Rewind/Rewild is an upcoming exhibition of contemporary art which aims to reassess human relationships with non-human entities such as plants, animals, bacteria and landscapes.

The exhibition is set in the restored glasshouses of OmVed Gardens in Highgate, North London. It recognises that alternative approaches to ecology and conservation need to be adopted more widely, and it looks at some of the tensions and contradictions that are often inherent in the desire to rewild lands and seas.

Rewind/Rewild also features a day-long rewilding forum, intended to foster discussion across the disciplines of ecology, social science, architecture, art and practical conservation. This interdisciplinary debate is born from a belief that climate breakdown and widespread ecocide can only be avoided if people work together across traditional boundaries.

Defining rewilding

The rewilding movement has been gaining momentum over the last few years, propelled into the wider public eye by books such as Feral by George Monbiot (2013) and later Wilding by Isabella Tree (2018).

These two examples present very different arguments, using examples from very different personal experiences. The differences suggest both the relatively widespread appeal of rewilding, and also the often-contradictory ways of looking at the movement, even among its supporters.

In its most basic form, rewilding happens when humans stop interfering in natural processes. Rewilding advocates argue that many ecosystems as we know them are depleted, lacking in wildlife and the diverse range of plants and fungi they could support. Through rescinding control, human beings have the ability to allow natural processes to resume, and for landscapes to restore their own balance.

The form this takes can be debated – certainly Isabella Tree’s rewilded farm model looks very different from that adopted by the Alladale Wilderness Reserve, for example. However, the idea of relinquishing control to nature, and of reversing some of the damage done by humans, holds true across many branches of ecology and contemporary conservation. 

Learning to love rewilding often involves extracting one’s thinking from the traditional linear, anthropocentric modes of thought predominant in Western politics, economics and social relationships. Sometimes, a degree of creativity is required for this. 

Rewilding creativity

The upcoming exhibition at OmVed Gardens uses the rewilding movement as a framework for thinking about human relationships with the non-human entities which share the planet with us. Rewilding requires us to give up control; art can suggest how we can actively allow non-humans to share in our creative agency.

Fiona MacDonald’s ‘Feral Practice’, for example, develops art projects across species boundaries. She works unobtrusively with wild animals such as ants and foxes, whose activities become part of the artworks through their footprints or trails.

Other artists, such as Julia Crabtree & William Evans, work collaboratively to bring plant life into the exhibition space. Their blown-glass vessels contain living pondweed, which actively reacts to the conditions and microbial cultures of their surroundings – a tiny self-willed ecosystem.

The exhibition also considers the problematic socio-cultural conditions that lead to our widespread neglect of the natural world. For example, a new work by artist and co-curator of the exhibition Beatrice Searle asks why there is a memorial to the man who killed the last wolf in Scotland, but no memorial to the wolf itself, drawing attention to the challenge of commonly held gendered or colonial attitudes towards land and animals.

Perforated space

The exhibition will be held at OmVed Gardens in Highgate, North London. Once a dilapidated garden centre, the OmVed team have now restored the greenhouses to create a beautiful space for exploring food, art, performance and ecological concerns. 

They have also re-landscaped the gardens, transforming them into a diverse eco habitat with a wild flower meadow, an orchard and a vegetable garden.

The glasshouses at OmVed Gardens offer an alternative model for viewing art. Where most galleries follow the closed-off ‘white cube’ model, here the trees surrounding the building can be seen all around. They act as a moving and living reminder of the real-world implications both of art and of ecological issues. 

This ‘perforated’ space collapses binary distinctions between indoors and outdoors, the urban and the rural, indicating that all environments are potential sites for encounters with wild flora and fauna.

Across disciplines 

The Rewind/Rewild exhibition is also complemented by a day-long rewilding forum, bringing together speakers from across disciplines for a day of debate around ecological awareness. 

Speakers include representatives of rewilding projects in practice, such as the Alladale Wilderness Reserve and the European Nature Trust. Participants will also hear from ecologist Dr Darren Evans, who uses network theory and DNA-metabarcoding to understand the impacts of environmental change on species-interactions and ecosystem functioning.

Helping to complete – or perhaps complicate – the picture, Dr Jonathon Prior will discuss the aesthetics of rewilding, and the challenge of presenting the public with ‘unscenic’ landscapes which don’t conform to our expectations.

We will also hear from London National Park City on their drive to make urban areas wilder places, and from PiM Studio architects on the possibilities for introducing architecture that can be shared across species.

Together, we’ll consider whether we can increase our connection to the natural world while also giving up control and allowing ecosystems to manage themselves. The forum is intended to be a day of open-ended discussion, breaking down the traditional boundaries between disciplines that often hinder a wider appreciation of ecological issues.

Exhibition details

Rewind/Rewild is at OmVed Gardens, Highgate, London, 1-7 May 2019. Curated by Anna Souter and Beatrice Searle. The exhibition is free.

It features artwork by Rodrigo Arteaga, Marcus Coates, Alannah Eileen, Julia Crabtree & William Evans, Hannah Imlach, Fiona MacDonald : Feral Practice, Beatrice Searle, Anna Skladmann and Amy Stephens.

This Author 

Anna Souter is a writer, editor and curator with an interest in the intersections between contemporary art and ecology. Rewind/Rewild is at OmVed Gardens 1-7 May; the rewilding forum is on 4 May.

Image: OmVed Gardens © Thomas Broadhead.

The UK oil and gas industry is responsible for £44 billion worth of damage each year, according to the latest research published by Friends of the Earth.

The claim has been made to coincide with provisional government figures released this week that are expected to show a small decrease in overall in greenhouse gas emissions in 2018.

Friends of the Earth has argued that much greater efforts are required for the UK to meet its legally binding emissions reduction targets and to honour its commitments under the Paris Agreement and is making the case that polluters must pay.

Energy transition

Mike Childs, head of research at Friends of the Earth, said: “We can’t ignore the fact that the energy transition is slowing.

“All the back-slapping from government on very modest improvements shows that they have not yet grasped the scale and speed of change needed. If we are to avoid climate chaos, we have to do much more: business as usual means more extreme weather, species extinctions and a grim future for young people.”

Friends of the Earth has outlined the case for an additional £22bn of funding to make housing energy efficient and fit eco-heating, improve public transport, support further development of renewable energy, and increase tree planting – and that a carbon tax on polluters should contribute to these costs.

Childs concluded: “A climate crisis is unfolding in front of our eyes with floods, wildfires and droughts now a regular feature of the news. We need much faster action if we are to avoid climate chaos.

“Wealthier countries like the UK need to act much more rapidly. This will cost money, perhaps up to £22 billion per year. But it will also bring enormous benefits for public health and the economy.

“The fossil fuel industry needs to pay up for the decades of damage done even as they continue to bank massive profit from the climate-damaging fossil fuels they extract and exploit. Enoughs enough, it’s time to pay.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Friends of the Earth. 

Image: Gerry Machen.

Cyclone Idai is just one of many disastrous extreme weather events to hit the southern hemisphere.

As it ripped across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, more than 1.8 million people were affected, and more than 700 are now dead. That count was expected to rise.

People have been stranded on roof tops, with water stretching for miles in every direction around them. Rescuers have been forced to drop food and move on, leaving the storm’s victims helpless as they hasten to more urgent cases. 

Humanitarian crisis 

In the coming months these immediate tragedies will be followed by more, although they won’t make the front pages. The loss of homes and schools, the devastation of agricultural land, the loss of livelihoods will exacerbate poverty, erode food security and ruin people’s lives.   

We know that there is a direct link between global warming and cyclone intensity. 

We know, too, that Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe produce only a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from the world’s more developed nations. They have had far fewer of the benefits that can be reaped from heavily carbon-based economies. 

This is a pattern that plays out across the world: the first and worst impacts of climate change are being felt by the world’s poorest, who have contributed the least to the warming of our world.   

Already, millions of people have been forced from their homes and a growing number have lost their lives around the world. Climate change is a crisis for all the Earth’s ecosystems, but it also presents a humanitarian crisis on a scale the world has never seen before. 

Forced migration 

While these poorest might be the first to experience the impacts of climate change, they are far from the last.

Climate change will also force migration in the world’s developed nations, along with economic and social disruption, political discontent and increasing conflict.

Remember the impact of just one extreme weather event – Hurricane Katrina – as it hit the world’s wealthiest nation, the United States: 800,000 people were made homeless; more than 1,830 people died and federal disaster declarations covered 90,000 square miles. 

What followed Katrina was perhaps the largest forced migration of people in American history.

Texas took in 300,000 refugees; Houston 35,000, Chicago over 6,000. Initial cost estimates put damages at more than $81 billion.  

Global warming

All nations, especially developed countries, need to step up and step up now. The full ambition of the Paris Agreement must be realised to achieve a wholesale transformation to a zero-carbon economy.  

A global shift to renewable energy would see economic, social and environmental benefits for all countries.

Put crudely, there are jobs and money to be found in renewable energy that, in the long-term, would far outweigh petro-chemicals.

Renewable energy sources could also deliver energy independence – and with it vast associated benefits – to the world’s poor, transforming lives for the better.

By combatting this vast global injustice, the developed world will also be serving its own interests, preventing the catastrophic impacts of runaway global warming and delivering a green dividend of immense value.

Protecting refugees

But we must not forget those already suffering the impacts of climate change. 

As part of our research at the Environmental Justice Foundation we have met with many who are on the frontlines of climate change.

In Dhaka’s slums in Bangladesh, people told us that they had been forced from their rural homes and lands because of the destruction wrought by the increasingly frequent and violent cyclones funnelling across the Bay of Bengal.  

On the opposite side of the world, we spoke to the indigenous Sami people in the Arctic. During the last decade, Arctic temperatures have risen almost twice as much as the global average. Unusual levels of rainfall are creating thick layers of ice on top of the snow, meaning reindeer cannot dig through it.

Unable to reach the lichen below, they starve. The Sami people, who have been reindeer herders since before records began, are losing not only a livelihood but an entire culture.  

Extreme poverty

Climate change is already taking people’s homes and livelihoods. But it is also a ‘threat multiplier’, driving the likelihood of violent conflict arising from pre-existing interactions between political, economic, religious, ethnic or other cultural forces.

Climate change will exacerbate extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequitable access to freshwater.

Advances in combatting food and water insecurity, poverty, inequality and toward promoting environmental sustainability, healthcare, education and peace all stand to be undermined as our world heats up. Humanity will find itself inundated by too much water and damned by too little.

Those we met in Dhaka’s slums talked of water and power shortages, disease, crime and overcrowding. A taste of things to come. 

The people already forced from their homes need protection. It is an international disgrace that there is no legally binding agreement on how to protect climate refugees.      

Cutting emissions 

We need such an agreement to give definition and status to climate refugees; to define rights and obligations, and to coordinate and combine our actions so that they are effective.

Climate change is not a distant threat. It is happening here and now, and in communities across the world. Yet collectively we have the chance to put this right. 

The IPCC report stated that if we act now it is both affordable and feasible to limit warming to 1.5°C.

We have the tools and technology and we can achieve this if governments reduce our carbon emissions on a wide, cross-sector scale, without delay. 

Disastrous climate change is not yet inevitable, it is a political choice. And one for which future generations will hold us responsible.

This Author 

Steve Trent is executive director at the Environmental Justice Foundation. 

Cyclone Idai is just one of many disastrous extreme weather events to hit the southern hemisphere.

As it ripped across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, more than 1.8 million people were affected, and more than 700 are now dead. That count was expected to rise.

People have been stranded on roof tops, with water stretching for miles in every direction around them. Rescuers have been forced to drop food and move on, leaving the storm’s victims helpless as they hasten to more urgent cases. 

Humanitarian crisis 

In the coming months these immediate tragedies will be followed by more, although they won’t make the front pages. The loss of homes and schools, the devastation of agricultural land, the loss of livelihoods will exacerbate poverty, erode food security and ruin people’s lives.   

We know that there is a direct link between global warming and cyclone intensity. 

We know, too, that Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe produce only a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from the world’s more developed nations. They have had far fewer of the benefits that can be reaped from heavily carbon-based economies. 

This is a pattern that plays out across the world: the first and worst impacts of climate change are being felt by the world’s poorest, who have contributed the least to the warming of our world.   

Already, millions of people have been forced from their homes and a growing number have lost their lives around the world. Climate change is a crisis for all the Earth’s ecosystems, but it also presents a humanitarian crisis on a scale the world has never seen before. 

Forced migration 

While these poorest might be the first to experience the impacts of climate change, they are far from the last.

Climate change will also force migration in the world’s developed nations, along with economic and social disruption, political discontent and increasing conflict.

Remember the impact of just one extreme weather event – Hurricane Katrina – as it hit the world’s wealthiest nation, the United States: 800,000 people were made homeless; more than 1,830 people died and federal disaster declarations covered 90,000 square miles. 

What followed Katrina was perhaps the largest forced migration of people in American history.

Texas took in 300,000 refugees; Houston 35,000, Chicago over 6,000. Initial cost estimates put damages at more than $81 billion.  

Global warming

All nations, especially developed countries, need to step up and step up now. The full ambition of the Paris Agreement must be realised to achieve a wholesale transformation to a zero-carbon economy.  

A global shift to renewable energy would see economic, social and environmental benefits for all countries.

Put crudely, there are jobs and money to be found in renewable energy that, in the long-term, would far outweigh petro-chemicals.

Renewable energy sources could also deliver energy independence – and with it vast associated benefits – to the world’s poor, transforming lives for the better.

By combatting this vast global injustice, the developed world will also be serving its own interests, preventing the catastrophic impacts of runaway global warming and delivering a green dividend of immense value.

Protecting refugees

But we must not forget those already suffering the impacts of climate change. 

As part of our research at the Environmental Justice Foundation we have met with many who are on the frontlines of climate change.

In Dhaka’s slums in Bangladesh, people told us that they had been forced from their rural homes and lands because of the destruction wrought by the increasingly frequent and violent cyclones funnelling across the Bay of Bengal.  

On the opposite side of the world, we spoke to the indigenous Sami people in the Arctic. During the last decade, Arctic temperatures have risen almost twice as much as the global average. Unusual levels of rainfall are creating thick layers of ice on top of the snow, meaning reindeer cannot dig through it.

Unable to reach the lichen below, they starve. The Sami people, who have been reindeer herders since before records began, are losing not only a livelihood but an entire culture.  

Extreme poverty

Climate change is already taking people’s homes and livelihoods. But it is also a ‘threat multiplier’, driving the likelihood of violent conflict arising from pre-existing interactions between political, economic, religious, ethnic or other cultural forces.

Climate change will exacerbate extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequitable access to freshwater.

Advances in combatting food and water insecurity, poverty, inequality and toward promoting environmental sustainability, healthcare, education and peace all stand to be undermined as our world heats up. Humanity will find itself inundated by too much water and damned by too little.

Those we met in Dhaka’s slums talked of water and power shortages, disease, crime and overcrowding. A taste of things to come. 

The people already forced from their homes need protection. It is an international disgrace that there is no legally binding agreement on how to protect climate refugees.      

Cutting emissions 

We need such an agreement to give definition and status to climate refugees; to define rights and obligations, and to coordinate and combine our actions so that they are effective.

Climate change is not a distant threat. It is happening here and now, and in communities across the world. Yet collectively we have the chance to put this right. 

The IPCC report stated that if we act now it is both affordable and feasible to limit warming to 1.5°C.

We have the tools and technology and we can achieve this if governments reduce our carbon emissions on a wide, cross-sector scale, without delay. 

Disastrous climate change is not yet inevitable, it is a political choice. And one for which future generations will hold us responsible.

This Author 

Steve Trent is executive director at the Environmental Justice Foundation. 

Food safety regulations increasingly pressure growers to remove hedgerows, ponds and other natural habitats from farms to keep out pathogen-carrying wildlife and livestock. But this could come at the cost of biodiversity.

New research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology encourages the presence of dung beetles and soil bacteria at farms as they naturally suppress E. coli and other harmful pathogens that can otherwise be spread to humans.

Wild and domesticated pig faeces has been known to contaminate produce in the field, leading to foodborne illnesses. Wild, or feral, pigs especially pose a risk of moving around pathogens as farmers cannot control where or when these large animals might show up.

Dung beetles

Matthew Jones, who led the research as part of his PhD project at Washington State University, said: “Farmers are more and more concerned with food safety. If someone gets sick from produce traced back to a particular farm it can be devastating for them.

“As a result, many remove natural habitats from their farm fields to discourage visits by livestock or wildlife, making the farmland less hospitable to pollinators and other beneficial insects or birds.”

Dung beetles bury faeces below ground and make it difficult for pathogens to survive. To study how this may aid food safety, the entomologist drove a van full of pig faeces along the US West Coast to follow the planting of broccoli at 70 farm fields during the growing season.

Broccoli, much like leafy greens, is susceptible to faecal contamination due to its proximity to the ground and the likelihood of humans consuming it without cooking.

The pig faeces was used to attract dung beetles and see how quickly they would clean up. The experiment was carried out at conventional and organic farms, and farms with or without livestock.

Organic farms 

The organic farms seemed to attract a diverse range of dung beetle species that were most effective at keeping foodborne pathogens at bay.

At conventional fields or those surrounded by pastureland, a less effective and accidentally introduced species (Onthophagus nuchicornis) outweighed the number of native dung beetles.

Professor William Snyder of Washington State University said: “We found that organic farms generally fostered dung beetle species that removed the faeces more rapidly than was seen on conventional farms.”

Dung beetles likely kill harmful bacteria when they consume and bury the faeces. Previous research also suggested that these beetles have antibiotic-like compounds on their body.

To validate these findings, the researchers exposed the three most common species found in the field survey to pig faeces contaminated with E. coli.

A 7-day laboratory experiment revealed that Onthophagus taurus and Onthophagus nuchicornis, both of which bury faeces as part of their breeding behaviour, reduced E. coli numbers by more than 90 percent and less than 50 percent respectively.

Higer biodiversity 

The researchers also found that organic farming encouraged higher biodiversity among soil bacteria, which decreased the survival of pathogens.

Snyder said: “Bacteria are known to poison and otherwise fight among themselves and the same may be happening here.”

These results suggest dung beetles and soil bacteria may improve the natural suppression of human pathogens on farms, making a case for reduced insecticide use and the promotion of greater plant and insect diversity.

Jones concluded: “Wildlife and livestock are often seen as something that endanger food safety, but our research shows that reducing on-farm biodiversity might be totally counterproductive.

“Nature has a ‘clean-up crew’ of dung beetles and bacteria that quickly remove faeces and the pathogens within them, it appears. So, it might be better to encourage these beneficial insects and microbes.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the British Ecological Society. 

Image: Zleng, Flickr. 

Cyclone Idai is just one of many disastrous extreme weather events to hit the southern hemisphere.

As it ripped across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, more than 1.8 million people were affected, and more than 700 are now dead. That count was expected to rise.

People have been stranded on roof tops, with water stretching for miles in every direction around them. Rescuers have been forced to drop food and move on, leaving the storm’s victims helpless as they hasten to more urgent cases. 

Humanitarian crisis 

In the coming months these immediate tragedies will be followed by more, although they won’t make the front pages. The loss of homes and schools, the devastation of agricultural land, the loss of livelihoods will exacerbate poverty, erode food security and ruin people’s lives.   

We know that there is a direct link between global warming and cyclone intensity. 

We know, too, that Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe produce only a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from the world’s more developed nations. They have had far fewer of the benefits that can be reaped from heavily carbon-based economies. 

This is a pattern that plays out across the world: the first and worst impacts of climate change are being felt by the world’s poorest, who have contributed the least to the warming of our world.   

Already, millions of people have been forced from their homes and a growing number have lost their lives around the world. Climate change is a crisis for all the Earth’s ecosystems, but it also presents a humanitarian crisis on a scale the world has never seen before. 

Forced migration 

While these poorest might be the first to experience the impacts of climate change, they are far from the last.

Climate change will also force migration in the world’s developed nations, along with economic and social disruption, political discontent and increasing conflict.

Remember the impact of just one extreme weather event – Hurricane Katrina – as it hit the world’s wealthiest nation, the United States: 800,000 people were made homeless; more than 1,830 people died and federal disaster declarations covered 90,000 square miles. 

What followed Katrina was perhaps the largest forced migration of people in American history.

Texas took in 300,000 refugees; Houston 35,000, Chicago over 6,000. Initial cost estimates put damages at more than $81 billion.  

Global warming

All nations, especially developed countries, need to step up and step up now. The full ambition of the Paris Agreement must be realised to achieve a wholesale transformation to a zero-carbon economy.  

A global shift to renewable energy would see economic, social and environmental benefits for all countries.

Put crudely, there are jobs and money to be found in renewable energy that, in the long-term, would far outweigh petro-chemicals.

Renewable energy sources could also deliver energy independence – and with it vast associated benefits – to the world’s poor, transforming lives for the better.

By combatting this vast global injustice, the developed world will also be serving its own interests, preventing the catastrophic impacts of runaway global warming and delivering a green dividend of immense value.

Protecting refugees

But we must not forget those already suffering the impacts of climate change. 

As part of our research at the Environmental Justice Foundation we have met with many who are on the frontlines of climate change.

In Dhaka’s slums in Bangladesh, people told us that they had been forced from their rural homes and lands because of the destruction wrought by the increasingly frequent and violent cyclones funnelling across the Bay of Bengal.  

On the opposite side of the world, we spoke to the indigenous Sami people in the Arctic. During the last decade, Arctic temperatures have risen almost twice as much as the global average. Unusual levels of rainfall are creating thick layers of ice on top of the snow, meaning reindeer cannot dig through it.

Unable to reach the lichen below, they starve. The Sami people, who have been reindeer herders since before records began, are losing not only a livelihood but an entire culture.  

Extreme poverty

Climate change is already taking people’s homes and livelihoods. But it is also a ‘threat multiplier’, driving the likelihood of violent conflict arising from pre-existing interactions between political, economic, religious, ethnic or other cultural forces.

Climate change will exacerbate extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequitable access to freshwater.

Advances in combatting food and water insecurity, poverty, inequality and toward promoting environmental sustainability, healthcare, education and peace all stand to be undermined as our world heats up. Humanity will find itself inundated by too much water and damned by too little.

Those we met in Dhaka’s slums talked of water and power shortages, disease, crime and overcrowding. A taste of things to come. 

The people already forced from their homes need protection. It is an international disgrace that there is no legally binding agreement on how to protect climate refugees.      

Cutting emissions 

We need such an agreement to give definition and status to climate refugees; to define rights and obligations, and to coordinate and combine our actions so that they are effective.

Climate change is not a distant threat. It is happening here and now, and in communities across the world. Yet collectively we have the chance to put this right. 

The IPCC report stated that if we act now it is both affordable and feasible to limit warming to 1.5°C.

We have the tools and technology and we can achieve this if governments reduce our carbon emissions on a wide, cross-sector scale, without delay. 

Disastrous climate change is not yet inevitable, it is a political choice. And one for which future generations will hold us responsible.

This Author 

Steve Trent is executive director at the Environmental Justice Foundation. 

Food safety regulations increasingly pressure growers to remove hedgerows, ponds and other natural habitats from farms to keep out pathogen-carrying wildlife and livestock. But this could come at the cost of biodiversity.

New research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology encourages the presence of dung beetles and soil bacteria at farms as they naturally suppress E. coli and other harmful pathogens that can otherwise be spread to humans.

Wild and domesticated pig faeces has been known to contaminate produce in the field, leading to foodborne illnesses. Wild, or feral, pigs especially pose a risk of moving around pathogens as farmers cannot control where or when these large animals might show up.

Dung beetles

Matthew Jones, who led the research as part of his PhD project at Washington State University, said: “Farmers are more and more concerned with food safety. If someone gets sick from produce traced back to a particular farm it can be devastating for them.

“As a result, many remove natural habitats from their farm fields to discourage visits by livestock or wildlife, making the farmland less hospitable to pollinators and other beneficial insects or birds.”

Dung beetles bury faeces below ground and make it difficult for pathogens to survive. To study how this may aid food safety, the entomologist drove a van full of pig faeces along the US West Coast to follow the planting of broccoli at 70 farm fields during the growing season.

Broccoli, much like leafy greens, is susceptible to faecal contamination due to its proximity to the ground and the likelihood of humans consuming it without cooking.

The pig faeces was used to attract dung beetles and see how quickly they would clean up. The experiment was carried out at conventional and organic farms, and farms with or without livestock.

Organic farms 

The organic farms seemed to attract a diverse range of dung beetle species that were most effective at keeping foodborne pathogens at bay.

At conventional fields or those surrounded by pastureland, a less effective and accidentally introduced species (Onthophagus nuchicornis) outweighed the number of native dung beetles.

Professor William Snyder of Washington State University said: “We found that organic farms generally fostered dung beetle species that removed the faeces more rapidly than was seen on conventional farms.”

Dung beetles likely kill harmful bacteria when they consume and bury the faeces. Previous research also suggested that these beetles have antibiotic-like compounds on their body.

To validate these findings, the researchers exposed the three most common species found in the field survey to pig faeces contaminated with E. coli.

A 7-day laboratory experiment revealed that Onthophagus taurus and Onthophagus nuchicornis, both of which bury faeces as part of their breeding behaviour, reduced E. coli numbers by more than 90 percent and less than 50 percent respectively.

Higer biodiversity 

The researchers also found that organic farming encouraged higher biodiversity among soil bacteria, which decreased the survival of pathogens.

Snyder said: “Bacteria are known to poison and otherwise fight among themselves and the same may be happening here.”

These results suggest dung beetles and soil bacteria may improve the natural suppression of human pathogens on farms, making a case for reduced insecticide use and the promotion of greater plant and insect diversity.

Jones concluded: “Wildlife and livestock are often seen as something that endanger food safety, but our research shows that reducing on-farm biodiversity might be totally counterproductive.

“Nature has a ‘clean-up crew’ of dung beetles and bacteria that quickly remove faeces and the pathogens within them, it appears. So, it might be better to encourage these beneficial insects and microbes.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the British Ecological Society. 

Image: Zleng, Flickr. 

Cyclone Idai is just one of many disastrous extreme weather events to hit the southern hemisphere.

As it ripped across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, more than 1.8 million people were affected, and more than 700 are now dead. That count was expected to rise.

People have been stranded on roof tops, with water stretching for miles in every direction around them. Rescuers have been forced to drop food and move on, leaving the storm’s victims helpless as they hasten to more urgent cases. 

Humanitarian crisis 

In the coming months these immediate tragedies will be followed by more, although they won’t make the front pages. The loss of homes and schools, the devastation of agricultural land, the loss of livelihoods will exacerbate poverty, erode food security and ruin people’s lives.   

We know that there is a direct link between global warming and cyclone intensity. 

We know, too, that Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe produce only a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from the world’s more developed nations. They have had far fewer of the benefits that can be reaped from heavily carbon-based economies. 

This is a pattern that plays out across the world: the first and worst impacts of climate change are being felt by the world’s poorest, who have contributed the least to the warming of our world.   

Already, millions of people have been forced from their homes and a growing number have lost their lives around the world. Climate change is a crisis for all the Earth’s ecosystems, but it also presents a humanitarian crisis on a scale the world has never seen before. 

Forced migration 

While these poorest might be the first to experience the impacts of climate change, they are far from the last.

Climate change will also force migration in the world’s developed nations, along with economic and social disruption, political discontent and increasing conflict.

Remember the impact of just one extreme weather event – Hurricane Katrina – as it hit the world’s wealthiest nation, the United States: 800,000 people were made homeless; more than 1,830 people died and federal disaster declarations covered 90,000 square miles. 

What followed Katrina was perhaps the largest forced migration of people in American history.

Texas took in 300,000 refugees; Houston 35,000, Chicago over 6,000. Initial cost estimates put damages at more than $81 billion.  

Global warming

All nations, especially developed countries, need to step up and step up now. The full ambition of the Paris Agreement must be realised to achieve a wholesale transformation to a zero-carbon economy.  

A global shift to renewable energy would see economic, social and environmental benefits for all countries.

Put crudely, there are jobs and money to be found in renewable energy that, in the long-term, would far outweigh petro-chemicals.

Renewable energy sources could also deliver energy independence – and with it vast associated benefits – to the world’s poor, transforming lives for the better.

By combatting this vast global injustice, the developed world will also be serving its own interests, preventing the catastrophic impacts of runaway global warming and delivering a green dividend of immense value.

Protecting refugees

But we must not forget those already suffering the impacts of climate change. 

As part of our research at the Environmental Justice Foundation we have met with many who are on the frontlines of climate change.

In Dhaka’s slums in Bangladesh, people told us that they had been forced from their rural homes and lands because of the destruction wrought by the increasingly frequent and violent cyclones funnelling across the Bay of Bengal.  

On the opposite side of the world, we spoke to the indigenous Sami people in the Arctic. During the last decade, Arctic temperatures have risen almost twice as much as the global average. Unusual levels of rainfall are creating thick layers of ice on top of the snow, meaning reindeer cannot dig through it.

Unable to reach the lichen below, they starve. The Sami people, who have been reindeer herders since before records began, are losing not only a livelihood but an entire culture.  

Extreme poverty

Climate change is already taking people’s homes and livelihoods. But it is also a ‘threat multiplier’, driving the likelihood of violent conflict arising from pre-existing interactions between political, economic, religious, ethnic or other cultural forces.

Climate change will exacerbate extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequitable access to freshwater.

Advances in combatting food and water insecurity, poverty, inequality and toward promoting environmental sustainability, healthcare, education and peace all stand to be undermined as our world heats up. Humanity will find itself inundated by too much water and damned by too little.

Those we met in Dhaka’s slums talked of water and power shortages, disease, crime and overcrowding. A taste of things to come. 

The people already forced from their homes need protection. It is an international disgrace that there is no legally binding agreement on how to protect climate refugees.      

Cutting emissions 

We need such an agreement to give definition and status to climate refugees; to define rights and obligations, and to coordinate and combine our actions so that they are effective.

Climate change is not a distant threat. It is happening here and now, and in communities across the world. Yet collectively we have the chance to put this right. 

The IPCC report stated that if we act now it is both affordable and feasible to limit warming to 1.5°C.

We have the tools and technology and we can achieve this if governments reduce our carbon emissions on a wide, cross-sector scale, without delay. 

Disastrous climate change is not yet inevitable, it is a political choice. And one for which future generations will hold us responsible.

This Author 

Steve Trent is executive director at the Environmental Justice Foundation. 

Food safety regulations increasingly pressure growers to remove hedgerows, ponds and other natural habitats from farms to keep out pathogen-carrying wildlife and livestock. But this could come at the cost of biodiversity.

New research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology encourages the presence of dung beetles and soil bacteria at farms as they naturally suppress E. coli and other harmful pathogens that can otherwise be spread to humans.

Wild and domesticated pig faeces has been known to contaminate produce in the field, leading to foodborne illnesses. Wild, or feral, pigs especially pose a risk of moving around pathogens as farmers cannot control where or when these large animals might show up.

Dung beetles

Matthew Jones, who led the research as part of his PhD project at Washington State University, said: “Farmers are more and more concerned with food safety. If someone gets sick from produce traced back to a particular farm it can be devastating for them.

“As a result, many remove natural habitats from their farm fields to discourage visits by livestock or wildlife, making the farmland less hospitable to pollinators and other beneficial insects or birds.”

Dung beetles bury faeces below ground and make it difficult for pathogens to survive. To study how this may aid food safety, the entomologist drove a van full of pig faeces along the US West Coast to follow the planting of broccoli at 70 farm fields during the growing season.

Broccoli, much like leafy greens, is susceptible to faecal contamination due to its proximity to the ground and the likelihood of humans consuming it without cooking.

The pig faeces was used to attract dung beetles and see how quickly they would clean up. The experiment was carried out at conventional and organic farms, and farms with or without livestock.

Organic farms 

The organic farms seemed to attract a diverse range of dung beetle species that were most effective at keeping foodborne pathogens at bay.

At conventional fields or those surrounded by pastureland, a less effective and accidentally introduced species (Onthophagus nuchicornis) outweighed the number of native dung beetles.

Professor William Snyder of Washington State University said: “We found that organic farms generally fostered dung beetle species that removed the faeces more rapidly than was seen on conventional farms.”

Dung beetles likely kill harmful bacteria when they consume and bury the faeces. Previous research also suggested that these beetles have antibiotic-like compounds on their body.

To validate these findings, the researchers exposed the three most common species found in the field survey to pig faeces contaminated with E. coli.

A 7-day laboratory experiment revealed that Onthophagus taurus and Onthophagus nuchicornis, both of which bury faeces as part of their breeding behaviour, reduced E. coli numbers by more than 90 percent and less than 50 percent respectively.

Higer biodiversity 

The researchers also found that organic farming encouraged higher biodiversity among soil bacteria, which decreased the survival of pathogens.

Snyder said: “Bacteria are known to poison and otherwise fight among themselves and the same may be happening here.”

These results suggest dung beetles and soil bacteria may improve the natural suppression of human pathogens on farms, making a case for reduced insecticide use and the promotion of greater plant and insect diversity.

Jones concluded: “Wildlife and livestock are often seen as something that endanger food safety, but our research shows that reducing on-farm biodiversity might be totally counterproductive.

“Nature has a ‘clean-up crew’ of dung beetles and bacteria that quickly remove faeces and the pathogens within them, it appears. So, it might be better to encourage these beneficial insects and microbes.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the British Ecological Society. 

Image: Zleng, Flickr. 

Cyclone Idai is just one of many disastrous extreme weather events to hit the southern hemisphere.

As it ripped across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, more than 1.8 million people were affected, and more than 700 are now dead. That count was expected to rise.

People have been stranded on roof tops, with water stretching for miles in every direction around them. Rescuers have been forced to drop food and move on, leaving the storm’s victims helpless as they hasten to more urgent cases. 

Humanitarian crisis 

In the coming months these immediate tragedies will be followed by more, although they won’t make the front pages. The loss of homes and schools, the devastation of agricultural land, the loss of livelihoods will exacerbate poverty, erode food security and ruin people’s lives.   

We know that there is a direct link between global warming and cyclone intensity. 

We know, too, that Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe produce only a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from the world’s more developed nations. They have had far fewer of the benefits that can be reaped from heavily carbon-based economies. 

This is a pattern that plays out across the world: the first and worst impacts of climate change are being felt by the world’s poorest, who have contributed the least to the warming of our world.   

Already, millions of people have been forced from their homes and a growing number have lost their lives around the world. Climate change is a crisis for all the Earth’s ecosystems, but it also presents a humanitarian crisis on a scale the world has never seen before. 

Forced migration 

While these poorest might be the first to experience the impacts of climate change, they are far from the last.

Climate change will also force migration in the world’s developed nations, along with economic and social disruption, political discontent and increasing conflict.

Remember the impact of just one extreme weather event – Hurricane Katrina – as it hit the world’s wealthiest nation, the United States: 800,000 people were made homeless; more than 1,830 people died and federal disaster declarations covered 90,000 square miles. 

What followed Katrina was perhaps the largest forced migration of people in American history.

Texas took in 300,000 refugees; Houston 35,000, Chicago over 6,000. Initial cost estimates put damages at more than $81 billion.  

Global warming

All nations, especially developed countries, need to step up and step up now. The full ambition of the Paris Agreement must be realised to achieve a wholesale transformation to a zero-carbon economy.  

A global shift to renewable energy would see economic, social and environmental benefits for all countries.

Put crudely, there are jobs and money to be found in renewable energy that, in the long-term, would far outweigh petro-chemicals.

Renewable energy sources could also deliver energy independence – and with it vast associated benefits – to the world’s poor, transforming lives for the better.

By combatting this vast global injustice, the developed world will also be serving its own interests, preventing the catastrophic impacts of runaway global warming and delivering a green dividend of immense value.

Protecting refugees

But we must not forget those already suffering the impacts of climate change. 

As part of our research at the Environmental Justice Foundation we have met with many who are on the frontlines of climate change.

In Dhaka’s slums in Bangladesh, people told us that they had been forced from their rural homes and lands because of the destruction wrought by the increasingly frequent and violent cyclones funnelling across the Bay of Bengal.  

On the opposite side of the world, we spoke to the indigenous Sami people in the Arctic. During the last decade, Arctic temperatures have risen almost twice as much as the global average. Unusual levels of rainfall are creating thick layers of ice on top of the snow, meaning reindeer cannot dig through it.

Unable to reach the lichen below, they starve. The Sami people, who have been reindeer herders since before records began, are losing not only a livelihood but an entire culture.  

Extreme poverty

Climate change is already taking people’s homes and livelihoods. But it is also a ‘threat multiplier’, driving the likelihood of violent conflict arising from pre-existing interactions between political, economic, religious, ethnic or other cultural forces.

Climate change will exacerbate extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequitable access to freshwater.

Advances in combatting food and water insecurity, poverty, inequality and toward promoting environmental sustainability, healthcare, education and peace all stand to be undermined as our world heats up. Humanity will find itself inundated by too much water and damned by too little.

Those we met in Dhaka’s slums talked of water and power shortages, disease, crime and overcrowding. A taste of things to come. 

The people already forced from their homes need protection. It is an international disgrace that there is no legally binding agreement on how to protect climate refugees.      

Cutting emissions 

We need such an agreement to give definition and status to climate refugees; to define rights and obligations, and to coordinate and combine our actions so that they are effective.

Climate change is not a distant threat. It is happening here and now, and in communities across the world. Yet collectively we have the chance to put this right. 

The IPCC report stated that if we act now it is both affordable and feasible to limit warming to 1.5°C.

We have the tools and technology and we can achieve this if governments reduce our carbon emissions on a wide, cross-sector scale, without delay. 

Disastrous climate change is not yet inevitable, it is a political choice. And one for which future generations will hold us responsible.

This Author 

Steve Trent is executive director at the Environmental Justice Foundation.