Cats. Betes Noir & Wildlife

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/science/29angi.html?_r=1&ref=science

This says it all.

And the current issue of the American Bird Conservancy magazine says a bit more

Green colonialism?

I picked up a leaflet about a scientific symposium being organised by the Zoological Society of London. The Title was Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation:Bridging the Gaps Between Global Commitment and Local Action. A very worthy concept. But interestingly the list of contributors seems to be composed completely of representatives of the Big NGOs (BINGOs) and university and other institutions from the developed world. The views of those actually doing the action, implementing conservation, carrying out the monitoring do not seem to be involved. I recognise that this is not a symposium that will have any real executive functions, but it does seem a bit odd that so few (none?) of those at the sharp end are involved. The WLT is involved in a lot of programmes that involve monitoring -- to ensure the actions we are taking are effective, and most of this involves biodiversity in some way or other (or at least species diversity monitoring), but one thing we are certain of, is that unless the local conservationists are actively involved in all initiatives, there is a good chance that the conservation actions will not be sustainable. The ZSL has a reputation for being a bit reactionary, but one might have hoped that with over 20 speakers giving presentations, one or two might have been from organisations based in the less developed parts of the world, actually involved in the monitoring long-term; there are quite a lot of them.

Burton's Biomass Extinction theory

Having just returned from Kenya, where the human population has pretty well doubled since I first visited, I was musing on the impact of this vast quantity of biomass.

When looking at endangered species and declining species, despite a huge number of factors being cited as direct causes or even indirect causes, one area that appears to have been generally overlooked (or at least unquantified) is the carrying capacity of habitats related to biomass. In general, any given habitat can support a certain biomass of plants and animal species. This biomass can be increased by removing predators, by introducing fertilisers, and various other methods of short-term production. Some habitats will also store biomass in the form of carbon (such as peat) but essentially most habitats probably exist in some sort of equilibrium as far as the biomass is concerned, even if there are short term fluctuations and cycles.

If any of my readers know of publications on this topic, I would welcome references. One of our recent students looked at the issue in relation to the increase in goats and cattle, and the displacement of antelope and other wildlife, but found very little published data. And since Oxfam, Christian Aid and others continue to market the idea that goats are a solution to the issues of poverty, this has direct relevance.

If we examine areas where human interventions have increased the biomass of humans, their domesticated livestock, and crops, it comes as no surprise to observe that the biomass of the species previously existing in those areas has decreased, and with the decrease in biomass, there is also a loss of diversity (the latter being the phenomenon most commonly described). However, most of this dramatic increase in biomass has only occurred in the last two centuries, and consequently the impact on species loss may not yet have had a major impact, as many species are fairly resilient. But my view is that many species, over a relatively short period of time will start to show rapid declines to the point of ecological extinction, as the simplified ecosystems created by the human-livestock-crop interrelationships, will encourage a few relics of the wild ecosystem to become dominant, with others careering towards extinction. The only way of reversing this trend is to allow the human-livestock-crop-wildlife relationship to become more complex (by encouraging more natural cropping systems, less use of pesticides and herbicides), and by reducing the overall biomass of humans and their livestock.

Compounded with the increase in the increase in human related biomass, there has also been a massive decrease in the area available for natural biomass to co-exist. Vast areas are now given over to urban developments and infrastructure, much of which involves the total replacement of natural vegetation and habitats with roads, housing and other solid materials. This is most clearly visible in a country such as England, where even once common species such as the house sparrow are declining, along with most birds found in arable farmlands. But it is also true in a country such as Kenya, where not only has the human population increased dramatically, but urban areas have spread, and the numbers of domestic livestock has increased even more dramatically than that of the human population. And at the same time, the areas available for grazing this huge biomass of domestic livestock has been significantly reduced by the spread of agriculture. This leads to overgrazing, depletion of the soils, so that agriculture becomes dependent on artificial fertilisers, in order to maintain the levels of plant biomass.

If the theory that biomass, as much as biodiversity is playing a role in the maintenance of ecosystems, then there is an even bigger catastrophe waiting in the wings, but because much of this is a very recent phenomenon - essentially post 1950 - it is too early to speculate on the scale of the extinction. However if this theory is correct, then we may be beginning to see a wave of extinctions that even the worst pessimists of the end of the 20th century couldn't have predicted.

Buy land. Save wildlife. 27 years crying in the wilderness

I was doing some filing over Christmas, and I came across some newspaper cuttings dating from September 1981. I had created a furore by giving a paper at the Annual Meeting of the British Association in which I pointed out that while millions of pounds were being spent on preserving post-Pleistocene relics such as the Giant Panda, thousands of species were going extinct in the rainforests.

According to a report in the Times of the 5th September 1981 I "called for a radical change in the approach of conservationists, and urged them to move away from funding research in favour of acquiring land to protect species...." At the time I was the Executive Secretary of the Fauna & Flora Preservation Society (now Fauna & Flora International), and my comments on the fate of the Panda led to calls for my resignation.

However it was not until five years later that I left the FFPS, and soon after that I did put my money where my mouth was, and founded what has become the World Land Trust. But in the intervening quarter of a century the situation has continued to deteriorate, and we are still a voice in the wilderness (what is left of it). Economic crises have come and gone, the world's human population grows ever more out of control, poverty increases in Africa, more and more aid is poured in to poorer countries, arms flood the world. And millions of dollars, yen, pounds, euros etc, are still being spent on (often pointless) research into endangered species. All of this continues, but wilderness, wild places natural habitats also continue to disappear at an even more alarming rate.

So. Despite all the gloom and doom, if you are inclined to make New Year resolutions, can I urge all readers to spread the word? If we want to conserve wildlife for the future, there is only one way that is truly realistic: save habitats.

The World Land Trust has shown how it can be done. We can never do it on our own, but our world-wide network of small, dynamic NGOs is helping spread the word. Our target for 2009 is to raise at least £5 million. Next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. But if much of that comes from donations of £50 or £100, and if the rest comes from the corporate world, the multiplier effect is significant. And if it is spent through strong and integrated partnerships, then it is multiplied even further.

I was recently asked why the WLT had become so successful over the past few years. The answer is very simple: Because we are successful and transparent. Success breeds success, and we can demonstrate some of the most successful conservation projects , some of the the most cost effective projects, and some of the most sustainable projects. Others are now copying us, with varying degrees of success. But our model is certainly effective.

But PLEASE HELP 2009, OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY, BE OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR SO FAR.

Credit cruch and good news

While the worldwide credit crunch could undoubtedly have a serious impact on charities like the World Land Trust, there could be a silver lining. Ever since the beginning of 2008 there have apparently been declines in the value of real estate; and this means that the cash the WLT raises can potentially go a lot further. There is no better time than the present for the WLT to work with its ever increasing network of partners to spread its network of nature reserves. If it's all added up, between the WLT, WLT US and all our partners, there are probably somewhere in excess of five million acres under protection, that might otherwise have been lost. But even this huge number is a drop in the ocean compared with what is needed. However, in the 20 years since the WLT first started to help buy land we have seen dozens of other groups start up, and seen governments take the issue more seriously. In many ways this is the really important benefit of saving land with the WLT: the fact that it sets a really good example. Our successes encourage others. It is, as one of Council Members, Simon Barnes, recently described, the leverage effect. Punching above our weight.

That is not to let governments off the hook for ignoring the real problem that is driving deforestation, carbon excess etc. Human population growth. And greed. Last night I watched a video of a BBC TV production of Anthony Trollope's The way we Live Now. So pertinent and up to date. And that rapacious greed, that is destroying the planet, also leads governments to allow expansion of airports such as Stanstead, not because Britain needs extra capacity, but simply to stop other European countries getting the traffic. Greed. Pure unadulterated greed, is unfortunately what seems to be the great motivator of the 21st century. Most people in the developed world have material wealth several orders of magnitude greater than the poorer parts of the world. But still we want more. And with our population still growing at an alarming rate, only a major pandemic of disease (or similar catastrophe) can reverse this, unless governments take the issue seriously -- really seriously and not just lip service. But there is absolutely no sign of it. And even the world's biggest conservation conference (IUCN in Barcelona 2008) did not exactly put it at the top of its agenda.

How to stop overfishing

I read a short item in The Ecologist this month (October issue) about Greenpeace dumping 3 tonne blocks of granite in the German North Sea to foul the fishing tackle of bottom trawlers. It struck me as a very neat way of enforcing fishing controls, and one that governments could do well to endorse. Dumping large objects in the sea could be a very simple way of enforcing no fishing zones -- at least as far as the highly destructive bottom trawlers are concerned. It reminds me of the proposal to decontaminate the decommissioned North Sea oil platforms, and sink them. This would have been far cheaper for the oil companies than towing them back to land for dismantling, but was unfortunately opposed by Greenpeace and other environmentalists at the time.

A Voice from the past

While doing some filing I came across a paper I had written 27 years ago. It was presented at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and as I recall caused a considerable rumpus at the time. In fact the Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund contacted the Lord Craigton the Chairman of the Fauna Preservation Society (now FFI), and asked that I resign -- I was the Executive Secretary. It is difficult over a quarter of a century later to see what all the fuss was about, but it reached the columns of the Times newspaper, with conservationists joining in to defend my comments.

http://www.worldlandtrust.org/news/future-extinctions.pdf


What I found interesting re-reading this paper (and it should be borne in mind it was given to the Palaeontolgy section of the Conference)is that nearly a decade before we founded the World Land Trust, it was already becoming apparent that land purchase was going to be the best way of conserving wildlife.

And interestingly, at the time I was writing a new glacial period seemed more likely than he global warming we are now recording. Times change, but the number of endangered species continues to spiral out of control. And then as now, human population was the key issue. And it still remains unaddressed.

Indicator species

I noticed that there is a workshop at the next BirdLife Conference on birds as indicator species for biodiversity. This is a concept that I find rather annoying -- birders love to suggest that their favourite organism is somehow a more important type of animal than others. There is an implication that the areas that are important for bird biodiversity are likely to be equally important for other forms of biodiversity. To start with, I really don't like using the term biodiversity, because you never really know what is meant. The majority of times it is being used as a synonym for species diversity, which is not really the same. It's a dangerous route -- rather like the hotspot concept. And like the latter does as much harm as good. Hotspots tend to be equated with species richness, but as any naturalist knows, deserts tend not to have as great a species richness as tropical rainforests. The only problem is that if you want to conserve desert species, conserving hotspots in the rainforest wont help a lot. And the same is true for bird biodiversity. The Galapagos islands are important for bird species diverssity, but to all intents and purposes irrelevant for terrestrial mammalian diversity -- just like New Zealand, with only two native mammals, both bats.

Trying to sell birds as biodiversity indicators is, to me, missing the point. Birds, and all wildlife deserve to be saved for a varity of very good reasons, but trying to kid someone that some taxa are more equal than others, smaks a little of two legs good, four legs bad.

I have nothing against materialist arguments for wildlife conservation, but I think if science is going to be used, we should be very careful that th arguments really stand up -- and when it comes to biodiversity, hotspots, species diversity, biomass etc etc., there is often not nearly enough known to justify some of the claims being made. All to often the species diversity has direct correlations with observer activity. It is very well known, that rare species of orchid, for example are likely to be discovered close to other rare species of orchids -- this is because botanists are more likely to go to those localaities. Just as bird reserves often have far longer bird lists than very similar habitat a half mile away, simply because that's where the birders go.

Letter to the Guardian in response to The Great Land Grab

Last week, John Vidal published an article in the Guardian, The Great Land Grab, which was very critical of land purchase as a method of conservation. World Land Trust Patron, Sir David Attenborough, responded on the Trust's behalf in Buying land can save the world's wilderness areas and a discussion sprung up on the WLT's group page on Facebook. Below is a letter to the Guardian in response to Vidal's article, from Dr. Michael S. Roy of Conservation through Research Education and Action, providing a voice from the 'front line' of conservation, which we thought our readers would find informative.


Dear Editor

In his article "The Great Green Land Grab" of 13th February (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/13/conservation) John Vidal raises our awareness of the current trend of land purchasing by environmental charities in order to save critical and highly threatened habitats across the world. He also brings to our attention the failures of some of those purchases but does not provide full details as to why they failed. The article offers little hope only nightmarish scenarios of conservation groups cheating indigenous people out of their birth right, but fails wholly to identify the complexity and ultimate causes of both the conservation crisis nor the plight of indigenous peoples.

In my first point I would like to set the record straight since John Vidal paints a very disturbing picture of environmental NGOs, the great majority of which are standing against the tidal wave of planetary change using justice and peace as their core weapons. As our last wilderness areas with high biodiversity come under the axe, the developing world, where most of these areas are, have been incapable of thwarting the pressure to give up their natural resources by large corporations and western governments. To work with local people and hope for internal change through aid incentives and education is a necessary but long term approach to conservation. Sometimes however, these simply do not work as stand alone strategies in the face of governments with huge foreign debts to first world nations that will bend over backwards to attract international investment. In these cases natural resources may be a long term necessity but are often seen as a short term luxury. We simply don't have time to wait in many critical areas of the globe and as many learned reports show (eg Millenium Ecosystem Report), conservation is losing the battle. It has therefore been reasoned by many conservation groups that the best and most lasting way to conserve what is left is to buy or rent land, before developers can irreversibly extract the natural resources from them, and provide education and develop sustainable livelihoods for local people during and after the process. Buying land to advance conservation and social ideals is a valid and acceptable practice that has brought prosperity and sustainability to many poor rural communities.

In my second point, Mr Vidal cites conservation as a major player in the social upheaval of indigenous people in the developing world, coining the phrase eco-colonists. However this is very far from the truth in my experience. In many countries again root causes stem from indebted or corrupt governments and multi-national business. It is these that pose the greatest concern for indigenous groups, from eviction from badly planned national parks by national governments (as Mr. Vidal correctly identifies), to mining, petroleum and logging. In Panama, a tropical country rich in biodiversity, indigenous peoples are not being evicted from their land, they are just totally neglected in land use planning. In one case a multiple hydroelectric scheme to be built and operated by the US firm AES will flood part of the Amistad National Park, a World Heritage Site, and drown the homes and livelihoods of the indigenous Teribe people whose ancestral home is the watershed. These dams will also cause the very likely extinction of at least 9 fish species representing about 75% of the river biomass and food source for local people. Many conservation organisations, local and international, are rushing to the aid of the indigneous people and helping them with their legal battle against the government who gave away the concession without the consent of the tribe.

Along the Caribbean coast the Panamanian government has given a 13,000 ha concession to the Canadian Petaquilla mining company, that will devastate this Atlantic primary forest and make it an huge toxic open cast gold and copper mine. This region is part of the Meso-American Biological corridor, a supposed conservation region that has cost millions of dollars to implement (a large part paid for by the European Union) and has included rural development projects to aid local communities achieve their conservation goals. Conservation and social justice groups in Panama are joining forces to condemn this project due the impact that it will have on the local people and the environment.

It is of course necessary to take indigenous and rural communities into full consideration and even hand over control of natural resources to them but this must also be done with caution and good planning. Indigenous people in Panama remain the poorest group with high infant mortality, low life expectancy and chronic malnutrition. Under this situation even indigenous people can fall into the natural resource sell off trap for short term profit. The Ngobe-Bugle of Panama have laid waste to their forest habitat as a result of selling off their timber and adopting western farming techniques but still remain the poorest of the indigenous groups in Panama. The Kuna of Madungandi are currently selling their forests (albeit unwillingly) to logging companies and trucks laden with trees hundreds of years old are often seen in long convoys along the Pan-American highway to saw mills outside the city. The Kuna remain desperately poor and many live in squalor. Through the responsible buying, renting or shared ownership of land and the provision of post purchase development aid that trains communities for sustainable livelihoods which can include sustainable natural resource extraction, conservation groups can and do deliver conservation and development goals at the same time.

Conservation is a crisis discipline and adaptive management is its core philosophy. Conservation in practice is highly complex and requires teams with diverse skills in diplomacy, anthropology, biology, economics, marketing, agriculture, natural resource management, law and politics to name a few, that must deal with the specific cultural, religious and political nuances of each human society. But true conservation respects all biological diversity including the diversity of people and for this reason conservation is an all encompassing movement and the people involved in this field deserve much better than that article written by Mr Vidal.


Dr. Michael S. Roy
Executive Director and Chief Scientist of
Conservation through Research Education and Action
www.crea-panama.org

500 million people in India without toilets

It was recently reported that the Indian government has pledged $225 million to build toilets for the country's poor, and ensure everyone has toilets by 2012.

The implications of this are quite startling. Just think about it. 500,000,000 people do not have toilets at present. How much water, and how much paper will be needed. Scary? But why should we deny people access to facilities we all enjoy?

There are 1.2 billion people in India, and the standard of living is rising rapidly. Wildlife is being squeezed on all sides. We have to face the facts that land for wildlife is becoming an ever more restricted feature, and ever more valuable. It has to 'compete' on the open market -- and this means it can cost as much as £5000 an acre -- that's getting on for $25,000 a hectare. But that's the issue -- the more important the land is, the more expensive it will be. The more threatened it is, the higher the price. We have to bite the bullet and face these facts. We may be able to buy rainforest in South America at $100 an acre -- but it is remote and relatively inaccessible. So to any readers who are concerned about some of the most threatened species of all, you just have to be realistic, and know that £5000 or $10,000 may not buy a huge area, but it may be life or death to tigers and other threatened Asian wildlife.

There's a lot of dodgy greenwash out there

Over the past few months, the WLT has been approached by several businesses, that after doing extensive research, came to the WLT because they decided that many other organisations were just not transparent enough. They also came to us because it was clear that some of the carbon offsetting organisations were simply in the business of making money. With major financial institutions, such as Allied Irish Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers and others choosing to support the World Land Trust we know we are on the right track.

When I look at other websites, I am always astounded how difficult it often is to actually find out anything about the organisation itself. Who are the staff, what do they do? Who are the Trustees, what is their expertise? Who are they endorsed by? And the Annual Report and Accounts. And last, but not least, what are their real achievements?

We also make a point of being available, so that when a donor, whether it is for £25 or £250,000, phones or emails they are dealt with by someone who is knowledgeable, and can answer most of their questions.

But at present, it is certainly caveat emptor -- there are too many organisations saving forests, offsetting carbon, without any real substance behind them. It's actually quite difficult to do it properly -- long term monitoring is not easy to set up. Which is why we are confident that we provide a 5* service. But monitoring reforestation for 20 years, ensuring that the ownership is secure is complex and time consuming, requiring first rate partners, with extensive experience.

We do not claim it is easy -- we know, it is nothing like as easy as it is often made out to be. We do not claim to be the cheapest, in fact we don't really like doing carbon offsets at all. We like saving biodiversity -- avoided deforestation. It's not only cheaper to buy existing forests, it's a much more effective way of reducing greenhouse gases. And this is not bandwagon jumping -- we were doing all these things six years ago, before it became trendy. And we will still be doing it when it is no longer fashionable. The only problem with the current vogue, is that it has allowed a lot of operations to raise a lot of money, with no guarantee that in 20 years time their forests will still be in existence.

Old Growth Logging in Tasmania

Guest blog: A letter received by the World Land Trust on behalf of Sir David Attenborough, and posted with his permission.

Dear Sir David Attenborough,

I urge you to campaign to protect beautiful Tasmania from the ravages of an unscrupulous logging industry which clear-fells ancient old-growth hardwood forests with impunity and is planning a new pulp mill to further accelerate forest destruction. I enclose an article by Richard Flanagan, recently published in The Telegraph in the UK, which eloquently expresses the plight of Tasmania.

The devastation wrought by clear-felling is total - nothing is spared. Many of the mightiest eucalypts are worthless being hollow and ridden with rot. These are bulldozed and burnt along with rare, slow- growing rainforest species such as myrtle, celery-top pine and sassafras. An acquaintance said walking the Tasmanian Trail (a north-south route) was one of the most depressing things she had experienced: 4m diameter tree stumps lay smouldering in wastelands of ash and starving animals were given handfuls of corn from the back of trucks. Gum seedlings, to be planted by hand as part of the 'regeneration' process, are left unplanted in piles by the roadside.

Every day the main road near us is clogged with countless trucks loaded with logs destined to be wood chips and ultimately newspapers in Japan and elsewhere. While the government claims the credit for reserving a large percentage of Tasmania's forests, the reserves mostly contain inaccessible and alpine forest that could not be economically logged. There is widespread use of 1080 bait and atrazine in forestry plantations. Tasmania's unique mammalian population is threatened since most cannot live successfully in new-growth forest, requiring old hollow trees in which to shelter. Tasmania's forests are also home to the majestic wedge-tailed eagle and rare swift parrot.

The logging industry is led by a single, voracious company called Gunns, that is the real power in Tasmania. Their interests spread into all walks of life. The state government seems to exist only to support their interests rather than those of the populace at large. A process was set up to review the viability and environmental credentials of Gunns' proposed new pulp mill, however the commission entrusted with this review started asking too many questions. The state government promptly changed the law to take them out of the process - a process that is in fact a sham, a farce with a guaranteed outcome. A sawmiller that spoke out against old-growth logging was virtually bankrupted by Gunns before being targeted for takeover.

Living here is like living in a feudal, oppressed state. No one dare speak out for fear of a 'red-neck' in a truck coming around to smash up one's place. The state and federal governments doggedly support a marginal industry - already being out-competed by plantation timber from elsewhere in the world - which employs a tiny percentage of Tasmanians, makes a handful of people very rich and denies Tasmanians the tourist wealth it could be reaping.

Because Australia is a western, democratic nation, the world thinks we exaggerate and turns a blind eye, but the destruction and corruption here is as bad as any in the third world. I believe the only way our forests can be saved is by greater international exposure of what is happening. That would surely lead to general vilification from all right-thinking nations. My plea is an urgent one as our forests are disappearing rapidly and the pulp mill is due for approval in August of this year. I thank you for your attention and hope you can help us save our land.

Yours sincerely
Mrs Jenny Cambers-Smith

The newspaper article referred to in this letter can be found at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/06/28/eatas128.xml

Too Many Orang-utans

There are hundreds, if not thousands of orang-utans, gorillas, gibbons and other primates in rescue centres in Africa and Asia and elsewhere. There are so many that it is difficult to know what to do with them. Suggestions to release them back in the wild are given a luke-warm reception, at best, by conservationists. This is because releasing primates that have been in captivity back into the wild is fraught with problems, and can even have negative impacts. It is also rarely a cost effective method of conserving an endangered species -- spending the equivalent amount of money on conserving existing wild populations is invariably a far more cost effective way of helping a species.

But there is a huge welfare issue, with more and more of these animals accumulating, often in conditions that are not ideal. So what can be done with them? One thing I am fairly certain of, and that is that this is a welfare issue, not a conservation issue.

Meanwhile back in the northern hemisphere, zoos are struggling to breed orang-utans, gorillas and other primates, in order to create self sustaining populations, that do not create a drain on the wild -- often dressing it up as part of their conservation programmes.

Surely it would make sense for zoos to stop trying to breed orangs etc., and to put them on birth control pills, and to take in some of the hundreds of animals languishing in rescue centres? Or am I missing something? For someone who has spent a large part of his working life opposing the trade in wildlife, this is a pretty heretical concept. But when confronted with the sheer numbers of orangs in captivity, which still continue to grow, some radical rethinking is needed, which does not waste conservation money. Unfortunately, in the public's mind, separation is often very difficult indeed, and orangs are highly emotive. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are raised each year from a public who often mistakenly believe they are helping an endangered species survive. Those thousands of the dollars spent on rescue centres, would of course, if spent on conserving wild populations and their habitat have a much bigger impact.

But it would still leave a thousand or more orangs in captivity.

A quote from The Independent

I hope Alan MacColl and the Editor of the Independent won't mind, but I could not resist this very eleoquent letter published today. The Indie has been at the forefront of environmental reporting (even if it does still promote its motoring supplements).

America is ploughing up the last remnants of the Great Plains grasslands to produce fuel for SUVs ("Victims of the ethanol rush", 19 October); old-growth forest in Canada is cut down for tissues and toilet paper; the ancient forest of Tasmania is being turned into woodchips for Japanese paper manufacturers. If supposedly advanced western democracies continue to promote such greedy and reckless behaviour, what hope is there of persuading weak or corrupt states like Brazil and Indonesia to adopt more rational and responsible policies towards their forests?
Alan MacColl

Hermitage, Berkshire


The Independent 22 October

Thought for the Day

It is not just biodiversity losses we should be worrying about, it is the biomass. Think about it: biomass is related to carrying capacity. If England's farmlands are producing "x" tonnes of oilseed rape per acre, when years ago it was only "y" tonnes of weed-laden oats per acre, then it's the wildlife biomass that getting squeezed, however much artificial fertilizer is being added, and however much pesticide is being sprayed..

And if the populations of goats in Africa have gone up by 20 times in the past half century, then the wild antelope, and other wildlife will have decreased by a similar amount. It's what known as ecological balance. And no amount of research or education will change it.

Depressing but true.

BBC Saving Planet Earth

Today sees the launch, by our Patron, Sir David Attenborough, of the BBC's Saving Planet Earth series. And I was very pleased indeed to read Sir David's quotes in the Radio Times, giving emphasis to the human population problem.

The intention of the Saving Planet Earth series is to raise public awareness of worldwide conservation issues. But in addition, it will also be the first time that the BBC has used a series such as this to raise funds to support conservation. Using the precedents of Children in Need and Comic Relief, appeals will be broadcast in association with the transmission of programmes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/savingplanetearth/

I was honoured to be asked to be a Trustee of the new BBC Wildlife Fund, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/savingplanetearth/aboutus/thetrustees.shtml)
which has been established to gather the funds, and later to decide which projects to support. Of course we have no idea how much the BBC WF will raise, but it could be significant amounts of funds, which will enable us to give support to a wide range of projects. Interestingly the WLT is receiving more enquiries than ever from businesses wanting to support conservation through the World Land Trust. But as I emphasised at our Annual General Meeting, last week, it is the individual supporters that give the WLT its strength. All of you out there in cyberspace reading this blog, are important to us, whether or not you donate regularly, occasionally or never. If it is the latter, I hope you will spread the word.

Last week the Trustees agreed to fund several more land purchases -- one in the tropical forests of the Dry Chaco, and another parcel of land in the Paraguayan Pantanal, completing the first phase of the Three Giants Reserve. And Ocean Contract Cleaning donated £50,000 to our projects in Paraguay. The WLT is really begining to grow, but we still need more support -- forest continue to disappear at an alarming rate, so the more we can save, the better for the future of our planet.

Cool Earth

I have been bombarded with supporters asking what Cool Earth is all about. When David Milliband and Frank Field announced this 'new idea' last year at the time of the Labour Party Conference, I wrote and told them the World Land Trust had been doing precisely what they were proposing for nearly 20 years.

Then with a great song and dance it was announced that this 'new initiative' was going ahead in the the Sun newspaper of 6 June. It's great that more people are following the WLT's model -- after 20 years of hard work, it is now becoming mainstream to conservation. Yet I recall a time when most of the big conservation charities would not lend their support -- that is why the WLT was formed. The WLT has always prided itself on its transparency, and clarity of its projects, as well as the science behind them. We also aim to be innovative, and were one of the first conservation charities to fully utilise the Internet for fund raising and the first to become involved with carbon sequestration. With everyone jumping on the carbon bandwagon, the Trust will continue to maintain its integrity, and put biodiversity first.

So to all those that ask, we did know about Cool Earth, and the founders were aware of the World Land Trust (they must have been, because if you type into Google buy an acre of rainforest, guess which organisation comes up top). Why they felt it necessary to found another organisation, only they can answer. I sincerely hope that they live up to their promises, but until their accounts are published there is no way of telling. I suppose I always have an inherent distrust of anything hyped by governments, and a launch on a grand scale makes one wonder where all the funds are going. But we should give any initiative like this the benefit of the doubt. But as I always advise any donor to any charity, it is essential you look at the accounts and the track record before committing funds.

Science for the poor

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art28/

And another paper in this excellent on-line journal. This really does give food for thought, and one which I will be circulating widely. It deals with an issue, I believe the World Land Trust really needs to take to heart.

Corridors work!

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art1/

This contains an interesting article, for the more scientifically minded of my readers. It shows how effective wildlife corridors can be, in this case for wolves and elk (wapiti) in Canada. It is likely that the same effects will be observed in India with Wild Dog (dhole) and other carnivores, such as tigers. In places like india, where land is costly, corridors between protected areas can be a very cost-effective way of increasing the area of land available to populations of larger mammals.

more about Soya beans and wildlife

July 26, 2006 - By Reuters
SAO PAULO, Brazil - Brazilian soy crushers and exporters will stop buying soybeans grown in the Amazon basin for the time being, industry groups said Monday, bowing to pressure from activist groups trying to preserve the rain forest.

The moratorium, which will last for two years, will apply to soybeans planted as of October 2006 in newly deforested areas of the Amazon, the world's largest rain forest.

I wrote about soya beans in March, and in July I flew along the border between Brazil and Paraguay again, so the report from Reuters came as good news. But it is certainly not enough. All that will happen is that demand for Soya beans will shift to Argentina and Paraguay and other countries. It may not be Amazon rainforests that will be threatened, but Chaco and other equally important habitats (but less glamorous, in the public eye) will be ploughed up and destroyed. As so often is the case, we are missing the main point. The main point is that not only are there too many people, there are too many people in the affluent north, demanding more and more resources -- such as soya beans for cattle feed.

In 1961 Brazil produced just over a quarter of a million metric tonnes of Soya bean, but by 2005 was producing over 50 million metric tonnes. In the same period the US production had gone from 18 million to over 82 million tonnes, and Argentina, which had an insignificant production in 1961, was producing over 38 million tonnes. So the real culprit is the increased demand for Soya. And the real question is why does the world suddenly need so much? Unless the demand for Soya is curtailed more and more lands, such as the Gran Chaco of Paraguay, the Pampas of Argentina, and other relatively arid, fragile habitats will be lost to Soya. The paradoxical fact is that Soya features in so many 'healthy alternative' foods. And if one suggests that Soya may not be environmentally friendly, the response is often 'But I don't eat/drink Soya from Brazil/rainforest areas' - ignoring the fact that this simply shifts the demand, and someone else will still be consuming that Soya. And while the argument that soya is used as cattle feed is a valid criticism, if it is organic soya, it can be used to feed organic cattle. The unpalatable fact is that until we reduce the overall demand for Soya, huge areas of the natural world will continue to be gobbled up. It comes back to the fact that eating locally is the best way of thinking globally, as I wrote back in March.