10 Propositions on Biodiversity in the UK

(This is one of a series of "10 Propositions....")

Notes for a Wildtalk conference, Bristol, November 20 2001

(References at end of text)
1. Nature is a poor religion. It is amoral. But anyway, habitats are robust, dynamic and opportunistic. At least: they are as much those things as they are fragile, stable and communitarian. That's to say: a right-wing view of nature is as good as a left-wing one.

2. Biodiversity is a poor measure of ecological health. Ecological studies are throwing up evidence and ideas which dispute whether complexity and diversity are good measures of ecological health. (You can whack 95 percent of a habitat's species and find that 80 per cent of its underlying genetic variety is in place.) Habitat extent, landscape value also matter.

3. Biodiversity is a poor measure of man's spiritual well-being. A bypass for Hastings may have done more for tranquility, beauty, culture than the "nature" it damaged. Besides, we can compensate for destruction: a good wildlife park could have been created out of the wealth created by the road. It is wrong to cast these dilemmas as "economics" vs "aesthetic".

4. Man's activities can be good for biodiversity. Raptors like motorways. Gardens boast lots of diversity. Farms and worked woodland are where most nature happens. Some species (some birds on mudflats, cod in the sea) like "pollution". "Pollution" is our subjective description of just another input into natural systems.

5. A strategy to improve farmland habitat would begin with encouraging the majority of farmers (conventional) to "deliver" and new "output" (Nature) rather than waste resources increasing the (minute) organic sector. This is because it is cheap to produce birds and butterflies and expensive to produce organic food.

6. We should probably stop farming in marginal, hilly places: let nature have them now that there are no peasants poor enough to enjoy working on wintery hillsides. We would lose some species, but gain others. We should probably let a good deal of the country flood: unfortunately our vegetable and salad industries would suffer.

7. We should not value all rare species. Some - most? - rarities in Britain are hanging on to niches at the edge of their "range". Some are so rare (for instance the only sea snail seriously threatened by Sea Empress' spill in Milford Haven) they have absurdly low numbers in very isolated pockets, known only to the specialists who have identified and named them. Why would it matter if they were lost?

8. Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) represent the cheapest and safest way to increase habitat quality in the UK. Used in farmland, they can diminish the need for damaging chemicals and damaging cultivations, and reduce the need to "hit" weeds.

9. It is dangerous to present an endless picture of decline. Various authors point out the relative good health of the picture.

10. Rainforest, turtles, elephants, antelope, whales are too easily perceived as "untouchable". But in each of these cases, there is a strong argument for an intelligent harvest by man.

Footnotes (by para number)

1. See my Life On a Modern Planet, Manchester University Press and free to download from www.richarddnorth.com)

2. See Nee and May, Extinction and the loss of evolutionary diversity, Science, Vol 278, 24 Oct, 1997; and Polis, Stability is woven by complex webs, Nature, Vol 395, 22 Oct, 1998; and Cherfas, How many species do we need?, New Scientist, 6 Aug, 1994)

5. Shades of Green, ed Tinker, A Review of UK farming systems, Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE), National Agricultural Centre, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, CV8 2LZ, 2000. MacKerron, et al., Organic farming science and belief, Scottish Crop Research Institute, Annual Report, 1998/9, SCRI, Inergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA, 01382 562731

6. This seems to flow from newish thinking within the County Naturalists' Trust movement.

7. See a case study at www.richarddnorth.com, prepared for the Times.

8. Various authors, Old crops in new bottles? Six thoughts on GMOs, RASE, see note 5. Try also websites for Royal Society, House of Lords European Communities Committee, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Monsanto and many others.

9. Smith, M, Now for the good news, Daily Telegraph, 2 Jan 1999.

10. Blench, R, Biodiversity conservation and its opponents, Natural Resource Perspectives Number 32, ODI, www.oneworld.org/odi/, August 1998; Brown, D, Participatory biodiversity conservation: rethinking the strategy in the low tourist potential areas of tropical Africa, as above, Number 33 August 1998. Mrosovsky, N, The great sea turtle hoax, D Telegraph, 4 Oct, 2000