A group led by Professor Bill Sutherland at Cambridge University has identified the top 25 issues in conservation in greatest need of attention from policy-makers; either through the production of new or amendments to existing policy. The group, representing governmental organisations, NGOs and academia, focused on those areas where there may be options to fill gaps, improve implementation or where new research may be required. The result was a long-list of 117 issues, honed to 25 through a two-day workshop and a voting process. Sutherland et. al. intend that the list be of use to amongst others, policy-makers, providing knowledge on areas in need of attention and the policy options which may be available to address these areas and researchers, who can use the paper as a guide to policy-relevant, scientific questions which could form the focus of research efforts.

Issues identified in the paper cover both terrestrial and marine environments, ranging from protected areas and climate change, to habitat banking, restoring floodplain functionality for nature conservation and ecosystem services, peatland restoration, nanotechnology, marine spatial planning and non-native invasive species.

To take ‘protected areas’ as an example of the authors’ approach, Sutherland et.al. identify that the management of protected sites was developed at a time when landscape-change was generally directly human-induced and was therefore largely controllable. How should these areas be managed now, given the indirect and unpredictable effects of climate change? Policy options given include designating sites now which are likely to make an important biodiversity contribution in the future. The authors then identify a number of research questions, including the need to investigate what site properties enable widlife resilience under climate change.

The authors acknowledge in the discussion section that ‘ecosystem services’ is a thread running throughout the paper, and recognise that the future of biodiversity conservation will embrace this approach. Therefore they call on policy-makers and the research community to explore how policy instruments promoting ecosystem conservation can best be directed to maximise benefits for biodiversity.

The authors recommend that the exercise be repeated for the UK every five years and encourage other countries to carry out a similar activity.

Sutherland, W. J., Albon, S. D., Allison, H., Armstrong-Brown, S., Bailey, M. J., Brereton, T., Boyd, I. L., Carey, P., Edwards, J., Gill, M., Hill, D., Hodge, I., Hunt, A. J., Le Quesne, W. J. F., Macdonald, D. W., Mee, L. D., Mitchell, R., Norman, T., Owen, R. P., Parker, D., Prior, S. V., Pullin, A. S., Rands, M. R. W., Redpath, S., Spencer, J., Spray, C. J., Thomas, C. D., Tucker, G. M., Watkinson, A. R. and Clements, A. , REVIEW: The identification of priority policy options for UK nature conservation. Journal of Applied Ecology, no. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01863.x

The Cambridge Conservation Initiative, a partnership of NGOs and departments at the University of Cambridge, is seeking your views on whether the way in which climate change has been communicated to policy-makers and the public can provide lessons for the communication of biodiversity loss. How can biodiversity move up the political agenda, with policy-makers and members of the public recognising the seriousness implications of its loss? Will studying how climate change has moved to the forefront of policy and public awareness help in achieving a similar shift for biodiversity?

Your views will help the CCI and the conservation community more widely, in efforts to make sure that biodiversity loss achieves a higher policy and public profile.

You are invited to complete a brief survey, giving your view on 35 statements, drawn from interviews with experts in climate change and biodiversity conservation. This should take you no more than 20 minutes. The deadline for completion of the survey is 31st August.

This week, as part of the Radio 4 series ‘Costing the Earth’, presenter Tom Heap interviewed various people who are interested in the idea of putting a price on nature.

Ian Bateman from the National Ecosystem Assessment explained how this project aims to use scientific assessment to put monetary value on the natural environment. This is important because decision makers need quantified information to be able to properly consider the trade offs of different decisions. Steven Trotter from Warwickshire Wildlife Trust gave the example of the planned development of a high speed rail link between Birmingham and London which will cut through an area of ancient woodland: the woodland is under threat because nature is not considered on an equal basis with the business case for development.

Pavan Sukhdev explained how The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study organises research into the valuation of global ecosystems so that policy-makers can use this in practice to assess the value of an area of land. Andrew Simms, Policy Director of the New Economics Foundation appreciated the importance of valuing ecosystems but warned of the dangers relating to the fact that pricing works on a short timescale whereas impacts on natural environments can work on a much longer timescale. In order to avoid degradation of ecosystems just because someone can afford to do it, it will be essential to create science based boundaries to cap the use of resources. Andy Atkins from Friends of the Earth expressed his concerns that focussing on the value of nature will detract from dealing with the root causes of destruction.

Tom Heap concluded by saying that it may be hard for people to accept that the implementation of a valuation approach to natural habitats will increase the cost of living, but this would be better than the current situation where these costs are being picked up by future generations and poor countries through destroying habitats for agriculture and importing food.

A report published by Natural England last week highlights the extent to which habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and now climate change have impacted on England’s species. “Lost Life: England’s Lost and Threatened Species” suggests that, amongst other figures, 24% of butterfly species and 22% of species of amphibian in England have been driven to extinction. The report represents the first ever audit of England’s lost and declining native species, collating all available data. It was the focus of a piece by Robin McKie, the Guardian’s science editor, in this Sunday’s Observer.

Interviewed for the article, Dr Tom Tew, Chief Scientist at Natural England, states that Natural England have in fact underestimated the loss of England’s wildlife; “we wanted to avoid repercussions of being alarmist…There are many more species we think we’ve lost but but we have not included them as they’re not officially extinct.”

The Natural England report identified the major driver of species loss over the last century as habitat loss. Speaking to the Observer, Dr Tew identified farming as a major offender within this, with ‘waves’ of species extinction coinciding with ‘revolutions’ in farming practice. Mechanisation and intensive landkeeping from 1900 onwards saw the first major swathe of extinctions in the countryside, followed by increasing applications of chemical pesticides and fertilisers from 1945 onwards, as food security became an increasing concern. By the middle of the 21st Century, Dr Tew suggests, climate change will account for the majority of future extinctions of English wildlife.

Farming is mainly to blame for the loss of our native plants and wildlife: Observer, Sunday 14th March

A panel discussion was held yesterday evening at the Judge Business School in Cambridge, entitled ‘The price of extinction: what losing biodiversity costs’. The event was part of the Cambridge Science Festival, in collaboration with Cambridge Conservation Initiative and Science Magazine.

Tim Radford from The Guardian opened the discussion by highlighting the global scale of biodiversity loss: one eighth of birds, 13% of flowering plants and one quarter of mammals are currently at risk of extinction. The panel members were asked in turn to give their opinions on the most important issues for biodiversity conservation.

Dr Hazell Thompson from Birdlife International and Dr Ruth Swetnam from the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, were in agreement that a valuation system for biodiversity is required. Dr Thompson explained that biodiversity conservation often loses out because it is not practically valuable to the people who actually bear the cost of protecting biodiversity. For example, constructing mines in the rainforest in West Africa has a greater economic benefit for local people than protecting the rainforest. Dr Swetnam detailed the main physical resources that are provided by biodiversity, such as food, fuel and climate regulation, and concluded that if we don’t assign monetary value to biodiversity then the value will in effect be zero, and this will inevitably lead to biodiversity loss. In contrast, in the view of William Kendall from Green and Black’s, assigning value to biodiversity will not work in the world of business because business values immediate profits, so the benefits of biodiversity conservation are not considered because they are remote and poorly calculated. In his view, biodiversity conservation can only be incorporated into business through regulation, whether this is through external regulation such as government incentives, or self-regulation through customer pressure. Although valuation and regulation were presented in the debate as opposing views, perhaps they could go hand-in-hand: valuing biodiversity could be an important factor in implementing regulation.

Pamela Abbott, chair of Cambridge Conservation Forum, put forward the point that there could be huge benefits to human health of protecting biodiversity, which would reduce government spending on healthcare. For example, a 10% increase in local green space can increase life expectancy by five years. She brought the issue of biodiversity loss down to a local scale, using the catchphrase ‘Extinction begins at home’, and suggested that individuals can have a significant input into conserving biodiversity through making wildlife gardens.

Professor Bill Adams from the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, talked about the issue of how much biodiversity we actually need. He mentioned the recent paper published in Nature on Planetary Boundaries, in which Johan Röckstrom defined limits for the capacity of the planet to cope with anthropogenic changes, including biodiversity loss. Professor Adams suggested that the particular boundaries which are considered to be important by rich countries might differ from those which are important to poor countries, such as those supporting food production. This issue was also raised in the discussion afterwards, bringing up the fact that most of the initiatives for conservation of biodiversity come from the developed world, while most of the remaining biodiversity is in developing countries. Dr Ruth Swetnam put it plainly, saying that since the UK has already cut down most of its trees, we are not in a good position to tell the inhabitants of developing countries to keep their trees when they have families to feed. Perhaps biodiversity conservation will take a different angle if more people from developing countries become involved.

Habitat banking describes the trade in habitat or biodiversity ‘credits’, i.e. areas of land where environmental restoration has taken place that can be bought to compensate for unavoidable habitat destruction through development. This concept has been in practice in the form of wetland mitigation banks in America since the 1980s, and its use is spreading as a means for governments to reduce the biodiversity loss associated with economic growth and development.

A report launched today by the organisation Ecosystem Marketplace provides a summary of the existing schemes around the world, listing 39 such projects in operation and another 25 planned in various countries. It calculates a market of between $1.8 billion and $2.9 billion per year alone from the 20% of projects that provide figures, resulting in the additional conservation management or protection of 86,000 hectares of land per year. There is increasing interest within the EU and the UK of adopting a more formalised habitat banking system, and both the EC and Defra have recently published scoping reports (available here and here) on the subject.

Download “The State of Biodiversity Markets: Offset and Compensation Programs Worldwide” report.

A report being launched today at Bristol Zoo shows that 48% of the world’s 634 primate species, which includes apes, monkeys and lemurs, are threatened with extinction. The report, which was compiled by 85 primatologists, highlights the top 25 most endangered primate species, including the golden headed langur, found in north-eastern Vietnam, whose population is down to between 60 and 70 individuals. The main threats to primates are illegal logging, hunting and trade, and fragmentation of forests through fires.

The report aims to encourage governments to find resources to implement greater conservation measures. Indeed, there is evidence that conservation measures can be effective in helping primate species to recover: more than 30 years of conservation effort at zoos and by scientists enabled the black lion tamarin to be moved from “critically endangered” to “endangered” on the IUCN Red List.

The UN’s Redd programme (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) involves rich countries paying developing countries to maintain their forests in order to prevent further greenhouse gas emissions. The programme might also involve incentives for developing countries to plant more trees and would be highly valuable for primate conservation.

Source: Guardian, 18th January 2010

According to a report published on 4th February by the Centre for Hydrology and Ecology and Pond Conservation, 80% of ponds in England and Wales are in a ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ condition, thus failing to provide vital habitat for aquatic plants and animals. These findings are particularly worrying given that reports by the Environment Agency last autumn showed that 75% of UK rivers will fail to meet new European biological standards. Although large numbers of new ponds are created each year in the UK, many of these ponds are located in agricultural areas and suffer from pollution by nutrient run-off. This eventually results in overgrowth of vegetation and stagnant water. In contrast, the report found that ponds close to rivers, streams and other wetlands are in much better condition. These results highlight the importance of developing future ponds in areas that are protected from pollution, in order to protect Britain’s future freshwater biodiversity.

Pond Conservation Press Release: First national survey shows Britain’s wildlife ponds are in a ‘terrible state’

A team of individuals, including representatives of NGOs, academics, learned societies and professional horizon scanners has identified fifteen issues which could affect the conservation of biodiversity in the near future. The group, led by Professor Bill Sutherland of Cambridge University, and which included the BES Policy Officer, met in September this year to discuss a number of issues and shortlist those thought to not yet be on the radar for conservationists. Professor Sutherland intends that the exercise be run annually, in order to identify emerging issues in sufficient time to allow time to initiate research and develop policy and practical responses.

The paper defines horizon scanning as ‘the systematic search for incipient trends, opportunities and risks which may affect the probability of achieving management goals and objectives’. Over the course of 2009, those involved in the exercise collated a number of examples of novel threats and opportunities for biodiversity. These were then ranked by the group in advance of the September meeting, to prepare a shortlist which was then debated at the meeting itself.

Issues outlined in the paper include ’synthetic meat’; using techniques developed for bioengineering medical tissue to grow synthetic meat in the laboratory. Should synthetic meat become commonplace and livestock production move away from field to factory, this could result in a redution in greenhouse gases from agriculture but also consequences for vegetation dependent on livestock grazing. The growth in mobile-sensing technology is also highlighted, due to the opportunities that the growth of ‘apps’, or applications, for mobile phones could open for a wide range of individuals to engage with conservation, for species recognition and recording of information about species. Other issues highilighted include ’stratospheric aerosols’, ‘deoxygenation of the oceans’ and ‘large-scale international land acquisitions.’

The list of fifteen issues is not meant to be exhaustive and nor are the issues ranked in order of importance. The list is aimed at stimulating discussion and debate within the conservation and policy communities. Through leading this exercise, Professor Sutherland hopes to encourage conservation professionals to give greater attention to speculative or little-known issues, rather than focusing, as traditionally, on issues of well-recognised importance. Conservation issues may be better accomodated in policy and management if identified early.

Sutherland, W.J. et al. A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2010. TREE (Published online, 24 November 2009)

The BES Policy Team last night attended a meeting and reception organised by the Chagos Environment Network, highlighting the importance of designating the Chagos Archipelago (otherwise known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, or ‘BIOT’) as a highly protected marine reserve. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office earlier this month announced a consultation on the formation of a Marine Protected Area in Chagos – which closes on 12 February.

Presentations from Professor Carl Lundin (IUCN) and Professor Charles Sheppard (Warwick University) highlighted the pristine marine environment of Chagos, whist Alastair Gammell, Pew Environment Group, encouraged all present to respond robustly to the UK Government’s consultation. Professor Lundin began by comparing the relative numbers of protected areas designated on land and at sea. Over the past 125 years, over 125,000 protected areas have been created on land; a relative success story. At sea however, despite many international commitments to create protected areas (Convention on Biological Diversity: designate 10% of signatories’ Exclusive Economic Zones as protected by 2010; World Parks Congress: designate 20% of the world’s oceans by 2020; OSPAR and the World Congress on Sustainable Development, for example), based on the current trajectory society is on in actually putting these into practice, we will not achieve the CBD targets until 2047 and the World Parks Congress targets until the 2080’s.

All speakers stressed that the Chagos offer an opportunity to achieve something which could not be achieved elsewhere; the conservation of a near-pristine coral reef system, largely removed from stressors such as pollution and over-fishing. Although climate change poses a severe risk to the reefs, the absence of these other stressors mean that the reef is more resilient to change: for example, in the severe coral reef bleaching event in 1998 (caused by the El Nino phenomenon), 50% of corals in Chagos died. However, now many are recovering: a recovery not seen elsewhere (for example in the Seychelles, where 98% of corals were killed through bleaching). Conserving the reefs now could ‘buy thirty years’, in the words of one of the speakers, in which fisheries outside the MPA would be supported, endangered species could find a haven and scientists could conduct vital research.

Introducing a Marine Protected Area in Chagos would allow scientists access to a fantastic resource, offering scope for exploration of the largely unstudied deep sea areas of the archipelago and offering a control site against which interventions to tackle degradation, and climate change, in other reef systems could be assessed. In addition, the Chagos sits on the Southern Equatorial current, so plays a vital role in re-stocking the fisheries and reefs of the Seychelles and Mauritius.

Despite these benefits, final comments from a representative of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office stressed that by no means was the designation of a Marine Protected Area in Chagos certain. He cautioned against the creation of a ‘paper park’, meaning that whatever is put in place must be adequately resourced and policed. The official did not quote a figure for how much this may cost, but acknowledged that greater resource than available in Chagos at the moment would be needed. The FCO consultation quotes a figure of £1 million – already at odds with the figure quoted by Alastair Gammell, during the discussion session, of £2 – 3 million. The legal status of Chagos – which is due to be ceded back to Mauritius when no longer needed for military purposes – and of the Chagossian people, awaiting a verdict from the European Court of Human Rights as to their right to return to their homeland, also create issues which the Government needs to manage extremely sensitively.

Nevertheless, the fact that the UK Government is consulting the scientific community and others about plans for a Marine Protected Area is a very positive step. Much of the content of the consultation came out of a meeting of the Chagos Conservation Network at the Royal Society earlier this year and the presence of officials from both Defra and FCO at the meeting last night was a positive sign. If the whole of Chagos was declared a Marine Protected Area this would increase by tenfold the areas held in MPAs in the Indian Ocean and if, additionally, the Chagos MPA were to be a ‘no-take’ zone, this would double the total area of the world’s oceans treated in this way; a fantastic legacy for the UK Government.