Ospreys were lost as breeding birds from the UK early in the twentieth century, following years of persecution. These fish-eating birds of prey were deliberately killed because they had been taking too many trout and salmon, and also because the Victorians had developed a taste for dramatic-looking stuffed wildlife displays in their houses.

As their numbers plummeted, osprey eggs became even more desirable to egg collectors. The raiding of eyries for these highly collectable prizes further hastened the birds’ decline.

The last ospreys nested in England in 1840 and managed to hold on in Scotland until 1916. Between the two World Wars there were occasional reports of breeding ospreys, but no proof of their return emerged.

Early conservation 

Ospreys still passed through the UK on migration between Scandinavia and West Africa, Southern Spain and Portugal, even though they weren’t nesting here.

The RSPB and other conservation-minded landowners knew there was potential for them to return. A close watch was kept on likely nest sites after a pair successfully raised two chicks in Strathspey in 1954, including around Loch Garten, part of the Seafield Estate.

Here there were many of the lofty pines that ospreys are fond of nesting on, and plenty of decent sized fish in the nearby lochs and the River Spey. Messages were relayed between potential nesting sites on bicycle, with updates telegraphed to RSPB HQ.

After the successful breeding in 1954, things were looking up, but over the next few years the tentative osprey return hit several setbacks.

The egg collectors were back in the Highlands and now posing a serious threat to the ospreys trying to breed in Scotland. A pair settling at Loch Garten in 1955 deserted their nest and it seems likely their eggs had been stolen. The same happened again in 1956, and the following year one osprey was shot, and its mate failed to find a new partner.

Determined conservationists

Fortunately, some very determined conservationists were even more relentless in protecting the birds than the egg collectors were in destroying their chances to recolonise.

George Waterson, the RSPB’s Scotland representative, was such a keen ornithologist that during World War II he’d continued his fascination with birdlife even when held as a Prisoner of War. Here he was imprisoned and worked with Peter Conder, who would later become RSPB Director, and other notable ornithologists.

George, along with RSPB Secretary  Philip Brown and their colleagues would draw on the steely determination honed during those terrible years to ensure there was enough protection for returning ospreys.

They were helped by, among others, Lt Col Grant of Rothiemurchus, neighbouring the Seafield Estate, who provided equipment and manpower to help spot potential nesting sites. Gradually the operation grew from pushbikes, to a motorbike with a sidecar, to four-wheeled vehicles.

In 1958, when the ospreys settled on the nest south of Loch Garten, the 24-hour nest watch began in earnest, from a cramped, make-shift hide. But disaster struck, when despite the nest-watchers giving chase, the nest was raided one misty night by an egg-collector and the osprey eggs were substituted with chicken eggs daubed in boot-polish.

Tourist attraction

The culprit was never caught, and the team were devastated. After this loss, the ospreys built a second nest, known as a “frustration eyrie” at the current Loch Garten nest site, but the 1958 season had failed.

The 1959 season saw the nest-watchers even more determined to succeed in protecting the returning ospreys and much to everyone’s delight, the hard work paid off when three chicks were hatched at the Loch Garten nest.

The RSPB then took the brave decision to open the nest to the public, instead of keeping it secret, and thereby gain support for the ospreys. The plan worked, and people flocked from across the country to see the UK’s only osprey family from a special “Observation Post”.  

Incredibly, that first summer, 14,000 people came to watch Loch Garten’s ospreys! Over the next few years, the Loch Garten ospreys grew in popularity and became a must-visit tourist attraction in Strathspey – numbers of visitors peaked at around 90,000 over the five month season in the 1970s.

Numbers of osprey pairs nesting in the UK grew very slowly as ospreys take a long time to recolonise areas naturally.

Ospreys today 

The now banned insecticide DDT had a negative effect on many birds of prey like ospreys, finding its way into their bodies through their food and causing females to lay eggs with incredibly thin shells, which broke easily on the nest.

By 1976 there were still only 14 pairs here but that number would climb to 71 fifteen years later. By 2001 there were 158 pairs, mainly in Scotland, and the first ospreys would nest in England for 160 years.

A pair settled in the Lake District while a reintroduction programme saw ospreys breeding at Rutland Water.

There are now around 250 pairs of ospreys in the UK. Sadly, this year, the Loch Garten nest has not been successful as neither long-standing female ‘EJ’, nor her new partner from 2018, ‘George’, returned, but we anticipate a new pair will claim the nest for their own this year, ready to return and breed in 2020.

The best places to see ospreys this summer are around lakes and rivers. These include the RSPB’s Loch of Kinnordy and Loch Lomond, Leicester & Rutland Wildlife Trust’s Rutland Water nature reserve, and the Glaslyn Osprey Project near Porthmadog in Gwynedd, Wales. 

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the RSPB. 

Image: Chris Gomersall.

A significant overhaul of the current global food system is needed to meet the challenges of feeding a growing world population and many stress that this is only achievable by changing diets, food production and reducing food waste. 

How do we mitigate the ‘climate crisis’ while delivering productive, resilient, nutritious and sustainable food and farming? 

A new paper in World Archaeology weighs into this debate, suggesting that looking to the past can offer important insights for future agricultural and food security strategies.

Inscribing memory 

Archaeology, history and anthropology have been largely neglected in discussions on climate change and agricultural sustainability. However, our past contains a rich, diverse, and global dataset resulting from the successes and failures of numerous societies and their interactions with the environment. 

This research provides an important source of information on food security and agricultural development over a much longer period than current studies allow and under a range of different challenges.

The memory of agriculture and food is carried by landscapes, seeds, animals, people, and technologies, as well as by oral traditions, languages, arts, rituals, culinary traditions, and unique forms of social organisation. 

In many regions around the world landscapes and agricultural systems have developed often distinctive, ingenious practices that have stood the test of time in their robustness and resilience. 

The value of understanding these cultural and environmental contexts is increasingly recognised by researchers, organisations and policy makers as important for addressing issues of agricultural sustainability. 

Inherited systems 

An example of this is rice-fish farming practiced in Asia, where a sustainable symbiotic environment provides farmers with higher crop yields and an important source of protein.

This agricultural system has a long history with models of rice-fish farming dating back to the later Han Dynasty (25–220 AD), however, more recently these systems have been increasingly challenged.  

Recognizing the vulnerability of these agricultural systems, FAO started an initiative for the conservation and sustainable management of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in 2002, which has allowed farmers to increase their income from marketing their products and tourism, while preserving their ancient traditions. 

Understanding these traditions is important because cultural values are not always integrated within existing policy research and implementation, resulting in many interventions failing due to a lack of understanding of their cultural and historical contexts and poor reception by the very people and societies they are intended to benefit.  

Agricultural resilience

The number of crops we grow for food is also presenting challenges for agricultural sustainability across the globe. 

Of Earth’s estimated 400,000 plant species, 300,000 are edible, yet humans cultivate only around 150 species globally, and half of our plant-sourced protein and calories come from just three: maize, rice and wheat. 

As large commercially valuable monoculture crops are grown in greater numbers around the world crop diversity is under threat. 

Dr Philippa Ryan, a Research Fellow in Economic Botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, said: “Traditional forms of farming across many areas of the globe are rapidly changing or disappearing due to major social, political, economic and environmental changes. 

“This not only poses problems for agricultural resilience but also cuts down on people’s ability to eat or afford foods that are culturally significant to them.” 

If we continue to restrict the types of food we grow and its genetic variation we increase the risk of climate change, droughts, pests and diseases wiping out parts of our food supply. Think the Irish potato famine of the late 1840’s!

Cash crops

Ryan’s anthropological and archaeological work in northern Sudan on past and present crop choices highlights this point. 

As ‘cash’ crops have moved in more traditional cereals, such as hulled barley (Hordeum vulgareL), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor(L.) Moench) and the pulse crops lablab (Dolichos lablabL.) and Lupinus albusL., became marginalised. 

Yet, these native crops are more suited to the local environment, requiring less chemical fertilisers and being more arid and heat tolerant, and as the archaeology has shown, have supported people in the region for hundreds of years. 

Experimental growing

Ancient management systems could also hold the key to providing small-scale farmers with relatively simple low-tech, low cost solutions.

In the mid-twentieth century, experimental crop growing in the Negev desert was able to survive extreme droughts, with little salinization of the soil, due to the implementation of Byzantine irrigation methods identified from the archaeology in the region.

The system also had a number of collection channels and underground cisterns that controlled flash floods, allowing silt to deposit and prevented erosion.

Adapting agriculture 

Plant breeders and researchers are also busy searching for sources of genetic diversity for our crops to make them more resilient to tough conditions, such as drought, flooding, high temperatures or poor soils. 

One project is the Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: Collecting, Protecting and Preparing Crop Wild Relatives, launched in 2011. 

Managed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust (Crop Trust) within the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew the project aims to preserve wild crop relatives, in order to store potential traits that could contribute to climate change adaptions in crops for the future.

For decades archaeologists have also studied the impact of climate change and disasters such as tsunamis, large-scale El Niño events and volcanic eruptions and are now able to map past climate variability, offer context for human-induced climate change, and even improve future climate predictions. 

The complexity of our global food system means that we must increasingly look beyond our ‘traditional’ sources of information in order to respond to global challenges. 

This Author 

Dr Kelly Reed is programme manager and researcher for the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food. She is also an archaeobotanist with interests in food systems, agricultural development, cultural adaptations to environmental change and global sustainability.

Seabird populations on a rocky island off Devon have soared following the eradication of rats that lived there, conservationists have revealed.

There has been a dramatic boost in the numbers of Manx shearwater, puffins and guillemots 15 years after a project to remove rats from Lundy, in the Bristol Channel, ended.

The RSPB said the population of seabirds on Lundy has tripled to 21,000 birds, with the Manx shearwater population growing from 297 pairs to 5,504 and puffins increasing from just 13 birds to 375.

Habitat

The project, which was launched in 2002 by Natural England, the Landmark Trust, the National Trust and RSPB, aimed to eradicate the rats because they posed the biggest threat to the survival of the birds.

After four years, Lundy was declared rat free and the seabird populations have been steadily rising.

Rosie Hails, director of science and nature at the National Trust, said: “We were really concerned as previous records showed that puffin numbers on Lundy had plummeted from over 3,500 pairs in 1939 to fewer than 10 pairs in 2000.

“And although around 75% of the global population of Manx shearwaters breed on UK islands there were only 297 pairs on Lundy in 2001, way short of its potential considering its size and available habitat.”

Vigilance

Helen Booker, senior conservation officer for RSPB in South West of England, said: “This study clearly shows how quickly and positively seabirds respond to the removal of non-native predators.

“Of course, we had anticipated major population increases when the project was launched, but the scale of this recovery has far exceeded our expectations.”

Lundy warden Dean Jones added: “It is exciting to see this level of recovery in Manx shearwaters, one of our most important seabirds.

“In spring the island comes alive at night with the sound of these amazing birds. The increases in puffins, guillemots and razorbills is also very encouraging for the future of seabirds on Lundy and we are maintaining our vigilance to ensure rats cannot return to the island.”

This Author

Rod Minchin is a reporter for the Press Association.

The escalating threat of climate change emphasizes the value of environmental law. With rising sea levels, fluctuating temperatures and an increasing frequency of natural disasters, these regulations are critical to the continued safety of citizens across the world. In 2018 alone, the evidence was impossible to ignore.

Hurricane Florence resulted in the fatalities of at least 43 people as rainfall surpassed statewide records in the Carolinas. Unprecedented wildfires swept through California, kindled by drought, wind and unusually warm temperatures. These are only domestic examples, but they speak to a far more extensive problem.

While it’s possible to mitigate the effects of climate change — and protect innocent people — the solution is more complex than suggesting a change. Regulatory bodies must demand a greater degree of accountability for carbon emissions and excessive waste. To that end, environmental law is indispensable.

Relevant Examples

Environmental law governs how human beings interact with their environment. It covers a wide variety of topics such as air quality, water quality, waste management, chemical safety, contaminant cleanup and hunting and fishing. Many of these areas are relevant to climate change, namely, air quality.

The Clean Air Act of 1970 serves as a fitting example. Because of the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set standards for what kind of toxic air pollutants that factories, cars and trucks can release into the “ambient air.” Their objective was to improve air quality and protect the ozone layer.

Other, lesser known laws are equally important. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 requires a time-consuming environmental-impact study every time the federal government intends to approve, build or renovate something. The Clean Air Act and NEPA both set a positive precedent and brought about change.

Concerning more recent changes, the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA needed to determine if carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were harmful pollutants under the Clean Air Act. They now regulate them as such. Of course, this type of law doesn’t always occur at the level of the Supreme Court.

Environmental lawyers can advise clients in areas such as renewable energy generation and distribution, debt and equity finance, tax credits, capital formation and structuring, clean technology and “green” marketing. Well-intentioned individuals who partner with a reputable law firm can also contribute to the solution.

Pressing Issues

Though the value of environmental law is difficult to argue, it’s still the subject of controversy. Lawmakers must give thought to the necessity, fairness and cost-effectiveness of their regulations, which isn’t always simple. A cost-benefit analysis of an environmental regulation is often challenging to calculate.

Furthermore, people may disagree about the benefits of a regulation. Even with a calculation of its costs, the argument is far from over. A certain amount of diplomacy is necessary for environmental lawyers who have to explain the details of a complicated regulation to local and municipal governments.

The enforcement of environmental law also presents an issue. Many countries have environmental regulations, but not all of them comply. The alarming rates of deforestation, rising global temperatures and loss of biodiversity reflect a lack of progress, even with initiatives to manage these pressing issues.

Fortunately, regulatory bodies have strategies they can employ to strengthen enforcement, and, by extension, combat the issue of climate change. They can improve legal tools for civic engagement, fortify government institutions, increase access to all human rights and strive toward a better application of justice.

In making these changes, governments across the world can maintain their commitment to environmental protection. Though they’ll likely encounter resistance, their continued efforts will prove integral to restoration. Otherwise, the natural disasters that devastated the country in recent years will grow in frequency. ​​​​​

Future Efforts

When government officials prioritize and enforce environmental conservation, they effect change on a global scale. The laws, regulations and agreements which preserve the environment are more than legislation. They represent something far more significant — the rehabilitation of a damaged world.

As the U.S. EPA and legal professionals fight the rising threat of climate change, their victories have far-reaching implications for the future. The safety and security of generations to come may depend on the work of environmental lawyers. With the challenges ahead, they’ll have an important role to play.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.

A landmark study from Aberdeen University has shown that exposure to air pollution is linked to the stunting of babies’ growth during pregnancy.

A smaller gestational birth size is associated with conditions later in life, including, coronary artery disease, type two diabetes and asthma.

Paediatrician, Professor Steve Turner, who led the study, said: “The Government has taken action to improve health with tobacco and there are rising concerns about food and alcohol. The next public health beast is tackling air pollution.”

Air toxicity 

Turner continued: “Anything that increases air toxicity is putting peoples’ health at risk. A bigger airport would mean a greater amount of combustible fuels from planes and cars which would intensify exposure. The less fossil fuel we burn the better for future health.”

Bristol Airport, owned and run by the Canadian-based Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is seeking permission to handle up to 12 million passengers annually by 2025 with a potential to increase to 20 million.

The expansion would mean 97,373 aircraft movements in a 12-month calendar period: a flight almost every three minutes and an average of 9,500 extra vehicle movements every day.

Talullah Gaylard, 31, of Wrington, who is eight months pregnant, said: “I can take multi-vitamins, not drink alcohol, go to pregnancy yoga but air pollution is completely out of my control. I don’t want a massive expansion at Bristol Airport that is going to impact on my child’s health. My brother hasn’t flown for the last seven years because he believes it is unsustainable.”

Legislation and taxation

The Aberdeen University scientists reviewed more than ten years of global research to establish the extent to which mothers’ exposures to air pollution affects foetal growth.

They discovered evidence that nitrogen dioxide – primarily generated by vehicle traffic, resulted in smaller foetal head size in the last three months of pregnancy.

Professor Turner added: “It could possibly happen before the last trimester but we would not be able to monitor this. The air pollution studies were from Australia, the USA and countries in Europe.  In all, the evidence was clear that in the third trimester, exposure to nitrogen dioxide reduced foetal growth.

“There is nothing a pregnant mum can do about air pollution – you can eat healthily, exercise and reduce stress but you can’t do anything about the quality of air you breathe, or your unborn child takes in. Nobody knows the baseline of the amount of pollution that can cause harm. This needs legislation, taxation and someone to champion cleaner air.”

Professor Turner called for public health measures to minimise pregnant women’s’ risks.

Stop expansion

Wrington Parish Councillor Donna Robertson, said: “Bristol Airport seems to be tinkering around the edges of the environment with bland PR about litter pick-ups and paper cups. This is about a serious danger to health and not just in our own backyard.

“If the airport expands and permanent airspace change proposals are agreed, a greater number of communities in Somerset will be flown over by thousands more planes. Approaches and descents will start from many other directions across the region, affecting wide areas of the South West.

“This can be viewed on the Civil Aviation Authority website under Permanent Airspace Change Proposal CAP 1616, Bristol. Along with this, millions more cars will pour through the region.

“It is imperative District Councillors and the Government stop this expansion, not only for the environment and climate change but for public health.”

This Author 

Melanie Greenwood is a freelance journalist. 

The president of the University of California has banned the use of the pesticide glyphosate from its campuses – where 200,000 students attend – in the wake of health fears. 

The universities’ decision cites “concerns about possible human health and ecological hazards, as well potential legal and reputational risks associated with this category of herbicides.”

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the Monsanto weed killer products Roundup and Ranger, as well as over 700 other commercial herbicides. Glyphosate herbicides and the manufacturer Monsanto were just implicated in a third lawsuit, where the plaintiffs were awarded over $2 billion dollars. 

Herbicide ban

The suspension follows a campaign to end the use of herbicides across the University of California campuses by Herbicide-Free UC.

This initiative started out as an Herbicide-Free Cal campaign that was founded by two UC Berkeley student-athletes in 2017, Mackenzie Feldman and Bridget Gustafson, after they were made aware of herbicides being used around their volleyball court. 

At the UC Berkeley campus, the Herbicide-Free UC students worked with the Grounds Operations Manager to pilot herbicide-free practices on two large campus spaces and nine smaller spaces during the 2018-2019 school year. After graduating, co-founder Mackenzie Feldman expanded the campaign UC-wide. 

Feldman said: “It would be irresponsible for the University of California to not take action at this point, especially after three separate juries in the state of California have decided that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides cause cancer.” She met with a UC Regent, who became interested in the issue. 

Feldman continued: “Being at the first trial, Johnson v. Monsanto, and hearing Lee Johnson’s story made me realize that I needed to expand this campaign beyond Berkeley. This work is too important not to do. If I can prevent even one groundskeeper from getting cancer and going through what Lee is going to, then I must.”

Organic practices 

Herbicide-Free UC released the following statement: “We are thrilled that the UC President and Regents have made the decision to ban glyphosate, but feel that there is no need to wait for more research to make the ban permanent. 

“The science is clear: a number of the chemicals utilized by the University of California or its subcontractors pose a serious health risk to students, faculty, and staff. The University of California’s own faculty were even involved in designating many of these chemicals as dangerous.

“We are asking for a permanent glyphosate ban, as well as a ban on all Proposition 65 pesticides and other herbicides that cause harm to human health and the environment.”

“There are many alternatives to harmful pesticide and herbicide use. Some costs are associated with adopting organic practices, yet when faced with the alternatives of legal liability, and the human cost of harming members of the UC community with these practices, we think the costs of maintaining our current policies far outweigh the costs of switching to organic land management practices. 

“We will keep working with the University of California to transition each campus to all-organic land management practices.”

The decision is effective from 1 June. 

This Author 

Jonathan Latham is a molecular biologist and former genetic engineer. He now edits the website Independent Science News.

Moths evoke negative feelings for almost three quarters of people – with many thinking of them merely as destroyers of clothes or as pests, a survey suggests.

A poll for wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation found 74 percent of people linked moths to negative things, including 64 percent who thought of them as eating clothes and a third (33 percent) who associated them with being pests.

Their reputation comes despite the fact that only two of the more than 2,500 UK species of moth in the UK are known to feed on fabrics, Butterfly Conservation said.

Caterpillars

And rather than being pests, most moths play an important role in the food chain and as pollinators, the charity said as it launched a new campaign to turn around the insects’ negative reputation.

The survey by YouGov of 2,064 people also found 17 percent thought moths were ugly and 12 percent thought they were scary, but more than one in five (21 percent) believed they were important and almost a third (29 percent) think they are interesting.

The new campaign, Moths Matter, will reveal how the insects are a key food source for many creatures, from bats to small mammals, and play an important role in pollinating wildflowers including orchids, and garden plants.

It is also highlighting some of the more unusual moths found in the UK, including the death’s-head hawk-moth which can squeak like a mouse, the Mother Shipton which has a witch’s face on its wings and the caterpillar of the puss moth, which can shoot acid out of its chest.

It will focus on a different theme each month, from spotting springtime caterpillars to planting a garden to attract night-flying visitors and hunting for hawk-moths in hedgerows.

Changing

Butterfly Conservation also warns that the UK’s moths are in trouble, as two thirds of common and widespread species have declined in the last 40 years.

Leading moth scientist Dr Phil Sterling said the experts were not surprised by the findings. “People may think of a few times a large moth has startled them and then write them off as annoying or unnecessary; that is wholly unfair,” he said.

“Think of the humming-bird hawk-moth you might see hovering around lavender in summer. It is a thing of beauty and of wonder as it feeds so precisely in each flower.

“Each of the 2,500 species tells a different story about the natural world of moths around us.

“Most of them get on with their lives at night and we don’t see them, but they are important to us, they pollinate many plants and they tell us about how the world is changing around us.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the Press Association environment correspondent.

Thousands of students are taking to the streets to demand action on climate change and call on the Government to teach children about the threat it poses.

Organisers say more than 120 protests are taking place in the UK, with tens of thousands of students attending – despite exams taking place in schools around the country. London, Brighton, Birmingham and Edinburgh’s events are expected to be particularly popular.

In London, students are gathering in Parliament Square before marching on the Department for Education. The strike calls on ministers to “Teach the Future”, by reforming the curriculum to include more material on climate change.

Movement

Shakira Martin, a former president of the National Union of Students, will address the London demonstration. Similar large-scale youth protests took place in February and March this year, with students “striking” from school to take part.

Extinction Rebellion, which organised protests in London last month, said it is not involved in Friday’s event but supports the cause.

Although the strikes are a “decentralised movement” and have no formal leader, many consider Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg to be the figurehead.

Reform

Ms Thunberg began “striking” from school on Fridays to lobby the Swedish parliament on climate change in August 2018. Her protest sparked similar strikes across Europe, North America and Australia. Protesters in 110 countries are expected to take part in Friday’s strike.

UK spokesman Jake Woodier, 26, said the Teach the Future campaign is designed to educate students more about climate change in schools. “Students are really learning and gaining their knowledge from outside of education,” he said.

“We’re calling for dramatic reform of the education system to provide students with the knowledge and tools to be equipped for the changing world which they’re going to be inheriting.”

This Author

Tony Diver is a reporter for the Press Association.

The majority of ecologists either do not know, or quickly forget, that the first published record of sustainability originated from a book about forest management.

In 1713, Hans Carl von Carlovitz wrote Sylvicultura Oeconomica to describe “the sustainable management of forest resources”. His intention was admittedly to manage the supply of timber, primarily for the silver mining industry. Nonetheless the concept of long-term management of resources to protect future yield as well as supplying present need can be attributed to him. 

The majority of foresters either do not know, or quickly forget, that part of the work of their professional body, the Institute of Chartered Foresters, is to “foster a greater public awareness and understanding of forestry in order to serve a variety of commercial, recreational, environmental and scientific interests.” 

Biodiversity loss

To further this aim, the National School of Forestry, University of Cumbria, is participating in Timber Festival this summer. 

We hope to give people the opportunity to learn some forestry skills, but also to engage in public discussion of how sustainable forest management can be part of the solution to climate breakdown and biodiversity loss, while providing space for recreation, improving health and well-being, reducing flooding impacts and supplying the timber and other wood products we need.

This article sets out how UK forestry currently contributes to combatting climate breakdown and biodiversity loss – the twin challenges of our time – and explains how managing commercial forest plantations protects rather than threatens our ancient semi-natural woodland.

According to the Office for National Statistics, just under 50 percent of the food consumed in the UK was supplied from within the UK in 2017, and according to Forest Research Forestry Statistics just over 19 percent of wood and wood products used in the UK were supplied from within the UK in the same year.

We can increase our self-sufficiency in food, for example through behavioural change towards vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian or flexitarian diets. However, it is not clear that a similar approach to reducing demand for wood by changing consumption patterns is achievable.

Self-sufficiency 

It could be argued that we should increase the amount of wood that we use, or perhaps that while we reduce overall consumption patterns, the proportion of wood products in the mix of materials that we continue to use ought to increase.

This is because the carbon footprint of wood (especially when new trees are grown to replace those being harvested) is much lower than alternatives such as concrete and steel, and less polluting to the environment than plastic.

It is well known that trees take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through net photosynthesis, storing carbon in their biomass and in forest ecosystems, especially soils. But even climate science experts often overlook the fact that forestry also contributes in products from the forest through this carbon substitution effect.

As long as we continue to use timber we need to harvest trees, meaning that sustainable forest management includes both the protection of woodland and the use of plantations to supply the wood we need.

It is important to remember that we also need to improve self-sufficiency in food and wood to ensure that we aren’t exporting our resource needs to other parts of the world where farming and forestry may be less regulated. These concerns are arising during a time when we may be weakening our links with the EU. Brexit would make us more dependent on our own supply chains rather than part of a larger political unit which is collectively self-sufficient in wood.

Land availability

This need to improve self-sufficiency from land use is not just a food and forestry issue; it has implications for other competing land uses, such as growing dedicated energy crops and the increasing desire for landscape scale rewilding.

It is hard to justify planting dedicated energy crops on land that is needed for agriculture or plantation forestry.

Using wood products instead of higher carbon footprint materials has a higher substitution effect than burning wood instead of fossil fuels. This means that woody biomass should only be a source of bioenergy when it is a by-product of good silviculture (thinning out young trees to give others more space to grow), not a final harvest product. 

Competition for land and the desire for increased levels of self-sufficiency do not mean that there is no potential in the UK for rewilding. There are no completely natural habitats in the UK, but our most precious semi-natural habitats, such as ancient woodland, should be protected and expanded.

The line between habitat restoration and rewilding is a blurry one, but sustainable forest management can contribute by producing wood products intensively from some areas of land to reduce the pressure to obtain resources from others.

The foresters’ mantra of ‘the right tree in the right place for the right reason’ applies to the expansion of ancient semi-natural woodland habitats and the use of commercial plantations to supply timber.

Public understanding

These are challenging but exciting times for professionals working in forest industry and woodland conservation.

The benefits that trees, woods and forests provide are better recognised than ever before. In order to maintain the climate mitigation effects of carbon sequestration by trees, carbon storage in forest ecosystems (especially soils) and carbon substitution from wood, it is essential that forests also adapt to climate change.

Trees are static, long-lived organisms with slow generation times; other flora and fauna can adapt more quickly but may depend on the woodland habitat. Climate change related pest and disease outbreaks and abiotic threats such as frost, flooding, drought and wildfire threaten both semi-natural woodlands and plantation forests.

Climate smart forestry is an approach that recognises that if trees are to continue to be life support systems, they must help us combat climate breakdown. However, there can be no ongoing climate mitigation by forests if they do not adapt in time.

In ancient semi-natural woodlands, increasing their ability to regenerate naturally may involve management to control grazing deer or reduce grey squirrel damage. Management in commercial forest plantations may lead to an initial loss in productivity and mitigation potential. This is because the move away from even-aged monocultures, using clearfell and restock systems, to a more diverse range of trees species and canopy structures, using low impact silvicultural systems, will produce forests that are more resistant and resilient to pests, diseases and abiotic impacts.

Positive action

These changes will also store carbon better as soil is less disturbed in timber extraction. None of these management interventions can be successful without stakeholder engagement, nor will it continue without the development of the next generation of future foresters and woodland conservationists with the skills and the will to implement sustainable forest management.

The school climate strikes inspired by Greta Thunberg, and non-violent resistance by Extinction Rebellion, demand that the world’s decision makers take responsibility, with the suggestion that young people will otherwise “make change happen by themselves”.

Future foresters, ecologists and conservationists will make change happen. Some as practitioners at a relatively modest site and landscape scale (think global act local), but others as scientists and policy makers at national and international levels.

Current students are aware of their potential to make a positive difference. I discussed the protests with one undergraduate student (Ella Barker, studying Conservation Biology) – she did not want to join the school climate strikes. She felt that she was already on a pathway towards positive action to combat climate breakdown, studying a degree to gain the knowledge to pursue a career with the expertise to be able to make a positive difference.

Courses that provide the skills and expertise to implement sustainable forest management are potential pathways to a career combatting climate change and biodiversity loss. Climate smart  forestry also provides other benefits to human society such as recreational access, flood mitigation, health and well-being and even supplying timber and other wood products.

I suspect that most participants in school strikes and protests do not immediately consider a career in forestry, or even woodland conservation, a way of making a lifelong difference to the way our food and wood are produced and our landscapes are managed. 

This is why the opportunity for public engagement through participation in Timber Festival is one that staff from the National School of Forestry and the Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas are keen to undertake. Come and talk to us.

This Author

Dr Andrew Weatherall MICFor is a senior lecturer in the National School of Forestry, University of Cumbria. He is programme lead for BSc (Hons) Woodland Ecology and Conservation.

Image: Adrian Naik, Naik Media Productions

Bolivia’s first indigenous president set out a bold and inspiring vision to save the planet from climate and environmental breakdown just over ten years ago.

In an open letter, Evo Morales said “Mother Earth is ill.” He urged the industrialised countries to drastically reduce emissions, increase technology transfer, and provide aid to those most affected by climate change.

Most of all, Morales said the international community had to address the structural causes of climate change. Morales declared that humanity faced a choice “to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life”.

Mounting anger

His prophetic words were largely sidelined or ignored at the time, but are echoed in the rising movements of schoolchildren, Extinction Rebellion activists, supporters of rights of nature and people calling for a Green New Deal.

They express the mounting anger that political leaders have so far chosen the deadly path of self-destruction, evident in the reports of ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions and the possible extinction of a million species within our lifetime.

So it is disturbing, despite his prescient warnings, that Morales seems to have made a choice to destroy a rich, biodiverse Amazonian region and indigenous territory within his own country.

That was the conclusion of a tribunal of globally renowned jurists, ecologists, legislators, activists and indigenous leaders, which declared on 15 May that the Bolivian government had “violated the rights of Mother Earth” and “the collective and individual rights of the nations and Indigenous peoples of TIPNIS”.

In most countries, “nature” is seen as property, to be owned and destroyed for profit. The Rights of Nature, now law in nine countries including Bolivia, seeks to redefine ecosystems as having the right to exist and regenerate their vital cycles.

Unique laws

As rights-bearing entities, ecosystems have legal standing in a court of law. Evo Morales was once a champion of the Rights of Nature, and enacting it into law for Bolivia.

The decision by the International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature came in response to a petition by indigenous communities in the Amazonian region of TIPNIS who opposed a government-imposed road that would cut through the heart of their territories.

The tribunal’s investigations found that the road had been approved without any environmental impact assessment and without the full prior, free and informed consent of its indigenous peoples.

Studies show that the TIPNIS road, currently under construction, will likely lead to the deforestation of 50 percent of the territory’s rainforest within 20 years – a complete breach of Bolivia’s own unique laws that recognise the rights of nature.

As the former Bolivian ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon, put it: “We might expect neoliberal extractivist politicians to do this. But it’s particularly painful when it is done by former comrades who wave a banner of Mother Earth in the air while crushing those very rights under foot.”

Systemic shift

The truth is that the world needs the radical systemic shift Morales urged a decade ago, one that changes our relationship to nature and prioritises the environment and people over profits.

This is no longer a position held only by activists, but increasingly by scientists, too. The IPCC report in October 2018 said keeping temperature increases below 1.5 degrees centigrade requires “far-reaching transitions in energy, land … and industrial systems” for which there is “no documented historic precedent.”

Similarly, the UN Global Assessment on Biodiversity released in May 2019 notes that only “transformative change” can hope to stave off mass extinction, which they define as “a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.”

The UN Biodiversity Assessment also contains strong conclusions that the Bolivian government would do well to consider as it decides how to respond to the Tribunal on the Rights of Nature.

Notably, they show how land-use change, such as the building of roads, oil exploration or expansion of the agricultural frontier into intact ecosystems is the single biggest cause of biodiversity loss, far more than even climate change.

Deeply cynical

Conversely, they show that nature that is managed by indigenous peoples, while under ever more pressure, is declining less than in other regions.

The report explicitly states that the world “would benefit from an explicit consideration of the views, perspectives and rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, their knowledge and understanding of large regions and ecosystems, and their desired future development pathways.”

It would be a tragedy if the Bolivian government decides to choose the path of destruction in TIPNIS just as more of the world’s people recognise the wisdom of Morales’ words on the need for “harmony with nature and respect of life”.

Yet powerful words without action are not only empty, they are deeply cynical and deceitful. Bolivia is hardly unique in choosing industrial development at all costs over nature – nor is it clearly as culpable as the richest countries who have already decimated their natural environments.

But for a moment, Bolivia’s government seemed to point to an alternative path to well-being, a path that we all must take for humanity’s survival.

It would be wonderful if the Bolivian government would start again to walk that path, exploring with all who love this planetary home a new way to live in harmony with Mother Earth.

These Authors 

Shannon Biggs is a co-founder of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) and was part of the International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature’s investigative mission to TIPNIS that visited Bolivia in 2018. She is also the executive director of Movement Rights.

Nick Buxton is an author, researcher and former communications coordinator of the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth that the Bolivian government hosted in 2010. He tweets @nickbuxton.

Image: MarielleClaudia, Flickr.