Hi everyone : )
I can’t believe it’s nearly November! Whether it’s the algorithms, my attention or just history, this month has been dominated by great discussions on biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More. It’s encouraging to hear so many positive stories. There’s a lot of arguing as well but that’s to be expected. We’re going through a period of intense change and this creates tension. But the stories that are emerging are fascinating and I’m re-energised by these each day.
It’s also, the left-of-field direction these come from and how many connections people are able to make with their every day lives and the wildlife that surrounds them (or even long extinct wildlife).
Here is a summary of my thoughts from a few of my monthly online reads. If any of this resonates with you, and you have not already, please consider buying a copy of my book Wildlife in the Balance before Christmas.
Who will be custodians of our wildlife and people’s futures?
University of Melbourne’s Jack Pascoe has written about Australia’s recent decision to reform Australia’s biodiversity laws. The need to recruit people to represent wildlife is an urgent one. Traditional owners are one part of that equation but it applies to all of us – as I explored in this recent article.
Pascoe says:
‘Our national legislation only provides attention to species that have declined to the point that they are threatened with extinction. This leaves many species and places of cultural importance without significant care. If we wait for things to reach imminent risk of extinction before we conserve them we will have very little left. This is of importance to every Australian.’
Everywhere I look I see and hear people who have had profound experiences with wildlife or in nature. It might be a moment with a creature or being affected by the spirit of a place. This can happen to anyone at almost any time of life. But it usually leads to them becoming a source of inspiration and a thought leader for others to follow.
The Platypus Guardian
Think about Peter Walsh in Nick Hayward ‘s wonderful film The Platypus Guardian recently. Peter was ‘chosen’ by the platypus … a moment when she emerged from the water and sat with him. This motivated him to protect them and now thousands of people have got behind that.
First Nations people understood this and it became imprinted in culture as a way of surviving. It is as though such people are adopted by nature to represent things … to recognize the ‘personhood’ not just of people, but also wildlife and places. It’s part of what allowed their culture to survive so long.
It takes a nation to lead from the heart, to recognize what we have, before it’s too late. This transcends western ideas of natural science. Through such long standing cultural wisdom we can better and more quickly understand how to value the land, restore it and protect it from interests that still seek to destroy it for economic gain, or science that measures value in linear, arbitrary ways (such as aforementioned extinction threat). Such wisdom, though, also needs to be taught by or elders and betters – wise people – not just encoded into laws.
‘Energy flows and matter cycles’ ; a secret to life and earth
Scientist Alpha Lo, co-founder of the Regenerative Water Alliance, writes in his blog ‘Climate Water Project’ about how biodiversity regulates climate. Not many scientists write on this subject, which is the basis of my book Wildlife in the Balance, so it is nice to hear another perspective.
Lo says:
‘As our planet hurtles through space over the aeons, energyEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More and matter have been self-organizing in ways to absorb more sunlight, and evolve to ever more complex forms.’
A UK biologist heavily criticised me recently for writing on this subject. My view of entropyThe degree of disorder or chaos in a system, most often used to describe thermodynamic energy but also used the behaviour of information. All else being equal, physics determines that all matter and energy moves towards chaos, therefore biological systems are in a continual state of battling against entropic forces in order to remain stable. The most stable ecosystem is More, in his opinion, was incorrect. I’m still grappling with the context of his statements and I may write more on this later. For now, my feeling is that a puritanical application of any science to a complex system is fraught with problems. There is no unifying precision that describes how the planet works or how we fix it. Entropy may have precise meaning to a physicist or biologist but there is no doubt that entropy describes how patterns form and the consequences of that – as Lo rightly indicates.
Ankylosaurs and Climate
Rewilding expert Chris D’Agorne wrote this thoughtful piece on Linkedin after reading about this Ankylosaur that was discovered when preparing the ground for oil sands extraction.
‘… environmentalists often talk about emissions from above-ground systems (the carbon cycle) like cattle, rice, forest fires and wetlands as if these two types of CO2e are equivalent (e.g. forest fires are only re-emitting the carbon that they have already absorbed; cows can only burp-out what they ate-in). The problem is that the solution to these two issues is different, and this makes things even more confusing for the average consumer …’
D’Agorne goes on to say ‘You can’t address fossil fuel-caused climate change by planting trees, because those trees will eventually break down and release carbon back into the atmosphere.’
My book Wildlife in the Balance is about our place in the system that came before. It’s why, as I portend ‘animals are humanity’s best hope.’ Among the more controversial things I do in the book is suggest that plants can collapse the planet without animals.
But being at the frontline of trapping the sun’s energy, plants naturally produce a lot of waste, which you can see lying around below or next to any tree, shrub or grass verge. It’s this gargantuan quantity of surplus energy that unsettles ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More if animals are not present. It’s also why it’s so dangerous to be digging up the energy plants stored millions of years ago, which subsequently turned into coal, because the animals that were present to regulate matter in those days went extinct long ago.
Quote from Wildlife in the Balance
I also have an article coming out in Intelligent Magazine soon on the role of wildlife in climate regulation (watch this space). Our consideration of climate is all-too-often dominated by a whole-of-planet view about carbon when the sum total impact of animals on our planet has always made the climate what it is. The ‘climate change’ we talk about is only a recent phenomenon and a different process.
Ecosystems need to be at the heart of climate change
This is a statement made in a piece written by Cain Blythe, CEO and Founder at CreditNature & Ecosulis:
Our natural ecosystems are powerful allies in the fight against climate change, providing diverse and equitable solutions that will help with climate mitigation and adaptation.
So true. Yet still, the idea that animals (not plants) are at the centre of that still escapes people. This concept, that I begin my book with, has led to some ire from conservationists. A UK biologist (apparently an ex professor of many decades) gave me a terrible book review saying:
“Planting trees on land while we allow animals to go extinct is just another source of destabilising energy and risks sacrificing our oceans to save our atmosphere” (page 259). That’s an intriguing claim, and some evidence in support of it would have been welcome. “As you drive down suburban tree-lined streets, particularly in autumn, you will see vegetation gathered everywhere in gutters, piling up around storm drains and washing into our bays, rivers and estuaries. At the base of every plant, leaves are shed continuously, piling up waste that’s emitted over almost every square inch of unpaved Earth” (ibid.) How dare they?
It still amazes me that what is so obvious has escaped the minds of those who purport to be among the world’s top scientific minds. The problem, as I see it, is that what might be obvious to traditional owners (or anyone who spends time in nature) for example, isn’t often accepted by experts until it’s proven by western scientists. Such scientists are at the forefront of global policy. For instance, the UN recently posted this from WWF, leading to criticism.
Ute Timmerman rightly said:
I disagree with the message of this poster. Biodiversity doesn’t need our help, but WE can only survive with the help of biodiversity! We can only save ourselves when we stop nature destruction.
In short, this is NOT what biodiversity is. While some may think this is a merely academic argument, it speaks to a wider problem. That we are misleading and confusing people when the message is quite simple. We need to rebuild wildlife populations and allow ecosystems to restore themselves for our own sake.
The irony of the WWF name change
Remarkably, the World Wide Fund for Nature used to be the World Wildlife Fund. The name change in 1985 was to better reflect the scope of their work and ensure they didn’t just become all about animal-conservation. But the concept of ‘nature’ is also remarkably vague.
Even the late EO Wilson, one of the world’s most renowned biologists didn’t seem to understand how fundamentally important wildlife is:
In May 2019, a few months before I started writing this book, the late EO Wilson (he edited the book Biodiversity, published before the history-defining Rio Earth Summit in 1992), was asked to give a couple of lectures on ecosystems. In an interview for Quanta Magazine Wilson admitted that he knew little about them and that understanding what threatens their equilibrium was vital to saving the environment. It’s animals. Only wildlife can stabilise ecosystems.
Quote from Wildlife in the Balance
The irony of WWF’s name change is that it was wildlife all along ; ) That’s not to denigrate the valuable work they do for nature conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More though.
First-ever images prove lost Attenborough Echidna not extinct
Care for the Rare posted this wonderful piece of news from the BBC website.
Sometimes we get a bit too bogged down in our own self-importance. But I love the mysteries of nature. Animals can exist even when we don’t see them, yet they are still essential for creating a habitable Earth.
I like that there are species we haven’t seen. It maintains the mystery I felt as a child. Too much these days has become so accessible and it’s beautiful to read about something that exists without us. Or, at the very least, we should spend as much time simply marvelling at wildlife than studying it … as this wonderful video from Ian Redmond illustrates.
