We are the Millwall supporters of conservation. No one likes us, we don’t care. I used these words to celebrate the launch of a new conservation charity called Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC). I have the somewhat unexpected honour to be a patron of this organisation not for my expertise in herpetology, but for my natural sympathy with the underfrog.

It’s not so much a start as a long-awaited coming together. Two organisations have become one: Froglife and the Herpetological Conservation Trust are now ARC. They will stand back to back in the bar-room brawl of conservation and fight against the odds for creatures that no one likes.

So we had speeches, including, alas, one from me, and canapés and glasses of wine, and ARC was launched on to the troubled waters of public perception. Conservation is a hard job even when you can call on the majestic and the cuddly to send out your message into the world.

But at least you know that when you have elephants and rhinos on your side, or if you can produce a picture of a baby orang-utan in a nappy, that you are going to get a few oohs and aahs. With amphibians and reptiles you tend to find, instead, a gut response of disgust. It would be easier to sell the notion of the extirpation of all reptiles from the planet than to convince people of the value of the sweet and beautiful grass snake.

It all goes wrong before we even start. To call someone cold-blooded is already an insult: it means that the person in question is not only sub-human, but sinister to boot. The term “reptile” is another insult; I belong to a profession frequently referred to collectively as reptiles. Alas, this doesn’t mean that journos are damned good people who do a damn good job.

Hard, then, to convince people that these creatures themselves matter, and that action on their behalf is something that benefits not only the animals but humankind as well.

That’s enough name-calling

There are 13 British species of amphibians and reptiles, and just about every one of their names can be used as an insult. A toad, for example, has long and ancient associations with evil. They were witches’ familiars — the witch’s spell in Macbeth is more or less a checklist of British herps. Toads are famous for a poisonous sweat with hallucinogenic properties. To call someone a toad is a serious matter.

A lounge lizard is creepy and overdressed and possessed of an unwarranted level of self-esteem. Newts are associated with the state of being falling-down drunk, while, just as oddly, judges are associated with the exact opposite state. It seems to me that we have got this one the wrong way round.

All amphibians are swept up in the term “pondlife", which these days means an unhealthy fascination with the underclass of human society. This is not terribly helpful when encouraging people to feel warmly, still less generously about amphibians.

And so to snakes. All that I have said about the other amphibians and reptiles is multiplied by ten — or in some cases by 100 — when it comes to snakes. Snakes are feared and loathed like no other creatures on Earth. A snake brought about the downfall of humankind, a snake is a slimy, wriggling, fork-tongued incarnation of the Devil himself.

To say that someone is poisonous is a serious matter, it implies that they are utterly without redemption. To call someone a snake is a powerful and specific insult: it means that the person is devious, malicious, odious and self-evidently evil.

All in all, then, it is a pretty hard job to convince people that what Britain needs is more and better places for adders. But this is precisely what I am saying. This strange, diverse and fascinating group of creatures have a right to live like any others, and they enrich our lives as well.

The night song of natterjack toads; the mystery of the little underwater dragons of newts; the grace of a swimming 6ft grass snake; the magical disappearance of a lizard on a wall as your shadow falls; the thrilling revelation of an adder stirring in adder-patterned bracken; all these things I have experienced, and I am richer because of it.

So I am lining up here with the maligned and the misunderstood, the hated and the feared. Good luck to ARC and God bless all who sail in her.

Singing for my supper

Bad news. I am speechifying again this week. I have been persuaded to present an evening of what is optimistically billed as “entertainment”. Never mind, at least there will be an interval in which drinks can be consumed. The do is called A Quantum of Wild, and I will be talking about wild things and reading stuff from them books what I wrote. It’s for the World Land Trust, which will spend the loot buying up rainforest and elephant corridors. It all takes place on Thursday November 12 at The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk — tickets at www.newcut.org and click on “programmes”.

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