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. 

Period poverty affects thousands of individuals each year, including those at school, those that are homeless, refugees and those who simply cannot afford them due to financial constraints. 

Ella Daish decided to take action, saddened by the thought of women and girls missing out on their education and opportunities simply because they cannot afford the essentials they need. The Eco Period Box campaign was launched in in December 2018. 

Ella said: “I set up the Eco Period Box to address period poverty in a way that I feel truly benefits all. Plastic-free period products and reusables are not only better for the people using them, but they also have a minimal environmental impact, which is really important. I also believe that everyone, no matter their situation, deserves a choice in what they use.”

Period poverty 

The campaign encouraged everyone to join in and make a positive difference. It was a success, with individuals, groups and companies coming together to get involved and over 4,000 plastic-free period products and 40 reusables were donated all over the UK. 

Many asked whether the original campaign would be extended into the new year. Ella is excited to announce that following its success, it is coming back in April. 

She wanted even more people to benefit from it this time, which is why she’s been in touch with shops throughout the UK and Ireland to bring the campaign to their area!

Twenty shops in the UK and Ireland from Edinburgh to Dublin to Nottingham are taking part to help support people locally that are affected by period poverty by having an Eco Period Box, which you can donate to. 

This will be running from the 1 – 30 April 2019. All donations collected will be given to a local charity of their choice.

A list of the participating shops can be found here. If you have one nearby you can make a contribution to their box, take a picture and post it online using the campaign hashtag #EcoPeriodBox!

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Ella Daish. 

The Anthropocene delivers negative emotions in epic quantities, but it also provides the chance for us to recognise and appreciate their opposites. The meme of the Symbiocene makes it possible for humans to regain a sense of their positive and joyous emotional engagement with their home, the Earth. The Symbiocene also offers the prospect of re-engagement with each other. 

I have argued that a new era in human-nature relationships – one I call the Symbiocene – will emerge from the chaos of the Anthropocene. I have also suggested a new consortium of humans, Generation Symbiocene, led mainly by the young, can take the reins of this revolutionary movement. 

The revolution needed to enter the Symbiocene will be dependent on science and technology delivering a new base for the hierarchy of human needs. However, this revolution will require a lot more than good science and technology.

Emotional landscapes

I now make the case that human emotions, in particular ‘Earth emotions’, are at the core of our current problems. Our emotional landscape is in lock-step with the biophysical landscape and our identity and sense of place are intimately tied to this relationship. 

E. O. Wilson made an important observation when he stated that “people will travel long distances to stroll along the seashore, for reasons they can’t put into words.” What remains ‘silent’ about this activity most likely includes a sense of close connection with something larger than the self, of being at one with the rhythm of the waves, fresh air, the daily pulse of tides and the proximity to non-human life. There is also the horizon: nothing impedes a view into curved infinity. 

When confronted by events such as a whale, most likely deceased because of 40 kilograms of plastic waste in its guts, or the gradual loss of the cryosphere due to climate warming, we must acknowledge the expanding scale and scope of negative emotional engagement with landscapes and biota. 

In the past, we have been able to take for granted and freely experience positive Earth emotions and feelings without any need to incorporate them into the formal language. 

Perhaps languages other than English have done so, but I think E. O. Wilson is correct; the English language has very little specific to say about our positive engagement with the Earth, as an emotional experience.

Now, in the midst of a cascade of hugely negative events occurring to the Earth, we must explicitly put these emotions into words. 

Emotional states related to the state of the Earth can be thought of as sitting within a spectrum of emotions and psychological states I call the ‘psychoterratic’.  

The psychoterratic is fully revealed within the emotions of the Anthropocene and its opposite, the Symbiocene. 

Anthropocene emotions

In the Anthropocene humans live inside a category mistake called ‘the environment’. Negative emotions are stirred when what we love about home, place and land is being violated.

There are now many psychoterratic states that have been named, from the anxiety of future disturbance to the lived experience of actual change.

Ecoanxiety and ecoparalysis

Ecoanxiety is a generalised feeling that things are going to get worse in the future as human development causes negative change to the climate and all types of ecosystems.

Ecoparalysis is the feeling that life has become so complex that you cannot do anything to solve the problems that are now plaguing the Earth. There is a conviction that every move ends in contradiction unless the whole notion of growth in the Anthropocene is rejected.

Solastalgia

I created the concept of solastalgia in 2003 to more accurately isolate and define the particular form of distress that is at the core of the desolation of the bonds between people and place.

The importance of place relationships in our emotional lives needed appropriate acknowledgement with a word of its own. The loss of solace from a place-relationship is a profound psychoterratic experience. 

Solastalgia is evident when an unwelcome negative environmental change invades the life of a person or community and attacks one’s sense of place.  

I originally connected this negative emotional state to what happens when open cut coal mining or drought affect people in rural contexts.

But solastalgic distress has been taking hold world-wide as climate change has become more rapid and pervasive. There are many more circumstances where forms of chronic place desolation can occur. 

A simple way to think about solastalgia is as a type of homesickness you have while at home and your home environment is changing in ways that you find distressing.

Unfortunately, for too many people, we now live in an ‘age of solastalgia’ as the Anthropocene keeps delivering ever more profound shocks to the natural and social systems that support us.

Tierratrauma and global dread

Beyond chronic solastalgia there is tierratrauma, where acute environmental change causes acute psychoterratic trauma. Bearing witness to tree loss, a pollution event such as the Gulf oil spill or a human-enhanced natural disaster such as local flooding are causes of tierratrauma. 

The very idea of an eco-apocalypse can also generate what I have called global dread in the mind of a sufferer. As dread is, by definition, future directed, it is a type of pre-solastalgic anticipation of a totally bleak future for those who will inhabit it. The grieving starts even before death and extinction. 

Symbiocene emotions

The relative climatic stability in the Holocene period of the past 11,000 years has given humans the opportunity to experience the best that life has to offer. We lived within the symbioment.

Positive Earth emotions must have been a default psychoterratic state, so much so that E. O. Wilson considers that biophilia or love of life, to have an instinctual or genetic basis. 

It can be argued that the Anthropocene commenced some 300 years ago with the Industrial Revolution and that, prior to that moment, the instinctual love of life, our biophilia, must have been vital for our emotional compass. 

Topophilia and endemophilia

The pleasure derived from a close emotional bond with our local and regional home was described by Yi-Fu Tuan as topophilia or love of place. The closer to the land a person lived, the stronger the topophilia.

People placed within much loved environments could experience what I have called endemophilia. A love that is distinctive to particular places is a powerful psychoterratic force that can be used to protect and conserve elements of places for posterity. 

Eutierria

I created eutierria to put into language a secular version of a phrase – “that oceanic feeling” – that often has religious connotations.

In this state, the divisions between the self and the rest of nature are dissolved and a state of harmony is entered. 

Eutierria is a good Earth feeling and one that lovers of nature, landscapes and biodiversity often experience. Eutierria is not euphoria, as it comes from raw interaction with the living Earth. It is not enhanced by artificial or extraordinary means. 

A good earth

The creation of the material structure of the Symbiocene simultaneously offers its makers positive psychoterratic experiences. 

The reward for the hard work required to build the Symbiocene will, among many other goods such as clean air, unpolluted water and renewable energy, be the free psychoterratic ‘highs’ that flow from positive Earth emotions. We once again live within the symbioment.

Soliphilia

Living together offers the possibility of a new form of political affiliation that I call soliphilia.

Soliphilia is a form of political commitment that is the full expression of positive Earth emotions; it is the love of and for the totality of our intimate place relationships, and a willingness to accept the political responsibility for protecting and conserving them at all scales. 

We now see the emergence of soliphilia in, for example, the rise of Extinction Rebellion and the School Strike social movements. 

Soliphilia is neither left nor right in the orthodox political spectrum because, unlike all past political positions, it has its focus firmly on the re-unification of humans with the rest of life.

The biophilia, or love of life, finds its political outlet in the politics of the shared love of all life.

As engagement with the positive psychoterratic takes place, nurture and protection of those places becomes the main aim of the politics of soliphilia. 

Symbiocracy, or the type of inclusive politics that will be present in the Symbiocene, will require detailed deliberation on the part of humans for the health and vitality of the whole.  

The task of soliphilia is for local and regional people to respond to desolation and dysbiosis by political and policy action. Such action will replace the diseased and negative with repaired and symbiotically revitalised places. Valued and special places will once again deliver positive emotional sustenance. 

Emotional repair work is intimately tied to biophysical restoration from the environment to the symbioment.

As humans involve themselves in that restoration project and heal damaged places, they also emotionally heal themselves and banish solastalgia. There is nothing to stop that process going global in the Symbiocene. 

This Author

Dr Glenn Albrecht is freelance environmental philosopher and farmosopher. He has pioneered the domain of psychoterratic or psyche–earth relationships with his concept of solastalgia. He is the author of Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World and writes at Psychoterratica.

A new generation of data collectors and support scientists are proving vital to the overall health of the rainforest ecosystem – just like paramedics – thanks to projects funded through the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative.

Since 2001, the University of Sussex has led five projects designed to train and build scientific knowledge of nature with local people and received almost one million pounds in backing from the Darwin Initiative, with some UK aid, over this period.

This includes funding for several projects to help villagers in Papua New Guinea become para-ecologists and protect their country’s treasured rainforest.

Green action

These individuals are now providing vital scientific knowledge that is changing minds on the ground and helping people gain new livelihoods, which is contributing to the protection of some of the world’s most important habitats. 

This year’s event coincides with the Government’s Year of Green Action, a drive throughout 2019 to help people to connect with, protect and enhance nature – both in the UK and abroad.

Joseph Kua, a para-ecologist, said: “I am amazed with the current job I have. I can see that I am really contributing to educating local landowners about the importance of forest conservation.

“We carry out biodiversity surveying in the rainforest which is essential to make sure that the area will be protected. If we do not know what is there, then we can’t make sure it will be conserved for future generations.”

Joachim Yalang, also one of the Para-ecologists, said: “Currently, I am involved in a program in my community which tries to restore forest back to its original state.

“I am happy that I have a job which involves research and rainforest conservation because it enables me to give back to my community what I have learnt and make them aware of the importance of rainforest and conservation.”

Protecting biodiversity 

Thérèse Coffey, the environment minister,  said: “This initiative reinforces the UK Government’s commitment to protect the most diverse forests for nature and tackle illegal logging.

“The Darwin Initiative continues to support hundreds of projects that restore and enhance wildlife and nature. It’s another fine example of our support for action at home and abroad to ensure we are the first generation to leave our environment in a better state than we found it.”

The rainforests in Papua New Guinea are home to an estimated 25,000 species of plants, along with 760 bird species that are found nowhere else on Earth including the iconic Birds of Paradise, tree kangaroos and many other creatures such Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing butterfly.

The projects in Papua New Guinea have raised awareness of nature and the importance of protecting biodiversity amongst the local indigenous communities and led to increasing concern for the long-term future of the rainforest.

With support from UK aid, the UK is driving new, sustainable approaches in some of the world’s richest natural environments and most beautiful areas, which both protect the environment and provide quality, sustainable jobs to local communities.

Vital research 

The para-ecologist initiative has contributed to the establishment of a model rainforest conservation area, which won a United Nations Development Programme’s Equator Prize award in 2015.

The conservation area is a community-designated area of forest around 10,000 hectares on the northern side of the island that has been protected from logging by nine neighbouring indigenous clans.

Dr Alan Stewart, Darwin project-lead from the University of Sussex, said: “We use the name ‘para-ecologist’ as analogous to paramedic. These dedicated people are helping us to carry out vital research work on species of plants and animals, many only found in Papua New Guinea.

“It is heartening to see that our training programme has impacted local people’s lives to the extent that a large area of rainforest is being protected from destruction – by the very people who live there.

“Darwin Initiative support has been absolutely essential to establishing these projects and helping to change and shape people lives.”     

Sustainable livelihoods 

The Darwin Initiative is a grants scheme that helps to protect biodiversity and the natural environment around the globe.

Many of the applications reflect the UK Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan commitments, to secure the benefits of nature for the poorest communities, and to help prevent the extinction of species.

Projects like these are illustrative of the ‘win-win’ approach encouraging sustainable livelihoods whilst conserving some of the world’s iconic and endangered species and landscapes, which benefits us all.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs. 

Friends of the Earth Cymru are calling for local authorities in Wales to stop investing in an industry that contributes significantly to climate-changing emissions, causes plastic pollution, and leads to over 5,000 deaths in Wales every year.

Eight Local Authority Pension Funds (LAPFs) in Wales are investing over £60 million in tobacco firms such as British American Tobacco according to information gained through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. 

Welsh LAPFs are also investing around £1bn directly or indirectly in fossil fuel companies.

Climate change

Bleddyn Lake, a spokesperson from Friends of the Earth Cymru, said: “This news should be a wakeup call to pension fund trustees and fund managers to switch to more ethical investments.”

“Local authorities in Wales need to act now by taking their money out of tobacco firms, fossil fuel companies and other industries fuelling catastrophic climate change.

“Continuing to invest in these companies legitimises their operations. LAPFs who invest in them are basically profiting from climate change.

“Local authorities must stop supporting these companies: ditch the fossil fuels and bin the tobacco.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that we only have 12 years at most to act decisively to prevent dangerous runaway climate change

Environmental impacts

While the health implications of smoking have been well publicised for many years, the environmental damage caused by the tobacco industry is only now coming to the fore.

According to a recent report, annual tobacco production results in almost 84 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions – more than twice the emissions of the whole of Wales.

Tobacco farms take up more than 20,000 square miles of land, use up more than 22 billion tonnes of water, and cause deforestation in Asia and Africa.

Cigarettes are also one of the most pervasive forms of litter in the world. Plastic filters can take up to 12 years to degrade and cigarette butts leak toxins that contaminate water and harm marine life and the environment.

Suzanne Cass, chief executive officer for ASH Wales said: “Across Wales local authorities are investing time and money in implementing tobacco control policies designed to reduce smoking prevalence. 

“It is highly ironic therefore that at the same time they are investing in excess of £60 million in the tobacco industry.”

Health impacts

Cass continued: “From a financial point of view tobacco is quite simply a bad investment. Growing awareness of the harms of smoking mean smokers could become a dying breed, with many turning their backs on tobacco and fewer young people than ever taking up the habit.

“There is no sustainable future for the tobacco industry and we would urge local authorities to put their pension funds to better use.”

Smoking is to blame for 80 percent of lung cancer cases across the UK. In 2017 there were 1,891 deaths from lung cancer in Wales.  

It accounts for one in every four cancer deaths in the country, killing more than bowel and breast cancer combined.

Smoking is also a leading cause of cardiovascular disease and it costs the Welsh NHS an estimated £302 million a year to treat those with smoking related conditions.

Currently 19 percent of Welsh adults smoke with prevalence highest in our most deprived communities, leading to stark health inequalities.

This Author 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Friends of the Earth. 

Plants may expand or shift their range as global temperatures continue to rise, but if they become inaccessible to the people who use them, ancient biocultural connections could be lost, a leading researcher has warned.

Dr Priscilla Wehi from Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, who recently co-authoted new forecast maps in the journal People and Nature, explained that local and indigenous peoples play critical roles in preserving biodiversity and ecosystems.

“People are already having trouble finding the resources they need, because of polluted water and soil, invasive species, and habitat destruction. Climate change adds another layer to this issue,” she said.

Biocultural connections

Wehi added: “Rather than just looking at whether climate change will make species go extinct, we wanted to know how climate change will affect people’s access to plants”.

The researchers focused on two plants that are traditionally used for weaving and as medicine, and that are important to the history and identity of the indigenous Māori people.

Kuta (Eleocharis sphacelata) is a soft, golden sedge found in wetlands across New Zealand and is especially valued in the North Island, where it is weaved into highly priced mats, hats and baskets. Weavers typically return to the same harvesting site each year.

Te Hemo Ata Henare of NorthTec, another author on this study, has been teaching customary Māori weaving for 40 years. She said: “Members of my community travel up to four hours to harvest kuta. Some of the sites are incredibly difficult to reach because of the overgrown land and involve long-distance swimming and deep diving.” 

The team created maps of the plants’ current and future distribution under two climate change scenarios and compared these to known harvesting sites. They found that changes in temperature and rainfall patterns will likely have an impact on soil density in these wetlands. As a result, kuta may become less available in the far north of the country, where many of the weavers who use this plant live, and move to the south instead.

Climate change 

Many of the current harvest sites have been used for generations. Reduced local access to species is typically associated with a loss of biocultural knowledge.

Henare said: “Weavers prefer to gather plants in their own tribal area, so this becomes an issue. There are alternative weaving plants available, but the colour, texture, and quality of kuta are unique.”

The second plant species explored in this study is kūmarahou (Pomaderris kumeraho), an endemic shrub that flourishes on well-drained clay soils in the northern regions of the North Island during the austral winter. Māori people use it to treat respiratory ailments.

Cultural currency is still practiced amongst many tribes. Regional species such as kūmarahou may be ceremonially gifted or exchanged with people from other tribal regions.

The forecast maps revealed that kūmarahou is likely to expand its range to the rest of the country as temperatures tend to become warmer, rather than shift or decrease as described for many other species. This could have an impact on tribal prestige and gifting practices.

Matthew Bond of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa said: “Our results show that there are still places where the climate will be suitable for these plants to grow in the future.

However, these plants will become less available in places where they are most valued for weaving and medicine. This means that although the species themselves are not threatened by climate change, the human knowledge, history, and use of these plants are.”

Indigenous peoples

Ecological changes like those predicted in this study are a critical issue for indigenous peoples around the world because they transform resource availability and landscapes in ways that affect cultural identity, knowledge, sense of place, and social cohesion.

It may be necessary to transfer important plants to other accessible habitats that have less drastic climate impacts. By doing this, future generations may continue to harvest these plants and maintain their biocultural heritage.

“When it comes to climate change, we should not just think about species extinction, but the relationships between people and nature”, Bond concluded. “Our hope is that other researchers and indigenous peoples can use our work as a model to study the plants that are important to them.”

The study was funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand and National Science Foundation.

Matthew Bond, et al. ‘Effects of climatically shifting species distributions on biocultural relationships’ is published in the journal People and Nature on 27 March 2019 and will be available here.

This Article 

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

Image: Pricilla Wehi harvesting kuta. © Michael Bond. 

The founder of organic veg box company Riverford, Guy Singh-Watson, has been presented with a prestigious Award for Responsible Capitalism at a ceremony attended by HRH Princess Anne.

Singh-Watson used his acceptance speech for the award, which is given annually by international publishing group First, to call on leaders to change the capitalist system that is “destroying our collective future”.

Addressing an audience at St James’s Palace of 200 foreign ambassadors, multinational businesses and parliamentarians, as well as Princess Anne, Singh-Watson said: “Capitalism has made it acceptable and normal to benefit from destroying our collective future.”

Mass extinction 

Singh-Watson continued: “We’re approximately 12 years away from when climate change becomes irreversible. We’ve lost 75 per cent of insect biomass in the last 30 years. Our soils are in crisis, and we’re facing the sixth mass extinction of biodiversity. Society is torn apart by inequality. We urgently need to act.

“This award seeks to promote change from within in small steps. And though I respect its intent, I would argue that we need to accelerate the process.”

Responsible capitalism can only be delivered, said Singh-Watson, when those with money and power find the confidence to measure success not in what they take out, but in what they put in.

Speaking at the ceremony, Princess Anne praised the award winners for leading the way. “On congratulating them as winners, can I thank them for being role models,” she said. “They are worthy recipients and they now join a long and distinguished list of winners of the First Awards for Responsible Capitalism.”

Other winners included the Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, Thabo Makgoba; the chief executive of TBC Bank in Georgia, Vakhtang Butskhrikidze; and Lourdes Maria Mena de Guerra from El Salvador, whose company, Lula Mena, sells handmade Fairtrade craft products made by local artisans.

Alternative future 

Singh-Watson, who turned Riverford over to employee ownership in June 2018, added: “We’re so much better than our slavery to conventional capitalism and remote ownership allows us to demonstrate.

“We need both change from within and challenge from without to stand any chance of passing a habitable planet on to our grandchildren.

“We need approval, encouragement and bravery from our peers; shaming from our children; incentives and leadership from government; and perhaps most of all, we need positive, joyous, well-publicised examples of a plausible alternative future.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Riverford organics.

New research, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, measured the presence of 353 wild bee and hoverfly species across the country, from 1980 to 2013. It showed one third of species experienced declines in terms of areas in which they were found, while one tenth increased. For the remainder of species, their distribution was either stable or the trend was inconclusive.

A positive but unexpected finding of the study was the increase in key bee species responsible for pollinating flowering crops, such as oil-seed rape.

This could be in response to the large increases of mass-flowering crops grown during the study period and government-subsidised schemes that encourage farmers to plant more of the wildflowers they feed on.

Habitat loss

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, also showed that on average, the geographic range of bee and hoverfly species declined by a quarter. This is equivalent to a net loss of 11 species from each 1km square.

Overall losses were more notable for pollinator species found in northern Britain. This may be a result of climate change, with species that prefer cooler temperatures reducing their geographical spread in response to less climatically suitable landscapes.

Dr Gary Powney of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, who led the research, said: “We used cutting-edge statistical methods to analyse a vast number of species observations, revealing widespread differences in distribution change across pollinating insects.

“There is no one single cause for these differences, but habitat loss is a likely key driver of the declines.

“While the increase in key crop pollinators is good news, they are still a relatively small group of species. Therefore, with species having declined overall, it would be risky to rely on this group to support the long-term food security for our country.

“If anything happens to them in the future there will be fewer other species to ‘step up’ and fulfil the essential role of crop pollination.

Robus data 

Powney added: “Non-crop pollinators are also vital for a healthy countryside rich in biodiversity; not only because of their crucial role in pollinating wildflowers, but as a key food resource for other wildlife. 

“Wildflowers and pollinators rely on each other for survival. Losses in either are a major cause for concern when we consider the health and beauty of our natural environment.”

Dr Claire Carvell of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, a co-author of the study, points out there are multiple environmental pressures leading to changing patterns of occurrence in bees and hoverflies across the country.

Carvell said: “There is an urgent need for more robust data on the patterns and causes of pollinator declines. While this analysis sends us a warning, the findings support previous studies suggesting that conservation actions, such as wildlife-friendly farming and gardening, can have a lasting, positive impact on wild pollinators in rural and urban landscapes. However, these need further refining to benefit a wider range of species.

“In addition to recording species sightings, more standardised monitoring of pollinator numbers is required at a national level and a new UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme has been set up to do just this.”

Environmental change 

Over 700,000 records were analysed for this study. Most were collected by expert naturalists in the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society (BWARS) and the UK Hoverfly Recording Scheme, in more than 19,000 1km by 1km squares across Great Britain.

It’s thought to be the first study of its kind, since there have been no previous large-scale, long-term, species-specific estimates of distribution change for pollinating insects in Britain.

Mike Edwards of BWARS said: “All important studies of animal population trends, such as this latest research, rely entirely on the wildlife recorders who go out and record sightings of different species in their area.

“Therefore, we would encourage more people to take part in wildlife recording, so we can increase our understanding of how wildlife is responding to environmental change.”

Members of the public who wish to get involved in recording insect pollinators in their local area can find out more on the UK

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.