Wilderness lost

Australian researchers have found that about one tenth of the world's wilderness has been lost in the last twenty years. The lost area is over 3 million square kilometers and the losses have been greatest in South America (30%) and Africa (14%).

This is, unhappily, not a surprise. It's one of a series of recent studies that shows the increasing human dominance of the planet. Indeed, it's one of the less pessimistic. Taking the crude numbers it implies that some wilderness will last 200 years.

World Biodiversity on the slide

A recent major report in Science magazine by 23 scientists shows that biodiversity has fallen to dangerously low levels across two-thirds of the Earth’s surface. By ‘dangerously’ they mean likely to undermine the natural services, such as food production and waste disposal, on which we depend. The loss of biodiversity is mainly due to changes in land use.  

They authors found that original species are more than 14% less abundant as before we started changing the land and are at least 10% less abundant – the accepted warning level – over 90% of the Earth’s surface.

The authors further show that this is true for that 58% of the planet on which 71% of people live; so this is not a small issue for our species. 

Should we panic?

Probably not. The loss of biodiversity does not imply the immediate collapse of world farming (though there are certainly risks) or the pollution of all ours rivers. 

But, it will make the ecosystems more vulnerable to shocks such as the droughts, floods, storms, etc. that climate change will make increasingly common and severe. Over and over we’ve seen how areas of original habitat are reduced to patches in which all the species seem present. But after shocks, or just lapse of time, key species disappear. Though we don’t know the tipping points we do knows that they are there.

The changes in land use have neither stopped nor slowed. Neither will they stop whilst our numbers and impacts grow. The extrapolation is obvious: Further loss of habitat and biodiversity.

So though we shouldn’t panic we should ACT. We need to adopt genuinely sustainable policies – as the Green Party has always said.

Reference:

·         Title: Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment

·         Author: Newbold, Tim, et al.

·         Ref:  Science  15 Jul 2016: Vol. 353, Issue 6296, pp. 288-291

·         DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf2201

The paper is behind a paywall but there’s a summary in ZME Science.

Paving the road to hell

Roads are a major problem for the planet. Globally, many new roads are built into rainforest to support logging or dam building. These roads start a process of exploitation that is hard to stop and that transforms habitats and provides access to poachers. Since 2000, for instance, 30,000 miles of new roads have been cut into African rainforests. It's no surprise that poachers have killed two thirds of the forest elephants in that same period.

The rainforests will not survive the combined pressures of logging, settlement and clearance for pasture and cropping that road-building makes possible. And many species will not survive the loss of their rainforest homes.

This has happened at extraordinary speed and there's no sign that it's slowing down. The G20 meeting last October argued for annual spending of $2T pa (that's $2 million million pa) on infrastructure in developing countries. Only a fraction of that is likely to be roads; but that's still a lot of roads (and railways, power stations, airports, etc.)

Most of the species that existed 100 years ago are still with us, though in much reduced numbers. Their habitats have been greatly reduced and many will be gone in much less than 100 years if development continues. For some threatened species a few dozen animals may survive in zoos and game reserves. Many will disappeared leaving no more than stuffed examples in museums, films, if we're lucky, DNA sequences in some database.

A tragic loss and little time left.

Some campaigns I support

Since becoming a candidate I have agreed to support the following causes (sorry for lack of detail!). I've also offered qualified support to a number of others:

• CND's opposition to replacing Trident.
• CAMRA's manifesto (beer and pubs)
• Crisis' No One Turned Away (homelessness)
• Cancer Research's Cross Cancer Out campaign
• Barnado's and others A Stitch in Time campaign
• The Royal Statistical Society;'s Data Manifesto
• The Public Service Users Bill
• Traidcraft
• The Frack Free promise (FoE and Greenpeace)
• The League Against Cruel Sports' five animal welfare calls.
• The Living Streets Manifesto
• Compassion in World Farming
• Breast Cancer Campaign
• The OneKind pledge
• The Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England's manifesto.
• The Local Goverbnm,ent Association's four points
• The RSPB's I'm Backing Bob campaign
• The Disability Benefits Consortium's 5 asks
• The CTC
• The Terrence Higgins Trust
• The Empty Homes Agency
• The LGBT Whip
• London Cycling Campaign's demand to remove TSRGD
• The Tibet Society's demand for human rights for Tibet.
• The ASI

Concerning the Countryside Alliance

The Countryside Alliance was formed to defend the countryside and, in particular, to stop parliament from making foxhunting illegal. In this election it’s presented candidates with a manifesto which it summarises as follows:

• Digital Communications: Full digital connectivity for rural communities to ensure they can compete economically and socially.
• Food and Farming: A fair market for British farmers and producers through proper country of origin labelling.
• Rural Communities: Fair government funding for rural areas; local affordable housing; and reduced VAT on domestic repair, maintenance and improvement work.
• Rural Services: Protection for rural services, in particular local post offices and the Royal Mail’s Universal Service Obligation (USO).
• Wildlife Management: Proper engagement by government and its agencies with those who actually manage the countryside; wildlife management to be based on principle and evidence, and repeal of the Hunting Act.

In the manifesto itself the Hunting Act occupies less than one page out of 6. Perhaps the CA has accepted the inevitable?

Since it’s my policy to reply to all letters I read the manifesto. Now Enfield North is a largely urban constituency so it has limited relevance to – though we do include farms, parks and riding stables. But all greens should care about the countryside, above all because it provides much of our food – and may have to provide more in future. 

I therefore replied to the Executive Chairman, Sir Barney White-Spunner, as follows:

Sir Barney,

….  I'm pleased to say that as a Green Party PPC I'm very sympathetic to most of the points you raise. For instance digital connectivity, food labelling, more affordable housing and support for Post Offices all seem consistent with our policies.

Issues of government funding are difficult. My own constituency faces rising numbers, increasing house prices and serious poverty in some parts. I don't generally agree with the government but in this case we are 'all in this together'. In my view these problems cannot be solved without fundamental social change – change we shall not get from the mainstream parties. 

There's one issue on which we will not agree. I welcomed the Hunting Act and would not vote for repeal.

Though most Britons live in cities we would not live at all without the work of farmers and growers. Greens understand the value of the countryside both for food and for recreation. We need a prosperous, healthy countryside.

For humane and sustainable farming

As a member of the Green Party, I support Compassion in World Farming’s (CIWF) charter for a sustainable and environmentally friendly farming system. This would be good for human and animal welfare, and for the long-term viability of our countryside.
 

The need for sustainable ways of life, that is, ways that leave a healthy world for our grandchildren, and maybe their grandchildren, is a top priority for all green activists. In the case of farming that leads the Green Party to support sustainable agriculture and farming practices that help conserve and enhance the land for future generations.

It is our policy to phase out all forms of 'factory farming' and support a transition to small free-range units, mixed rotational farming and extensive grazing. We support the highest levels of animal welfare in farming and aim to ensure that the ‘Five Freedoms’ listed in the Animal Welfare Act are applied to all farm animals.

In addition, we support localisation and a shortening of the food chain, to reduce fossil fuel use and the vulnerability of the global food supply to climate change and rises in the price of fuel.

We recognise that high rates of consumption of meat and other animal products in richer countries, and rising demand elsewhere, means that an increasing requirement for animal feed competes with food production for direct human consumption. Globally, the combination of increasing population and prosperity on the one hand and of climate change and soil degradation on the other will drive up food prices. It will also create actual shortages and wild price fluctuations. 

The UK must prepare for this by developing farming systems that are more productive yet less dependent on fossil fuels and sustainable.

The Green Party will encourage healthy and sustainable consumption patterns, including a shift towards more plant-based foods. On good land arable farming produces at least three times more nutrition per acre than grazing – sometimes much more. This shift would enable an increasing world population to be fed sustainably and would help to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.

Like CIWF, we believe in working with nature rather than against, because we recognise the fundamental connections between human society and the rest of the biosphere.