It hit me like a punch in the
face, one little sentence, one little number, that's all it was. What is this
sentence you ask? It was this headline: 'World Wildlife falls by 58% in 40
years'. I'm not sure what got to me more, the staggering number and the sad
loss of biodiversity it represents, or the fact that I wasn’t that surprised to
read it (shocked yes but surprised no). Let’s face it; it’s no big secret that
the world’s wildlife is in trouble.
You only have to speak to anyone
over the age of fifty to realise that there is a lot less wildlife than there
was a few decades ago. Less Lions, less Yellowhammers, less Cod pretty much
less of everything. But what are conservationists doing about it? The answer
seems to be about a million different things all at once.
Rainforests are just one habitat that has become fragmented and damaged |
So often the conflict in
conservation is portrayed as a tug-of-war between conservationists and
non-conservationists (big business, corrupt governments etc). But the
actual conflict is so often between conservationists themselves. Rather than a
tug-of-war it can sometimes seems like there are a hundred different
conservation organisations all pulling in one hundred different directions.
Many special organisations promote the conservation and interests of the
species they look-out for, this maybe different to another species needs. Some
organisations look at whole habitats and some seem to just chase the funds
wherever they are with no clear long-term objectives.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s
important we have organisations and interest groups looking out for all species
and habitats at local, national and international levels. Whether it’s the
Bumblebee Trust or the RSPB they all have a part to play. But it often leads to
problems allocating limited funds and deciding what is best to conserve and
how. Who has the power to decide what gets conserved and what doesn’t, what
criteria can you use? Often it has to be done on a case by case basis.
Yellowhammers have declined sharply, but should we be conserving them? |
This can even lead to a more
basic question, what is natural for an area? Re-wilding is a big topic in conservation
at the moment; aiming to restore landscapes to as close to their natural
untouched state. Many conservation organisations feed into this to a greater or
lesser extent. But what about species that have declined but maybe were not
naturally that common? A good example of this is farmland birds in the U.K
(Yellowhammers, Linnets, Tree Sparrows etc). These are essentially birds of
open grassland. However, in pre-agricultural Britain most of the land was
woodland, so these species were probably rare and localised. As agriculture
spread so did they, unfortunately as agriculture intensified they got left
behind. The subsequent declines have earned them a place on the Red list. But
should we conserve them as they are essentially a 'cultural community' created
by the landscapes we made for our own ends.
Well my answer to this is a resounding yes, we
should. We have lost 58% of out wildlife but we still have 42%. That’s 42% we
can, if we are smart, protect, conserve and restore. Let's protect what we have
left, because it’s all we’ve got.
So, although this 58% figure
paints a bleak picture it doesn’t have to be a cause to give up hope and go
home. Let’s use it as a low point, a line in the sand. Conservation needs to
take a step back, survey the damage and then unite to work out what can be
done.