I have noticed recently that a large number of news items on the BBC have a quote from FoE so I did some investigations.

Using google to search for the exact phrase "Friends of the Earth", in various years, on bbc.co.uk/news I found the following number of occurrences:

2000 0
2001 9
2002 - 2009 0
2010 52
2011 139
2012 150
2013 150

FoE have gone from being mentioned in 9 pages in a decade to more than that every month. Is there anybody at the BBC, in a position of influence, affiliated with FoE*

* I think from now on I will call them "FoE of Everybody"

Probably down to several factors, FoE's involvement in the Climate Change Act. Jonathan Porritt, ex-director of FoE has a lot of contacts in the media and still knows people at FoE. Charles Secrett a mate of Caroline Lucas. It's probably as much a case of getting mates in to answer questions. If there is one thing environmentalists are it's being well organised and being always ready to be interviewed. There is just one phone number to ring to get hold of an FoE spokesperson whereas getting hold of someone to talk to who is in favour of whatever the protest is about is much more difficult. It suits two facets of BBC reporting, their environmentalist leanings and liking for copy and paste journalism.

WWF:
<2010 0 (limit of online archive?)
2010 38
2011 76
2012 90
2013 100
2014 112
2015 140

Some links appear gratuitous. e.g. what has WWF Scotland to do with speed cameras on the A9?

Greenpeace:

<2010 0
2010 69
2011 135
2012 120
2013 310
2014 140
2015 180

It's probably because there's less juicy stuff from scientists now they realise that people actually might question their more lurid pronouncements. Or heaven forbid judge them unfavourably on them. The Beeb has to look elsewhere for alarmists.

It doesn't add up...
Aren't the A9 cameras average road speed jobs? So possibly hoping fewer large and small mammals will meet their end on the A9? A busy road through some remote countryside, I would think there is a fair amount of road kill. Again the BBC green luvvies like getting their mates in the news and keeping them in the public eye.

SandyS

Here's what WWF actually said:

Gina Hanrahan, Climate and Energy Policy Officer at WWF Scotland said:

“Alongside the clear safety benefits, enforcing speed limits on trunk roads using average speed cameras and other tools is an effective and cost effective way to reduce climate emissions as well as fuel costs for motorists.

“To reduce health-threatening levels of air pollution and our meet our climate targets, the use of average speed cameras and other approaches to help reduce excessive speeds should be seriously considered on other major roads across Scotland.”

Nothing about wildlife at all.