More Hot air for the wind farm debate

According to an article I picked up in the internet
"...renewable energy specialist Bryony Worthington of pressure group Friends of the Earth countered that the climate crisis was now so grave that birds had to take second place to saving the planet."

This seems anexceptionally bizarre position from an organisation who's director, Tony Juniper, is a well-known and internationally respected ornithologist.

Bryony Worthington may well be a "renewable energy specialist", but that does not give her the right to condemn thousands of birds and bats to death. And I somehow doubt she's that well informed on the mortalities caused by wind turbines. Nor does it make renewable energy a solution to the climate crisis. Anyone who has been around for a decade or more following conservation issues, will realise that the linkage of climate change to non-renewable energy is simplistic to the point of naivety. No the real problem is that of burgeoning human populations, mostly aspiring to US standards of living and resource consumption. And those aspirations are fuelled not only by international communications, but also by the imperial aspirations of the US itself, imposing its version of 'democracy' on the rest of the world.

The issue that most energy conservationists, and renewable energy advocates, have failed to address is nothing to do with energy, per se, but to do with wealth. Saving energy, saves money, so what do the already wealthy do with that surplus wealth? The answer is, of course, they normally spend it on something that uses even more energy, such as international travel. Even the majority of FoE supporters are not of the dark-green, hair-shirted variety; they/we are all energy consumers on a grand scale. The only way of conserving energy, and preventing this vicious cycle, is to dramatically increase the price of energy - which of course, in the US style free-market economies, dominated by cheap energy, is impossible. With air fuel virtually untaxed, cheap airlines flourish, and it becomes economic to import luxury goods from countries with high levels of pollution, and poor health and safety records. But that's what the free market is all about. We have chosen that route, through our democratically elected governments ......

Many years ago I worked as Friends of the Earth's Wildlife Consultant, and one of my first tasks was to research some of the scientific data relating to commercial whaling. It was widely known that one of the reasons that whales were heading towards extinction was that it did not make economic sense to conserve them, if whaling was being operated in a free market economy. In fact it rarely, if ever makes sense to practice conservation of finite natural resources if you are an investor. No; it is better to exploit the resource as fast as possible, maximise your profits, then sell up and use the profits to invest in something else. Ideally getting out of one industry, at the time when the technology and other capital equipment is becoming obsolete.

The British coal industry, forestry, fisheries and many other resource-based industries illustrate this model. Of course, renewable energy is a good thing. But the problem is actually not so much to do with whether or not it is renewable, but the fact it is too cheap. However much energy is produced, whether renewable or not, while it is cheap, we will all use too much - and that is the real problem. And the other problem, which for the past two decades, has been swept further and further under the carpet, is the human population of the world. It is out of control, and it is only when (when, not if) catastrophic distaster hits, that this issue will be resolved. This is the real crisis.

Depression over Paraguay

After visiting Patagonia in October, I had been invited by the World Land Trust partners in Paraguay (Guyra) to stop over on my way back so that they could show me something of the work they were doing. Asuncion is very much on the way home from Buenos Aires, and it was an ideal opportunity, and despite only being there for two days, they were able to pack in a remarkable amount. First stop was the HQ of Guyra, and there it was immediately apparent that we were working with a small but dynamic organisation.



Guyra is a very similar sized organisation to the World Land Trust, and although known mostly as a bird conservation organisation, has a much broader remit. While visiting their offices it was very good to see the books that the WLT's Books for Conservation programme supplied, in a very prominent place, forming the core of their library. The staff were very enthusiastic, and told me the books had made a real difference, since they are virtually impossible to obtain in Paraguay.



After a dawn start the following day (a visit to the local marshes for birdwatching), we made our way to the airport, where we took off for San Raphael in a four seater plane. The purpose was to photograph the forests from the air, to monitor the rates of clearance. San Raphael is the largest remnant of the Atlantic Rainforest in Paraguay. This once extensive outlier of the Atlantic Rainforest is now seriously fragmented, with much of it gone in Brazil, and now broken into disconnected fragments in Paraguay; the only large tracts survive across the border in the Missiones Province of Argentina.



The wildlife of Paraguay is interesting, and also a first rate example of how misleading measures of endemism can be for making decisions on conservation priorities. Paraguay has relatively few endemics -- probably no endemic birds for example. But that is almost entirely because of the way political boundaries have been drawn. If the habitats are considered, or more relevantly the biogeographical regions, then it is apparent that Paraguay is at the cross-roads of several very important biogeographical regions. This makes it a very good place to go and see a huge range of species.



One area I did not have a chance to see was northern Paraguay. Here chaco meets the Pantanal, and the huge areas of grasslands and wetlands include some of the best places for seeing Jaguars. It is a remote part of the world, much of it still largely unexplored, and there are believed to be groups of Guarani Indians living there who have never been in contact with the outside world. How long this isolation will prevail is anyone's guess, but it's good to know that such places still exist.



But back to my title: depression over Paraguay. It was as we flew over the Atlantic Rainforests of San Raphael, that this became apparent, clear lines showed where the forest was protected. smoldering fires were burning, and agriculture bounded the forest everywhere. It was an image of pressure, as if agriculture was gnawing at the perimeter of the forest.

Birding with Bill Oddie

To any regular readers of this blog, first an apology for the silence over the past few weeks. Life has been hectic, starting with a visit to our projects in Belize, and then a trip to Patagonia.

Despite what some may think, travel on conservation business is rarely as glamorous as it sounds -- meetings, looking at accounts, planning strategies are often simply hard work, in an office. Nonetheless, I do try and see some of the wildlife. But Patagonia was different. This time my sole function (apart from the Annual General Meeting of the Reserve) was to make sure Bill Oddie and the BBC crew saw everything they wanted to. In other words I had to get out in the field and find wildlife. Bill was making a special one-off film on the wildlife of Patagonia (for transmission just after Christmas) and we (Fundación Patagonia Natural and the World Land Trust) were providing all the facilities. It meant we were able to redecorate the Estancia buildings, so that even though they are far from luxury accommodation, they are adequate for the really keen visitor to stay in.

The Estancia La Esperanza delivered everything we promised -- and a bit more. Bill was able to see plenty of Guanaco, lots of Mara, wild Guinea Pigs, Armadillo and much more. There were plenty of birds, including Gull-billed Terns, which appear to be the first records for Patagonia -- and they were recorded on video. In fact we added six species of birds to the Estancia's list.

After a few days on the Estancia, I left Bill and the BBC team, to visit another NGO, in Paraguay (more of that another time), while they all went to the Valdes Peninsula. They were off to film the Elephant Seals, and go whale watching. The last time I had been involved in filming there was when David Bellamy came down, and on the last day, I left him on the Peninsula, and at the very moment I was flying to Buenos Aires, he was on the beach watching the famous Killer Whales, running up the beach to catch seal pups. This time I was again en route to Buenos Aires, when, according to Stephen Moss the producer, Bill was heard musing as he walked along the beach -- something along the lines of how much he'd like to see the Killer Whales coming for the seal pups, but how he'd really want the seal pup to escape. Then a few minutes later, it actually happened. The Killer Whale appeared, grabbed a pup, tossed it into the air, and the pup escaped, and ran up the beach, apparently unharmed.

I can't wait to see the film . And Bill's infectious enthusiasm will surely stimulate more people to experience Patagonia's stunning wildlife.

The Lottery lottery

The whole county of Suffolk, which is where the World Land Trust is based, if it was worth an average of £2,500 an acre, (which even excluding building land is certainly well on the low side) would cost a little over £3 billion to buy. Yet if the World Land Trust was to buy nature reserves of this size in the most threatened parts of the tropics, it could save a similar sized area (around a million acres) for less than £24 million.



And £24 million is what the Wildlife Trusts have received from the Heritage Lottery Fund for land purchases over the past decade. Of course they have not been able to acquire a million acres – in fact less than 100,00 acres.



I am not decrying what the Wildlife Trusts have done -- I am a long-term supporter and will continue to be so. The problem is that if we want to save biodiversity – which after all has become a byword for 21st century conservation, then we have got to put our money where our mouth is. One of the largest single sources of funding for conservation in the UK is the National Lottery, but the amount it will give to international conservation is peanuts compared to what it puts into the UK. A total of £67,500,000 to the wildlife Trusts alone in the past decade. If the World Land Trust and its partners had access to that sort of money, not only could it have acquired an area the size of the whole of Suffolk it would also have been able to establish an endowment that would have provided enough income to provide for the permanent protection of the land so acquired.



So why doesn’t the World Land Trust get funding for its work from the National Lottery? The answer is very straightforward: It simply does not fulfil the criteria established for grants. The UK’s National Lottery grants are primarily designed to help people, and mostly to help projects in the UK. The relatively few international projects are nearly all geared to short-term, poverty alleviation and health care. A cynic could argue that many of the projects are actually exacerbating the problems of wildlife, since dealing with these human issues in isolation, and not taking into account the long-term problems of expanding human populations, is bound to have a disastrous effect on natural habitats and wildlife. The Lottery has given a little over £150 million to international causes out of a total of £16 billion distributed. – ie. Just over 0.1% goes to international causes. Of course the argument is that the money raised comes from British lottery players. And while this is true, it is also true that the wealth generated in Britain is often created by exploiting the very parts of the world which are most at risk from environmental degradation. In bald terms, it is a fact that much of the wealth of Britain is directly dependent on cheap resources from overseas, and on selling at vast profit to poorer nations things they do not need, such as tanks, fighter planes and other armaments, as well as loans at extortionate interest rates to buy these arms. It is time that priorities were rethought, if a commitment to so-called biodiversity conservation is to mean anything. There is little point in spending millions of pounds conserving a handful of species in Britain, if meanwhile we are allowing tens of thousands to become extinct, which could have been saved at a fraction of the cost.

The Trojans (Les Troyens) and wildlife?

Last weekI went to see the English National Opera company's production of Berlioz's The Trojans. It was a rare performance of the complete work, and by now I am sure you are wondering 'What on earth has a five and a half hour opera, got to do with conservation?' Read on, and you may find out.



The opera was performed impeccably -- the orchestra was superb, and there was magnificent singing. The hours slipped by. But what a production. A 'modern' reinterpretation. The characters were all in some sort of contemporary, or late 20th century, dress, which all looked a bit daft when they were singing about clashing armour, running around in the Royal Hunt with spears, the bloody ghost of Hector looming, and various naiads etc flitting around. And there was a hell of a lot of meaningless running about. Berlioz was a man who not only understood orchestration better than almost anyone before or since, he was also someone obsessed with theatricality. Consequently, although his operas are often accused of being rather static, there is absolutely no doubt he knew what he was doing. The oratorio-like narratives, combined with magnificent choruses, are interspersed with dramatic movement -- marches, and dance scenes -- giving a great sense of drama. Some of his 'stage' works are so static as to be often described as unperformable on stage. So when somone has the cast rushing around all the time, it rather destroys his original dramatic intent. Similarly, while some operas and plays tell timeless stories in a way that can transcend the period they were written in and for, The Trojans is a story so clearly rooted in history, that to have a bunch of modern day Greeks trudging round with boxes of household gods, and nuclear warheads is all a bit over the top, if not daft. The Trojans was designed by Berlioz to be an operatic spectacle, lavish costumes and all -- not trainers and shell-suits.



And this is the problem that seems to beset so much of humanknind. They cannot leave well alone. Wildlife is wonderful, but all too often we see it over-interpreted. Humans stamping their influence on a nature reserve -- 'improving' habitats. Deliberately removing certain species because they are 'exotic' and deliberately introducing others because they are 'native'. Of course there is often justification. Just as there is in opera. There would be little justification for going back to gaslight, and there is no reason to completely fossilise a production, but just as the performance of the music is usually to a certain extent sacrosanct, so should the composers intentions for the whole experience be treated with respect. And this concept should be applied to wildlife. Leave it as untouched as possible, and let the viewer make their own assessments. Interpretation is only a fashion, only ephemeral and temporal -- and generally speaking best left out of wildlife. Nature is best when totally untrammelled and untouched by humans -- if you want to see something artificial and man made -- then there is no substitute for opera -- which is probably why I enjoy it, it's such a contrast.

Latest news from Belize

Today, I returned from a flying visit to Belize -- in part literally flying, since we flew over the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area (RBCMA) -- the land owned and protected by the Programme for Belize, the WLT's local partner. The WLT was responsible for raising a large part of the $6.7 million originally needed to save the forests, and flying over them now, they looked in good shape. However the same could not be said for other parts of Belize.

The edge of the world - forest clearance goes right to the edge of the protected areas of Belize.

A great deal of publicity has been given to the construction of the Chalillo Dam, which will destroy some 1000 hectares of forest, and there has been a massive amount of mangrove cleared around Belize City. But I also flew over an area of forest adjacent to the Guatemalan border, an area of about 10,000ha, which was sold to Menonnite farmers about five years ago, and that is now almost totally destroyed.

Little by little the Menonnite farmers have been buying up Belize, and while most would agree that they are very good farmers, they also appear to have an almost pathological hatred of trees. And although some Menonnites eschew modern machinery and ride around in a horse and buggy, wearing traditional clothes, many of those in Belize use big machinery, that is capable of clearing forest and turning into productive farmland within 2-3 years.

Although superficially living outside the modern world, pacifists, without TV etc etc, the reality on the ground in Belize, is that these farmers are destroying some of the last remaining forests in Northern Belize, and whenever forest comes on the market, they are among those who have the cash to buy it. This is particularly alarming as Belize has recently introduced a 'Speculation Tax' on land holdings of over 300 acres. In theory a very fair and equitable type of tax, to prevent wealthy landowners holding on to large areas for purely speculative purposes. But a negative effect is that large areas of forest are likely to be broken up, and sold off in small parcels, which almost certainly mean they will be cleared for agriculture and short-term gain -- and the most likly buyers are Menonnites, who will avoid the speculation tax, by 'developing the land' i.e., chopping down the trees, and planting crops.

It is no good suggesting that the Government should step in -- Belize has one of the highest proportions of land under some form of government protection of any country in the world -- it is unrealistic for it to be expected to buy land on the open market.

It is equally unrealistic for conservationists to expect to be able to buy land and simply lock it away as 'protected'. Conservation, if it is to play a part in the future development of Belize must not only produce sustainable incomes, but it must also be seen to be benefitting the people of Belize as a whole. This was always the original aim of the Programme for Belize, and conservationists can play their role, by supporting those efforts -- go to Belize, stay at the RBCMA, travel around, go snorkelling on the reef.

Tourist dollars (and pounds and euros) are the best way of demonstrating to the people of Belize, that the wildlife they value, is also valued by the rest of the world. Otherwise, the Menonnites will soon isolate more and more of the remaining forests in northern Belize.

Is the Jaguar endangered or not?

Although the IUCN lists the Jaguar as NT (=near threatened), throughout its range it appears to be endangered, and it is difficult to understand how this classification was arrived at. Almost every country, province or other administrative unit in its range that has produced a Red Data Book or a Red List, includes the Jaguar as Endangered, and in a few cases it is listed as extinct. And earlier editions of the IUCN Red lists included it as threatened. Since there is little or no evidence that the species is getting any commoner (except in a few places such as Belize), it is even more difficult to understand IUCN's listing. There is little doubt among most naturalists within its range that it is seriously threatened. The same problem occurred with the African Lion, which was not listed as threatened for many years, despite disappearing from most of its range. Now when only an estimated 10,000 are left, in highly fragmented, often very small populations, is its possible extinction being considered.