic that the corporate market will step up and recognise the impact they have and offset that, as well as embed nature recovery and‌ climate mitigation into their business model. We can turn this around, we just all need to play our part.