Fish are in trouble. It seems that every week we hear warnings about drastically reduced populations in numerous species.

And did you catch the disturbing story about UK fish and chip shops serving up endangered species to unwitting customers?

According to Global Fishing Watch, some species’ numbers have dropped by a huge 90 percent, while lists such as this show ten kinds of fish which have recently become extinct.

Hot water

This isn’t new information either. In a study published in Science in 2006, experts said that we risk seeing fishless oceans by 2048.

And so what has happened since then to avert this disaster? Very little. In terms of UK policy we’ve in fact seen the opposite, with news that Brexit could lead to overfishing on an even larger scale than before.

The reasons behind marine biodiversity loss are many. However, we can boil it down to the fact that more fish are caught than can breed to replenish the numbers.

Illegal fishing and government subsidises contribute to overfishing, as does the use of certain fishing industry practices.

Trawler nets do not discriminate based on the type of sea life they pick up. This results in large numbers of fish being caught which are either surplus to requirement or the wrong species.

Seafood

The ‘bycatch’ or ‘bykill’ is then thrown dead back into the sea. ‘Ghost nets’ also pose a threat. These are fishing nets which are lost or abandoned in the sea, acting as a death trap to animals which are then never collected.

The resulting reduced numbers of fish and other sea life has a huge impact on the entire marine ecosystem, which in turn affects life on land.

As well as issues concerning biodiversity, overfishing has been linked to declining water quality, ocean dead zones and coastal flooding.

So isn’t it enough to cut down on the amount of seafood you eat, and to look into the fishing methods used to bring it to your plate?

Some experts take a different view, such as Marine Biologist Dr Sylvia Earle. Dr Earle explained to the National Geographic: “I personally have stopped eating seafood. I know too much. I know that every fish counts.”

Oceans

There are also the wider ethical arguments to consider.

Animal rights groups may be more likely to share content depicting animals such as cows and pigs in distress, however it’s important to remember that fish also suffer in the hands of our food system.

Fish are animals, like us, with a central nervous system. They experience pain and discomfort and have an inbuilt desire to live. While methods for catching fish vary, none of them make for an enviable end of life.

It’s easy to feel discouraged in the face of such large-scale problems. However, there is still time to make a difference.

The oceans can be assisted to return to a healthier state. We need protected ocean areas and government legislation – but what can you do as an individual?

Blossom

By withdrawing your funds from the fishing industry, you can play a part in fighting against the harmful effects of overfishing.

While it is true that from an environmental point of view certain fishing practices are less harmful than others, there is no essential reason to continue eating fish given that we do not rely on them for a single nutrient. From protein to fatty acids, all of our nutrients can be found in totally plant-based sources.

And what’s more, vegan-friendly options to replace fish are springing up left, right and centre – from Quorn’s fishless fingers to more gourmet restaurant options such as “tofish” and chips, or battered fish made from banana blossom.

If you’re intrigued, why not sign up to The Vegan Society’s Plate Up for the Planet Challenge and try a vegan diet for 7 days?

This author

Elena Orde is communications and campaigns officer at The Vegan Society and editor of The Vegan magazine.

Russia, one of the world’s highest-polluting hold-outs, has taken steps that could lead to ratification of the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile a key business group reversed its opposition.

Late last year, the country’s lead climate advisor Ruslan Edelgeriev released a statement flagging the preparation of a key report on the pros and cons of ratification.

In January, business daily Kommersant reported that Edelgeriev had asked a working group of government experts to have the report ready by the end of February, with a view of landing the document on Vladimir Putin’s desk by March.

Implementation

The government would then be in a position to submit ratification legislation to the country’s two parliamentary chambers, the Duma and Federation Council.

The move coincided with a shift from a key business group that had previously called for Russia to move slowly on its ratification of the deal.

In a letter to the environment ministry on 17 January, Alexander Shokhin, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), wrote that “Russian producers are interested in ratification” as “the absence of national obligations and state regulation of activities to combat climate change may serve as a pretext for imposing economic restrictions on Russian companies”.

Shokhin also cited concerns over a loss of competitiveness and unnecessary costs.

The European Commission indicated last year it would prioritise countries in trade negotiations that had backed the Paris deal. Accordingly, the Japan-EU agreement concluded in 2017 contained a chapter explicitly referring to the ratification and implementation of the Paris deal.

Ratification

Neither the RSPP nor a spokesperson for the EU responded to a request for comment.

Nearly 200 countries, including Russia, have signed the Paris Agreement, which commits members to limiting global warming to “well below 2C”.

Formal ratification typically involves an act of parliament, although it varies from country to country. Russia, which accounts for nearly 5% of global greenhouse emissions, remains the largest of the 12 signatories that have not formally ratified the deal.

Alexey Kokorin, a climate change officer from WWF Russia, said he believed Russia’s new climate representative Edelgeriev was providing an impetus that could see the government follow through with the process.

“The big positive is that the new Mr Edelgeriev completely supports ratification. He would like ratification as his personal view, he would like to make that he has made something significant,” said Kokorin.

But Kokorin warned that the ratification had yet to pass a legislative ring of fire.

Influential

Deputies “will resist it as much as possible using this to demonstrate themselves as Russian patriots.

The populists of United Russia [Vladimir Putin’s party] will certainly delay the process to prove themselves”, he said.

There may also be resistance from within the government. A representative from the ministry of science was the only official to oppose the ratification during the working group, reported Kommersant, citing a lack of evidence for man-made climate change.

Russia was part of a small group of oil and gas producing states that blocked a recent UN conference from welcoming a hugely influential scientific report on the impacts of warming 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for the Environment and Rural Affairs, has announced that Tony Juniper is his preferred candidate to become the next Chair of Natural England. The news has been welcomed by Friends of the Earth.

Craig Bennett, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth said: “This is excellent news. At a time when we are witnessing catastrophic declines in wildlife it is very welcome to have a passionate environmentalist of Tony Juniper’s experience and calibre proposed as chair of what is supposed to be England’s independent watchdog to ensure our natural world is protected.

“But the truth is that over the last decade, Natural England has lost most of its independence, with its communications, finance and HR functions being subsumed within DEFRA while – at the same time – suffering a drastic cut in funding.

Nature laws

“Mr Gove is to be congratulated on his choice of candidate, but he should also take the opportunity to make Natural England truly independent and properly funded once again.

“This is of utmost importance, given Brexit is just around the corner and we’re about to lose the independent scrutiny and enforcement of our nature laws currently delivered by EU institutions”.

Juniper is a former trustee of the Resurgence Trust, an educational charity and owner and publisher of The Ecologist. 

This Author

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Friends of the Earth. 

Image: Jakob Polacsek, Flickr. 

I want to start out by addressing younger readers in particular. And what I have to say to you is stark. It is this: your leaders have failed you; your governments have failed you; your parents and their generation have failed you; your teachers have failed you; and I have failed you.

We have all failed to raise the alarm adequately; and so of course we have failed to prevent the dangerous climate change that is now here, and the worse climate change that is coming and that is definitely going to get a lot worse still: definitely, because of time-lags built into the system. 

This crisis already shows our failure. For, if we had been going to tackle this in such a way as to actually get a grip on it, we would have done so a generation ago (at minimum).

True leadership

Roughly speaking, we would have elected Green or genuinely green-friendly, non-growth-obsessed governments everywhere in the world a generation ago and they would have done things that were quite unpalatable to a lot of us. That would have been true leadership.

But of course nothing remotely like this has happened. So now we’re in a real last chance saloon. The globally hegemonic civilisation of which we are all a part is in an end-game. Those who wanted to preserve it have already definitively failed.

Because of that failure I’m afraid for you, reader, especially if you are younger than me (I’m 52). I have fear for you: I fear that (some of) you are unlikely to grow old.

We’ve gambled too much on succeeding in preventing/mitigating anthropogenic dangerous climate change and the anthropogenic extinction crisis. Because we were unwilling to face up to the alternative.

But the alternative is not as simple as an instantaneous end of life would be. The alternative is complex, involving many possible variants of ‘unthinkably’ horrendous, bad, and even (in some respects) good.

Transformational adaptation

Most crucially: there is a huge difference between the various versions of complete irrecoverable societal/species collapse, on the one hand, and the rise of a successor civilisation(s) out of the wreckage of this one, on the other.

We have to be willing to think this – and face it. Which means that we have to look beyond mitigation alone; we have to get serious about the processes of transformational adaptation and deep adaptation that are now necessary.

We cannot continue to avoid the vast effort necessary in attempting to adapt our communities to cope with our changed and changing world. Not least because the time-lags built into the climate system mean that – even in the extraordinarily unlikely event that we manage to stop massively damaging our climate further – it is bound to deteriorate further for a long time to come.

The only way that our civilisation might appear to persist is if we manage to transform it beyond recognition. But that transformed civilisation would then in no meaningful sense be the same civilisation as ours.

It would be radically relocalised, degrowthist, energy-descended; it would have ended consumerism and foregrounded ecology; it would have learnt indigenous and peasant wisdom and have left behind most of the wrong turn of industrial capitalism; in short, it would probably be as different from our present world as that world is from the pre-industrial-revolution world.

Irrevocable changes

It is in the context of the present civilisation being finished that I have just had a paper published which this Ecologist article précis’s and builds upon. My paper asks, given that this civilisation is finished, what exactly, among those willing to face up to this terrifying and liberating reality, is to be done?

Let me now turn more directly to that. To the great work of taking the effort of adaptation to our irrevocably changed world seriously, this great task that now lies ahead of us.

In my new paper, published as IFLAS Occasional Paper 3, I build on and complement the work already done by Jem Bendell, in his widely-read, extremely-influential IFLAS Occasional Paper 2, on “Deep Adaptation”.

Deep Adaptation means adaptation premised upon collapse. And it has to be faced plainly that such collapse is likely.

For instance: How many more summers like 2018’s can we take? In my own neck of the woods, in Norfolk, many crop yields were massively down. And this is while we deal with the effects of only 1 degree of global over-heat. What will things be like, when we reach 2 degrees, or even 3, as it is now only realistic to expect we will.

Social collapse

I have also argued there that Bendell’s claim that we face “inevitable”, “near-term” social collapse is nevertheless not valid. I think that the evidence he puts together in ”Deep Adaptation’’ does not justify that double-claim.

The claim that I have been making for some time now is that our civilisation will inevitably end. This may sound much the same as Jem’s claim. But it is different in two crucial respects:

Firstly, I do not put a time-limit down; I think we really don’t know what the time interval is. Secondly, I leave open that the ending still might be by way of a positive transformation, the opposite of collapse.

We don’t know that this isn’t possible, because we don’t know what human beings are capable of in novel circumstances. Tragically, I definitely would not bet on it, but to pretend that we can be certain that it won’t happen is to close down the open-endedness of human being and to overstate our own epistemic powers. It is to be unhumble before the future. To repeat, in a way, the kind of mistake that got us into this horrendous situation.

It still just might be social transformation, not social collapse, that our future holds.

Precautionary logic

It is plain that climate-nemesis is coming our way on a business as usual pathway or any likely pathway — catastrophic climate change is a white, not a black, swan – but we can’t know for certain when it will arrive by, nor even (for certain) that it will arrive.

We do not need certainty about collapse (or whatever) in order to guide our actions; the Precautionary Principle already guides them powerfully, by pointing us somewhat more specifically to what we need to do in order to guard against worst-case scenarios, etc. It directs us to ‘prep’, especially together, even if we do not know when or if collapse will occur. Doing so is simply a sensible precaution.

This precautionary logic may be (more) helpful to our cause, unlike the standard scientific ‘evidence-based’ logic that is more-or-less hegemonic among g/Greens and policy-wonks alike, a logic that is actually often harmful. 

I think that my way of characterising our situation is more likely to be energising and motivating than a message of inevitable doom. The Extinction Rebellion now beginning, could be our last chance to begin to do enough to stop full-scale climate catastrophe, or at the least to significantly slow it. 

But Extinction Rebellion risks being undermined by a ‘doomer’ message that says near-term social collapse is inevitable.

Extinction Rebellion

We must bend our wills to deep adaptation, as an insurance policy against the likely eventuality of collapse. And to transformational adaptation, adaptation that seeks simultaneously to mitigate and to transform our society in the direction it desperately needs to change in. The latter points too toward the hope for that transformation, a hope that remains, even in the darkness of this time.

Insofar as human beings are willing to wake up and to look the dark reality of climate crisis in the eye, so we rise up to meet it. That is true courage. That is still at the heart of the task now upon us. A task that Extinction Rebellion is leading the way towards.

This Author 

Rupert Read is a reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia.

Image: kthtrnr, Flickr. 

Activists who locked themselves to a plane to prevent it deporting people to West Africa have been given community orders and suspended sentences.

The protest took place in 2017. Most of those on board the plane were being deported following failed immigration cases, though some had not yet received a final decision. Two have since been given leave to appeal, which the activists say justifies their actions.

The conviction of the activists in December for endangering the safety of an airport was criticised by human rights campaigners as being excessive.

Immigration system

However, the sentencing judge Christopher Morgan QC, said that although such action would “ordinarily result in custodial sentences”, they “didn’t have a grievous intent as some may do who commit this type of crime”.

In an article for the Guardian, protester Emma Hughes wrote: “We are a group of peaceful protesters, but the state has convicted us of a terror-related offence. This was done without any transparency by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), and neither the CPS nor the attorney general have explained this decision. 

“This is why we have already lodged our appeal. Amnesty International has described our convictions as ‘a crushing blow for human rights’, and we cannot just accept that and walk away.” 

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, welcomed the ruling. “The actions of the Stansted 15 exposed the brutality of secretive charter flights.

“We need root and branch reform of our immigration system with an end to the use of charter flights for deportations immediately,” he said.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We only return those with no legal right to remain in the UK, including foreign national offenders and failed asylum seekers.

“We expect people to leave the country voluntarily but, where they do not, the Home Office will seek to enforce their departure.”

A flight deporting 29 Jamaicans left the UK yesterday. Crimes committed by the individuals include murder, rape and serious violence, and had a total combined sentence of over 150 years imprisonment, according to the Home Office. None were British citizens or members of the Windrush generation, it added.

This Author

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She can be found tweeting at @Cat_Early76.

From the 6-14 April 2019, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and the Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation, will mobilise more than 30,000 volunteers at 500 beach, river, city and mountain locations across the UK in its Big Spring Beach Clean: Summit to Sea.

SAS is calling for inspired community leaders from all walks of life to help remove and track plastic pollution in their local area.

The Big Spring Beach Clean is the UK’s biggest coordinated beach clean activity, which has brought together over 150,000 volunteers over the last five years, contributing an incredible two million hours of volunteer time to protecting and conserving our beaches for everyone to enjoy.

Plastic pollution

These vital community events not only remove dangerous plastics from our unique and precious coastal environment, but also indicate where action needs to be taken further upstream to reduce the leakage into and impact of plastics on our ocean and beaches.

A recent report showed that plastic makes up 70 per cent of all the litter in the ocean, and if no action is taken to reduce its input, then it is forecast to treble within the next ten years.

Almost a decade ago, SAS pioneered the Plastic Pollution Audit at our beaches to identify which plastics were washing up on our tidelines. This year SAS is conducting the research again to map and monitor plastics, and signpost where urgent action needs to be taken to reduce plastic pollution.

Hugo Tagholm, CEO of Surfers Against Sewage says “The Big Spring Beach Clean is an annual celebration of our beaches, uniting thousands of like-minded volunteers to take action for our ocean.

“We are excited to be working with the Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation to invite anyone, anywhere to lead a community clean-up with us to tackle plastic pollution. We can all be ocean guardians from our summits to the sea, from our river banks to city streets. Register your event today.”

Common passion

Richard Walker, trustee of the Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation, said “Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation and Surfers Against Sewage share a common passion for tackling the scourge of plastic head on, and we know that this is an issue that resonates with an ever-growing number of people.

“Our Iceland stores are at the heart of high streets up and down the country and we recruit our store colleagues locally, making us a true community retailer. We are delighted to be backing SAS in encouraging individuals and organisations throughout the UK to help make a difference to the quality of their local environment through The Big Spring Beach Clean.”

SAS hopes to engage a wide range of people to take part in protecting the ocean from summit to sea.

Individuals can find their nearest clean or volunteer to lead their own clean by clicking here or by emailing SAS. All Clean Leaders will receive a Big Spring Beach Clean kit, a limited edition SAS insulated Hydro Flask, a step-by-step guide to organizing their clean, along with support and guidance from the SAS Team in organising their event.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Surfers Against Sewage. 

2018 was a particularly grim year for environmentalists. The IPCC special report spelled out that we had just twelve years to avert climate collapse; extreme weather events continued to become more frequent and intense; natural assets and biodiversity continued their decline.  

At the same time, long-term economic restructuring and austerity underpinned an increase in personal precariousness and social fragmentation – creating space for the rise of strongman politicians who stepped their countries back from the hard-won commitments and obligations made just years earlier on the international stage. 

But of course the world did not get to this perilous position over night. For decades, corporations and broader capitalist economic structures have been playing a key role in driving or exacerbating these trends. A relentless focus on profit maximisation for shareholders – at the expense of other stakeholders, such as workers, and the natural world – have consistently depleted human, social and natural systems. 

Distinctive values

As we look ahead to the next decade, it is almost certain these terrifying trends will continue on their current trajectory – unless we change the way we do business. 

Community enterprise shows there is another way. Also known as community business or community-based social enterprise, the term refers to organisations or initiatives that are locally rooted, trade for the benefit of the community, and are owned by or accountable to the local community, leading to broad community impact.

These enterprises are entrenched in distinctive values: participation, self-help, solidarity, transparency, caring, and enjoyment. Diverse in nature, they encompass a range of business models, including co-operatives, social enterprises, and others. They have a long history, too, from mediaeval guilds and friendly societies to philanthropic model communities.

Community enterprises operate across a wide range of subsectors, from community energy to co-operative pubs and shops, and are supported by a range of local and national infrastructure organisations.

Power to Change, an independent charitable trust that seeks to strengthen community enterprise in England, estimates there may be as many as 7,000 such organisations operating in the UK, with a total market income of up to £1.2 billion in 2017. 

Transformative impact

Last year, Power for Change commissioned leading international sustainability non-profit Forum for the Futureto develop a vision and roadmap for community enterprise in 2030, by and for the sector.

Over the course of 2018, we spoke to more than 40 community enterprises, plus another 20 experts who are active in the field or have a perspective on changes impacting it – from government agencies and think tanks to NGOs and regional/sectoral umbrella groups.

Based on the findings of this research, we believe that with a clear focus and the right support, community enterprise has the potential to transform people’s lives and contribute to significant, positive shifts in the economy by 2030.

By becoming much more visible and influential in local economies, community enterprises can come to represent a far greater percentage of economic activity and employment; and through establishing a clearer collective voice and putting local people and accountability at its core, community enterprise will be increasingly followed by – not swallowed by – the mainstream.

Community enterprises can also play a major role in renewing the natural world, by protecting and restoring communities’ local ecologies, and operating in a sustainable way. They can enable greater local self-sufficiency and affordability, too, in areas such as food and housing, through local co-ownership and coproduction. 

Local services

Community enterprises can help drive a renewal in the importance of place, by creating, retaining and distributing wealth locally, building local relationships and improving local services.

By owning assets, sharing power and bringing people together, they can steer away from the individualistic, materialistic, extractive economy of today, to one that nurtures and restores a sense of community and the natural resources upon which we all depend. 

By doing all of this, community enterprises can enable people to impact global issues, locally.

And it’s happening already, albeit on a small scale. Sacred Earth is a biodynamic, community-owned land project that produces and sells biochar – a charcoal made from heating agricultural waste, which sequesters carbon and enhances soil. Having reclaimed the 40-acre site of an abandoned brickworks in East Sussex, its vision is to create a place where soil degradation and species decline are reversed.

Another example is the community-led Food Network in Oldham, which brings together residents, communities and other organisations to work co-operatively to improve access to fresh, affordable and healthy food. With Oldham Council, it has launched a £135,000 Food Enterprise Fund targeted at community groups who want to generate an income through food and growing.

Taking action 

To realise the vision for community enterprise in 2030, we identified eight major shifts that need to happen. Chief among them is a greater proportion of income being earned income (i.e. through the sale of goods or provision of services), combined with funding from a wider range of sources – to build financial independence and power. 

Another major shift would be meaningful changes in our underlying economic, social and cultural norms, to create a supportive environment for positive citizen and social action.

We also recommended priorities for different actors and influencers within the system:

• Community enterprises can themselves play a central role in defining and communicating their purpose and impact, leveraging the trust they command in communities.

• Central government can create a more favourable environment for mechanisms like asset transfer, the Community Right to Bid, or setting up community (renewable) energy schemes. Ministers should encourage civil servants to view citizens as active participants in the creation of public services, and make it easier for smaller, more local organisations to play a role in service delivery. 

• Citizens can assist in the development and growth of the movement by participating in it directly – as users of products and services, from groceries to energy; from community media subscriptions to community finance. They can participate as employees or volunteers, by attending events, or by investing in community enterprise, for example through community shares.

But what can you do to enable the growth and development of community business as a means to renewing our society and the natural world? To explore this question, please take a look at our vision and report, or contact Daniel Ford.

This Author

Simon Lee is a sustainable development expert and advisor who worked with Forum for the Future as a principal strategist during the creation of the 2030 vision for community enterprise 

Climate change is having a devastating impact on the planet, despite Trump’s bizarre intimations that the recent cold weather in North America is proof that global warming is welcome to “come back.”

Climate change is not weather from day to day, but a macro-pattern of temperatures – such that the planet will continue to experience winter for some time even if the record high temperatures in the year 2000 had twice as many record highs than lows as compared to fifty years earlier. The reality is that, according to the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), the planet is deteriorating more quickly than any counter-measures can undo the damage – despite the world’s recycling programmes, refill-designed packaging (also called “looping”),  and the hazards of dental waste being addressed within the field of dentistry.

One person in Australia responded to Trump’s tweet: “It’s 122 degrees in Australia right now you freaking idiot. Fish are washing up dead on the beaches from the heat.” 

Internet of fungus

The earth’s responses to climate change are heartbreaking. Hundreds of thousands of fish have been killed in New South Wales, and the prolonged dry periods are resulting in poorer water quality Australia, potentially ushering forth a health and sanitation crisis.

While many advances in green energy have been made just to the north in Brisbane, the region’s export economy is still dependent upon coal. Jump further south to Tasmania and the forest fires there are ravaging the island with the recent phenomenon of dry lightning storms in the south-west where the rainforest and grass plains have been steadily vanishing since 2000.

Paradoxically, the very forests which are being destroyed are the very sites where climate change could otherwise be prevented.

For instance, we already know that mycelium underneath the ground – an expansive network of underground threads which is often called the “Internet of fungus” – plays a huge role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem underneath vast tracts of land and forests, balancing and communicating between the roots of various plants.

But what came to like more recently is even more compelling from an ecological standpoint: termites have been discovered to help forests survive climate change.

Ecological insurance

An entomologist at the University of York, Hannah Griffiths, has been working in the Maliau forest in Borneo and maintains  that these termites function as “ecological insurance,” explaining how they protect the forest from the stresses of climate change as these creatures have the ability to chew fallen leaves and dead wood.

By  keeping the fallen flora in check, these creatures are recycling the nutrients of this dead material back into the soil to be used again by other flora and fauna while also preserving certain conditions of moisture on the forest floor, thus mitigating the effects of draught.

In their study, Griffiths and her colleagues compared the forest floor during drought and non-draoght years, using a control space of the forest floor which was entirely rid of termites as opposed to parts where termites proliferated. The results of their study published this month in Science were shocking—the parts of the forest floor with termites were resistant to drought.

This increase resulted in accelerated litter decomposition, elevated soil moisture, greater soil nutrient heterogeneity, and higher seedling survival rates during the extreme El Niño drought of 2015-2016.

Their work shows how an invertebrate group enhances ecosystem resistance to drought, providing evidence that the dual stressors of climate change and anthropogenic shifts in biotic communities will have various negative consequences for the maintenance of rainforest ecosystems.

Floor decomposers

This study shows how termites effectively attenuate climate change. Still, termites are not the only insurance plan against global warming and are joined by any number of invertebrate decomposers such as beetles and their larvae, flies and maggots (the larvae of flies), woodlice, fungi, slime moulds, bacteria, slugs, snails, millipedes, springtails, and earthworms, among many other small insects which populate forest floors around the planet.

The banana slug of the Pacific Northwest also breaks down complex plant matter into basic components in the forest floor that can further advance within the ecosystem while keeping.

Similar to the termites of Borneo, the banana slug decomposes the forest detritus that falls and recycles it back into the forest floor, adding nutrients and moisture into the forest floor as they break down plant matter into basic components that further advance the ecosystem while feeding the plants and fungi of the forest floor.

In the Amazon rainforest the numbers of forest floor decomposers are many:  ants, earthworms, millipedes, and many species of termites, with many species still left to be documented.

There is good reason to be worried about the planet today—from politicians who obliquely refuse to accept the science on climate change to the albedo effect, whereby the effect of melting glaciers means that less sunlight is reflected from the planet, resulting in more absorbed sunlight, thus increased warming of the planet.

The fact that the invertebrates of the forest floors are saving the planet one crunchy leaf at a time might mean that the age-old insult of calling another person “spineless,” might soon become a compliment. Let’s celebrate these tiny creatures and figure out ways we can learn from them in combatting the planet’s ecological demise.

This Author 

Julian Vigo is an independent scholar, filmmaker and activist who specialises in anthropology, technology, and political philosophy. Her latest book is Earthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development (2015). You can follow her on Twitter at @lubelluledotcom. 

ClientEarth’s free online hub will offer open access to unbiased legal information regarding the forestry sector, with information on forest governance and measures affecting commodities that currently rely on forest clearing, such as palm oil and soy.

Each year deforestation results in a loss of around 18 million acres of forests annually, the equivalent of 27 football fields every minute, and forest protection and management is vital to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown.

In response, the environmental law charity has built the ‘Forest Logbook’ for all users – from lawyers, communities and NGOs to importers, logging operators and regulators – to have access to the most up to date legal information available.

Centralising information

ClientEarth climate and forest programme officer Heather Kingsley said: “With so many laws across different jurisdictions, and different organisations providing resources on forest legality, we saw a need to build a database that centralises everything in one place.

“Forests are under such pressure everywhere, so providing easy, instant access to the most up to date information about vital forestry laws will help to empower anyone working to protect forests.

“From our experience working in west and central Africa with the communities that rely on forests for survival and the lawyers defending them, as well as lawmakers themselves, we’ve found that forest protection and management is most effective where the rule of law is strongest.

“We envisage the Logbook will be a dynamic resource, designed to evolve over time. We encourage users to send us new or updated information that could be added to the logbook, to expand on the information available.”

The Logbook works by linking to resources published by organisations and institutions. These resources are selected based on their impartiality or on their official status.

The online hub currently focuses on resources related to timber legality. In the future, it will be expanded to include more information on non-timber forest-risk commodities, such as palm oil and soy.

This Author

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth. Visit the Forest Logbook here.

Rewilding may have the potential to drastically improve biodiversity – but remains a highly controversial and divisive topic.

A new book edited by scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Utah State University aims to build common ground and show how rewilding can foster human coexistence with wildlife.

Rewilding brings together, for the first time, experts from around the world to discuss the benefits and dangers of rewilding approaches and is published by the British Ecological Society and Cambridge University Press.

Protecting biodiversity 

Dr Nathalie Pettorelli from ZSL’s Institute of Zoology, one of the new book’s editors, said: “Whoever is concerned with the conservation of nature cannot afford to ignore discussions on rewilding and miss potential opportunities to improve biodiversity levels.”

The volume introduces key definitions and approaches to rewilding, highlighting similarities and differences between them and discussing how they may work in practice. 

The editors hope the book will help readers appreciate how rewilding can be more than a purely ecological concept. Socioeconomic, cultural, psychological and political dimensions will all affect the ultimate success of any rewilding intervention.

Pettorelli continued: “Previous approaches to conservation have been dominated by the establishment and maintenance of wilderness, a western concept that can ultimately separate nature from people.”

“Rewilding has the potential to deliver a progressive and resilient approach to wildlife management, connecting people with, rather than separating them from, nature.

“It directly feeds into discussions relating to coexistence, societal values and tolerance for wildlife, and inviting nature right back to our doorstep.”

Interdisciplinary approach

Covering issues such as the benefits to human wellbeing, rewilding cities and the translocation of species, one chapter explores what rewilding means in a British context.

Britain – with its dense population, few forests, and none of the large carnivores commonly associated with rewilding – might not seem the most obvious place for rewilding. Yet rewilding is increasingly attracting the attention of the public and professionals, not only in connection with Brexit, which has been noted as a window of opportunity to manage land differently.

The book describes how moving forward on rewilding will require consensus building and understanding of different opinions to foster human-wildlife coexistence.

Professor Johan du Toit, another editor of the book, has commented from his lab at Utah State University in the USA, said: “Rewilding currently means different things to different people, but the book clarifies it as the process of reorganising, retooling, or regenerating wildness in a degraded ecosystem. That is not the same as restoring an ecosystem to its former condition, which is an increasingly challenging and tenuous goal under the rapidly-changing conditions of our human-influenced planet.

“Rewilding is an adaptive and pragmatic approach for regaining and maintaining the provision of ecosystem services, which are essential for humanity.”

The book’s interdisciplinary nature will appeal to a broad range of readers, from ecologists and conservation biologists to land managers, policymakers and practitioners in NGOs and government departments. Written for a scientifically literate readership, it also acts as a key resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. 

This Article 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from the British Ecological Society.