Learning from excellence in sport

This year’s Sports Personality of the Year award saw Dave Brailsford take the award for best coach and one of his athletes, Bradley Wiggins, win the overall award (to go with his Tour de France yellow Jersey and Olympic gold medal).  It is worth asking what lessons can be learnt from the team (British Cycling) which won 8 Olympic gold medals, 2 silvers and 2 bronzes as well as the Tour de France and numerous Paralympic medals.  One quote in particular, from Dave Brailsford, caught my eye. 

Following the announcement of the 2013 tour route Bradley Wiggins initially stated that he thought it would be more than likely that he would support his teammate, Chris Froom in his 2013 bid to win the yellow Jersey as the route would be more favourable to Chris.  However, more recently Bradley has changed his mind and decided that he would like to challenge Chris for the position of team leader (the rider which other riders of the team sacrifice their own chances of winning to support).  So Dave Brailsford was faced with a challenge: select last year’s winner and the nation’s favourite athlete as team leader or select the athlete who played a large part in Bradley’s success and who is thought to benefit from the change in the tour route?

I think that the following quote, from Dave Brailsford regarding how he will select the team leader is extremely telling ‘We've certainly got some plans now, and as we move through the season, we'll use evidence and results as we move along’ (bold used for own emphasis).  Brailsford will not base his decision on who he would like to have the best chance of winning, he will not base his decision on who he currently thinks would have the best chance of winning the tour, he will not let the possibility of offending the ego of the nation’s favourite sportsperson affect his decision.  He will keep an open mind and make the decision he believes to be best for the team based on evidence and results.  If you are sceptical then you only have to look at his decision to drop the nation’s most successful Olympian, Chris Hoy, for Jason Kenny in the individual sprint, an event which Jason Kenny won gold in.

Likewise conservation should be underpinned by evidence and results.  Decisions should not be taken on the basis of what one person thinks will work (according to their ‘common sense’).  Decisions should not be taken so as to minimise offense to anyone’s ego.  Considering the size of the challenge conservation faces, there is no room for egos among scientists, only for finding out what works and making it happen.

To call each thing by its right name

Do you have a friend who, when you mention a film, will rattle of the name of the director, their style and all the other films they have directed before doing likewise for a few actors and actresses?  I find this show of knowledge annoying as the film boffin shows off.  But I expect that another film boff would appreciate this show of knowledge and could strike up a conversation about the merits of the director etc.  Conservation organisations are knowledgeable about the sights they conserve but, just as most go to the cinema for a few hours of enjoyment, so most people go to their local woods or nature reserve to enjoy the outdoors not to analyse it.  I think that conservation organisations face a tricky challenge in finding the balance between letting individuals come and enjoy a place on their own, giving them a little information which might make their visit more interesting and enjoyable or giving a full introductory course to evolution or behavioural ecology which can fundamentally affect the way we see the world.

There is no substitute for a good guide.  A good guide has no ego, they have no need to show you just how much they know.  All they are concerned about is you, how can they make your experience more enjoyable or fulfilling (which may be by doing nothing at all).  This person does not simply act as a guide delivering a pre-written speech, this person reacts.  They react to what you find interesting with no notion of what you should find interesting.  Importantly, this guide would not point out and name every species they saw.  For many it is intimidating be overloaded with information when visiting a nature reserve.  A visitor may interpret too much information as a show of knowledge, a message that the reserve exists for those within in the club who ‘know how to appreciate nature’ who can put a name to the varieties of life they see.  I obviously don’t believe that this is the intention of the nature reserve.  But, the visitor would not be wrong.  Visitors cannot be wrong in their emotional reactions; if they feel intimidated then they are intimidated. 

Obviously conservation organisations don’t have enough money to offer every visitor a personal guide and so they have to rely on written leaflets etc to make the experience of the visitor more enjoyable/interesting/enriching.  The result is that visitors who want some form of guide are normally directed in a particular direction.  I think that with the abundance of cameras a better alternative might be to send people of into the woods/around the lake etc suggest that they find somewhere they like, stop, take some time to enjoy it and if they have any questions then take a photo or make a mental note, visitors could return to the visitor centre (assuming there is one) and talk to a member of staff, their own guide who they would have questions for.  I am not suggesting that the staff member would be able to answer every question.  I am suggesting that visitors should be able to discuss their experiences of nature on their own terms with members of staff who are interested not in what the visitor should see or enjoy but in what they have seen and found enjoyable.

I know that this blog is written by someone on the defensive who might seem to have a chip on their shoulder.  I enjoy being outdoors.  I enjoy stopping somewhere and watching life.  Yet I am awful at naming species and when the names of species are banded about with the assumption that everyone present knows these species by name it can be intimidating.  I recognise the value of naming species, having to describe each species every time you wanted to talk about it would turn discussing nature into a huge game of charades (though perhaps we should try that sometimes).  I also recognise that in learning the name of a species one is making an effort and in this way learning to call each thing by its right and proper name can be humbling.  At the end of the day I think it is worth remembering that, though it is very useful to name a species, the name really is the dullest feature of most species, much duller than their feathers, fur, eyes, claws, wings or behaviour.

The Accidental Conservationists

Those who study ecology become accustomed to a relationship between the humans and biodiversity: the more humans affect an ecosystem, the more they reduce biodiversity.  Yet, there are periods in human history when this was not the case.  By learning from the ways in which humans affected ecosystems in these periods and their motivations for doing so, there are opportunities to recreate these interactions and benefit biodiversity.  Before the industrial revolution many land management practices increased the heterogeneity of (variety in) the landscape.  Examples include the planting and maintenance of hedgerows to divide fields before enclosure and the maintenance of coppiced woods to provide fuel for small scale iron production.  It may be tempting to look back on the relevant individuals as purposefully working to increase biodiversity but in reality it was usually coincidence that the practices which were economically viable for land managers also benefited biodiversity.  More recently, throughout the 20^th Century farmers were incentivised by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to reduce this heterogeneity, to remove hedgerows and form larger, more uniform fields.  Farmers did this as it made economic sense and one consequence has been the great reduction in farm land birds (presumably mirrored across other taxa).  Viewing the history of our landscape as the history of selfish individuals making economically motivated decisions (some of which benefitted biodiversity and provided ecosystem services and some of which harmed biodiversity and decreased the provision of ecosystem services) opens up new opportunities for conservation.  The ecosystem services movement allows policy makers to appreciate the value of conservation.

It is for these reasons that the leaders of the country’s biggest conservation organsiations wrote an open letter to the Times with the subheading ‘Farmers are vital guardians of our landscape and wildlife, but they need financial backing to be able to do this’ in responce to threats to funding for angry-environment projects.

Just as individuals once helped nature because it helped them (divide fields or grow timber to use as fuel), helping nature must once again help farmers (gain funding from agri-environment schemes).  Farmers must be paid to help nature.  But who should pay?  I think that it is only fair that everyone who benefits from the farmer’s actions, which is...everyone, should pay.  You already pay farmers to farm, through the Common Agricultural Policy, surely farmers should be offering you a benefit in return?  Benefits like increasing bird populations for you to enjoy, ensuring the water running off their land is clean so that your water bills don’t increase to cover the cost of water treatment works to remove pollutants or managing land to increase carbon sequestration so that the costs of climate change, which you pay, are reduced ever so slightly.  These ‘public benefits’ are what farmers are paid to attempt to bring about through the one quarter of the CAP system which subsidises agri-environment projects.  However, it must be noted that this whole system relies on farmers either being paid to carry out actions which are known to bring about benefits or for bring those benefits about.   This may seem a trivial difference but currently many farmers are paid to carry out actions which are thought to bring about benefits where, infact, they may result in no benefits.  This problem could be solved by rewarding farmers for results rather than efforts where the effectiveness of the efforts is not well known.

Before I finish this blog I wish to add some notes of a more personal flavour.  So far I have written from the perspective of a theoretical economist, assuming individuals to be rational.  I accept (as economists do) that this assumption is flawed, not all individuals are completely rational.  For example, many farmers define their job as producing food not as a means to earn an income (which they happen to earn by producing and selling food).  Such individuals may rather use every available hectare of their land for producing food than for set aside a hectare for Skylark Patches even if the profit they would generate by ‘maintaining’ Skylark Patches was greater than the profit they would generate through farming that land.  I strongly believe that individuals should not be criticised for not acting ‘rationally’, for not attributing the same values to things as you.  Whereas the RSPB might prefer Skylarks, a farmer might prefer carrots in his field over extra money in his pocket.  On the other hand, some farmers may carry out interventions which increase biodiversity (or provide ecosystem services) when doing so is a net economic cost.  Such individuals prefer birds in their fields (and nearby land) to money in their pocket.  Therefore, in my opinion, the most that conservation organisations can do is educate, to make sure that the payments for agri-environment schemes reflect the value of the public goods they generate or protect and to make sure that land owners are aware of the options available to them.

Solving the problem of the lack of evidence based conservation, a project proposal.

In 2004 William Sutherland et al outlined the need for a revolution in conservation, a revolution which bases science at the centre of conservation (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534704000734).  I

will try to avoid recapping the entire article; it's short and easy to read so read it for yourself.  The key points are that every conservation intervention represents an opportunity to increase the knowledge base that is 'conservation biology' by carrying out appropriate monitoring (Sutherland later established www.conservationevidene.com as a central repository for this knowledge). In turn, conservation practitioners should basis their choice of intervention not on 'common sense' but on evidence (which can be found on www.conservationevidence.com). 

I have now been working for an organisation which carries out extensive conservation work.  Monitoring is not an integral part of this work.  In fact I think it is fair to say that it is not a significant part.  I want to change this. I have an idea which can change this not just at one site in one organisation but the whole organisation and beyond to other organisations.  I will start by considering how to integrate monitoring into all conservation work, from here I will demonstrate that using evidence to inform decisions should follow naturally.

Monitoring is not carried out for the following reasons:

*       Practitioners see no need to base conservation interventions on anything other than common sense and are therefore ignorant of the benefits of monitoring.

*       Practitioners undervalue the importance of monitoring

*       Practitioners are forced to chose between monitoring and implementing conservation interventions (I think it is human to view monitoring as a 'waste of resources' under these conditions) and chose implementing interventions

*       Funding does not extend long enough for meaningful monitoring, this is a common problem as, even where funding exists specifically for monitoring, it normally expires after 3 or 5 years.

I have designed a method of monitoring which will primarily address the last issue but in doing so will raise the profile of monitoring within the organisation and will therefore address the first three issues.  I will now outline my monitoring design:

*       I will partner conservation organisations with schools, specifically sixth form Biology teachers

*       I will work with organisations carrying out conservation interventions to highlight where they might benefit from monitoring their work

*       I will design a monitoring program including statistical analysis to monitor this work over a period of 10 years (or more depending on the project)

*       I will work with sixth form Biology teachers, providing this monitoring program which can form the basis of the students' coursework whilst students study and monitor succession etc in the field.  Students

will also have the opportunity to publish the results of their monitoring via conservationevidence.com (provided my program was sufficiently well designed and followed).  Students will also be able to use this monitoring work as the basis of their John Muir Award (http://www.jmt.org/jmaward-home.asp)

*       Successive A level classes can return to repeat the monitoring year after year to build up a long term data set.

This relationship between schools and conservation organisations will have the following benefits for each party. Where A level students carried out monitoring (including establishing appropriate controls) as a part of their studies then the awareness of monitoring work within the organisation will be increased.  Where students present their findings to the staff of the conservation organisation (as well as publishing them online) then I hope that individuals will be forced to recognise the opportunities that they had missed, opportunities which

had been taken by 16 and 17 years olds, opportunities they were capable of taking themselves.  In this way I hope that these monitoring projects will result in the relevant staff integrating monitoring work into

their own job.  Moreover, I would like to make such monitoring trips an annual event with the school, a part of the curriculum.  Where this is achieved and A level students return year after year then long term data sets will be collected at little or no cost to the conservation organisation.  These are the benefits of this partnership which will accrue to Conservation Evidence and the conservation organisations. 

Students, and therefore schools, will also benefit from this partnership.  They will learn about the design of scientific experiments in the field and be able to discuss how the project they are involved with could be improved.  They will have an insight into real conservation and ecology work which may help them decide whether this was a subject they wished to pursue at university.  They will be published online which will, presumably, strengthen their university application and they could gain a John Muir award whilst carrying out

their monitoring work.

I anticipate objection on the grounds that 'A level students can't carry out real science, they are not skilled enough'.  I believe that this objection does not withstand scrutiny. ConservationEvidence.com was established with the aim of allowing conservation practitioners to publish the results of their own monitoring.  Many of these practitioners will not have studied science at university and many will not have studied biology at university.  If conservation practitioners can carry out appropriate monitoring then so can A level students.

I am currently an unpaid 'people engagement' intern with an organisation which carries out conservation work.  I have created a monitoring plan (including statistical analysis) to offer to schools which will assess the effect of a valley mire restoration intervention.  More specifically, the effect of damming ditches on the

time taken for the ditch to fill in and slow water flow off the mire will be investigated.  Ultimately, I want to turn this project into paid employment.  If you can help me achieve this or have any constructive feedback then please let me know.

Thank you

Iain Dummett

Marine pollution; out of sight, out of mind

This blog is the first of two regarding the state of marine biodiversity.  In short, it is in a bad state due to overfishing, habitat destruction and degradation and climate change (which is likely to have an increasingly destructive impact).  In my first blog I will explore the ‘ultimate drivers’, the very root of the problem, of marine biodiversity loss and consider how these ultimate drivers differ from those affecting terrestrial (land) species.

It will be important to bear in mind 4 facts: 1) humans do not live in the ocean, 2) the ocean is very big and humans struggle to conceive of its full size, 3) a pollutant may have an effect a long way away from where the pollutant was released and 4) damage to the seas can be hard to see.  That humans do not live in the ocean has spared it of the habitat destruction which has occurred on land to make way for human settlements (with the exception of land reclaimation).  It also means that humans are less likely to notice damage to the marine environment and, as will be considered in my next blog, means that much of the oceans is not owned (unlike land).

For the rest of this blog I will consider pollution.  The problem with marine pollution is that it is so very easy to underestimate.  For one thing the sea is so huge it is easy for us to write it off as near-infinite with a near infinite ability to absorb and dilute whatever waste we discharge into it.  For example, according to a literature review of the dumping of munitions in marine environments, on 8 separate occasions, between 1945 and 1948, over 4,000 tonnes of munitions were dumped into the ocean http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/77CEDBCA-813A-4A6C-8E59-16B9E260E27A/0/ic_munitions_seabed_rep.pdf, page 79.  As the report states, these munitions have significant harmful effects on marine species.

Whilst humans may once have been able to discharge sewage and fertiliser into the marine environment when human densities were low, this can no longer be done without consequence.  When biological waste (sewage or the run off from fertilisers) is discharged in high concentrations then it acts as a fertiliser for algae resulting in algal blooms.  The algae die, are decomposed by bacteria which use all of the oxygen leaving no oxygen for the other species.  The result is a DEAD ZONE.  Our oceans have dead zones because of our actions.

In mentioning agricultural run off I have hinted at another part of the problem.  Fertiliser which runs of a field into a river can have an effect tens or hundreds of miles away.  This distancing of cause and effect means that individuals do not appreciate the effects of their actions and are therefore not in a position to reduce the ecological damage of their actions.  This is where science comes in, to provide evidence that A causes B, to educate the person responsible for A in the hope they will change their actions.  Let me take another example from the Marine Conservation Society website, Chinese lanterns (http://www.mcsuk.org/what_we_do/Clean+seas+and+beaches/campaigns+and+policy/Don't+let+go+-+balloons+and+sky+lanterns).  Chinese lanterns are fire and forget joy, you light them, admire them as they rise and then forget about them as they are carried by the wind.  Yet, that you have forgotten about them does not mean that they have magically disappeared from the world.  A few months back I heard on the radio that the coast guards had asked members of the public to alert them if they were going to release lanterns as members of the public had been mistaking them for flares and alerting the coastguard.  More recently I stumbled across an article explaining the damage they can cause to marine wildlife when they fall to rest on the ocean as litter.  Animals, turtles especially, mistake them for food, eat them and die when the balloons block their digestive systems causing them to starve.

That concludes this blog, let me repeat my main point once more, pollution which affects the oceans can originate many miles away and have effects which humans do not notice.  It is the role of scientists to establish the sources of pollutants which cause harm in the marine environment so that polluters are no longer ignorant and are accountable.  From here, the damage we cause to the oceans can be reduced.  In my next blog I will consider the economics of overfishing.

Losing Stars and Losing Species

Those who live in cities or large towns in the UK are likely to be accustomed to a night sky of just a few stars as a result of light pollution.  Just as light pollution has removed stars one by one from the night sky we see, extinction removes species from the world, forever, one by one.  Each time I spend a long period of time at home or university I forget what it is like to look up on a clear night and see a light studded sky with clouds of stars.  This feeling of wonderment makes up a part of the intrinsic value of a clear night sky, the value of the enjoyment or fulfilment gained not by using or consuming the sky but simply by enjoying it.  It is this value (applied to nature) which motivates most conservationists, it is also the value hardest to convert to a monetary value.

Luckily the stars are not gone and are waiting to be seen by anyone who is willing to get to a remote enough location.  Many of the species already extinct have left no trace, some have left only skeletons and photos and films remain of the species to be forced to extinction more recently.  Yet, just as someone who lives their whole life in a city, by and large, we do not know what we are missing, what it would have been like to sit and see the world by day, to experience the wild nature, and by night to gaze at the full sky hundreds or thousands of years ago.  This ecological forgetfulness which I have considered in another blog (http://valuingnature.blogspot.pt/2012/07/falling-baselines-and-landscape.html) results in us inheriting a world containing less sources of natural wonderment than the one into which we ourselves were born.  Moreover, we consider the world in which we grow to be ‘normal’, how could we not when we have never known otherwise?

Eventually each human generation leaves behind a world more impoverished than the one it inherited and each successive generation is accustomed to a world of less natural wonderment than the generation before.  Next time you are in the middle of nowhere on a clear night, look up.  Enjoy that wonderment and just consider what the wonderment we have lost from the living natural world just as we have lost stars from the city night sky.  Conservationists try to stem this loss and even to reverse it where possible.  I believe this is a truly important cause.  I believe this due to my intrinsic (non-monetary) valuation of nature.

Exploring criticisms of 'Neo-environmentalism'

Having read Paul Kingsnorth’s article regarding ‘new environmentalism’, which was published yesterday in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/01/neogreens-science-business-save-planet#start-of-comments, I would like to pick out and discuss a few points.  Firstly I would like to state now that I both agree with some points made by the author and disagree with others, infact I think that the author confused himself by treating two different views towards conservation as mutually exclusive whereas in fact they are not.  Secondly, I will be reiterating points which I have already made and will therefore include references to other blogs.

The author uses the term ‘neo environmentalists’ to denote scientists which ‘speak the language of money and power’ to create a ‘business friendly’ argument for conservation.  He states that conservation has failed to changes society’s values as economic growth still dictates the outcome of decisions which have environmental impacts.  In short, I believe that the author is referring to scientists who have recognised that in order to bring about effective conservation they must demonstrate to governments and large businesses that such conservation is economically viable.  For a good example of such a piece of science, here is an article posted on the BBC website on the 31^st of July http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19050796.  I think that it is useful to deem this approach to conservation a top down approach as it attempts to alter the decisions of a few institutions (by better informing these decisions).

The author contrasts this top down approach to conservation with his favoured approach, one of reconnecting people with nature.  He suggests that if people are exposed to nature as a part of their everyday lives then they will come to value this nature and therefore will be more inclined to conserve it.  In this way I believe the author is promoting a bottom up approach to conservation which focuses on altering the attitudes of individuals.  In reading the article I gained the impression that the author feels that the two approaches are incompatible as one promotes an economic valuation of nature and the other an intrinsic valuation of nature.  However, suppose an individual values nature for its own sake and therefore wants to conserve nature.  If this individual feels that they will be most effective by taking a top down, economic valuation approach then promoting an economic valuation of nature and holding an intrinsic valuation of nature are not exclusive.

I would also like to pick up on a few phrases which I believe the author used sloppily.  Firstly he states that under ‘neo environmentalism’ ‘the value of nature is measured by what we can do with it’. This is wrong.  The value of nature is based upon what nature does (and has always done) for us.  Secondly the author states that ‘neo environmentalists’ believe that growth has no limits.  This is not true, such scientists aim to ensure that economic growth is not pursued at the cost of natural capital. 

Lastly I would like to discourage the view that humans and scientists will act as ‘Gods’ managing the planet ‘rationaly’.  This view of nature as a garden created by and for humans does not reflect the current conservation movement which is towards large scale ‘re-wilding’ projects which aim to restore nature to a more pristine state.  If anything these projects move away from the role of humans as Gods present in historical conservation where small sites where micromanaged to achieve very specific (pristine like) habitats which would not occur without human intervention.

I have previously written blogs exploring attempts to value nature economically (http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254055270310485372#editor/target=post;postID=7495951196544968614) and the importance of humans learning to value nature by being immersed in it (http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254055270310485372#editor/target=post;postID=6075429287993672434 and http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254055270310485372#editor/target=post;postID=8039094925610903687) and I would encourage you to read one of those if you found this blog interesting.  I may also pick up on some other points made in the Guardian article at a later date.

Falling Baselines and Ecological Ignorance

Lonesome George is dead and with him died his species.  But you probably knew that.  You probably also know about the extinction of the dodo and maybe the sea cow.  Fewer people know about the extinction of the Moa birds of New Zealand or the estimated extinction of 2,000 bird species from pacific islands in the last 2,000 years.  My point is not any kind of ‘I can name more extinct species that you’ conservation snobbery.  My point is that the over the past hundreds and thousands of years, extinctions and population crashes have happened, some without us even noticing as is thought to be happening today with tropical insect species.  However, our current generation is also unaware of extinctions and population crashes which were well observed.  In this blog I will be exploring this forgetfulness considering why it is an important problem, I will use the example of oysters as it is one with which I am familiar.

In England, and America too, 200 years ago oysters were a common food consumed primarily by the poor.  The oysters were so cheap as the supply was so great.  Today, oysters are a luxery item and many of the oysters consumed are grown in artificial ponds.  How is it that, until I began exploring the history of oyster consumption, I was completely unaware of just how many oysters there used to be?  For example, at the end of the 19^th century, just under 60 million oysters were landed in UK and these catches were considered poor compared to those of the middle of the century, in 2010 just under 2 million oysters were produced in the UK.  Yet today we do not miss the age of cheap oysters largely because we do not know it ever was.

So why is ecological ignorance a problem?

Every mistake is an opportunity to learn.  If we are not aware of our mistakes then we miss out on valuable opportunities to learn.  Therefore, by examining the past we can attempt to identify why species were forced to extinction in the past, the effect of these extinctions and how they may be avoided in the future.  Secondly, just knowing that extinctions have happened can change our view of the current situation of the world by making us realise that what we consider to be ‘normal’ is a world of biodiversity in peril.   Lastly, in the natural history museum at Cambridge is a Giant Sloth skeleton.  It’s huge. I wish I lived in a world in which the giant sloth was alive.  Or Woolly Mammoths or 12 foot tall Moa birds or Irish deer or Lonesome George and his subspecies.  Looking instead to the future, how disappointed will future generations be if they think of tigers and tree frogs, turtles and corals and species from the old videos which are gone now?

We must look to the future of our planet and ask ourselves what lessons we can learn from our past.  Using these lessons we will also have to ask ourselves if what we consider to be ‘natural’ is natural enough or if large scale restoration projects are required.  If we, as a developed nation which has significantly eroded our biodiversity, are to attempt to restore our landscapes to a more pristine state, we must first identify what constitutes a pristine state.  To do this we must turn to the past, to examine the landscape before we altered it so drastically.  In doing so we must raise our aspirations and reverse the imperceptible erosion of our view of what is natural and what is not. In short we must purposefully and explicitly address our falling baselines.

Opportunities for the use of evidence in conservation

Conservation is a subject which, over the past decades has suffered from a split between those who study it and those who practice it.  This gap, resulting from a lack of communication between the two groups represents the loss of a great opportunity a problem which is now beginning to be addressed

In 2005 an academic called William Sutherland found that less than 3% of conservation practitioners in an area in the South East of England chose their conservation interventions on the basis of primary literature- articles published in academic journals.  As academic journals are the medium by which scientists communicate their findings, if conservation practitioners are not basing their decisions on primary literature, what are they basing their decisions on?  Many practitioners based their decisions on ‘common’ sense, whilst others used past experience or recommendations from a peer.  Though these may all seem sensible options it is important to note that ‘common sense’ can be misleading when dealing with complex biological systems.  It is the role of science to test ‘common sense’ ideas and find out which are correct and which are not.

To look at things another way, if two different conservation practitioners are using different interventions in similar situations then the likelihood of these interventions both being equally effective are pretty much zero.  This means that one of the practitioners is using a more effective intervention than the other.  By finding out which intervention is most effective and then ensuring that both practitioners use this intervention, conservation can effectively get more for its money by avoiding ineffective actions.

But biological systems are complex and present managers with a huge range of challenges.  Academics can’t test all ‘common sense’ approaches to all problems and recommend the best solution on a case by case basis.  Instead two approaches are needed both of which are being implemented.  Firstly, scientists need to work with practitioners to identify the largest sources of uncertainty or disparity between alternative interventions, identifying the best intervention to make the largest possible contribution.  This requires academics to communicate with conservation practitioners asking where the largest uncertainty exists

Secondly, academics need to ensure that the most is made of the small scale imperfect experiments carried out every year by every conservation practitioner.  This was the main thrust of Sutherland’s paper which argued that every conservation practitioner should record details of their management of a habitat or ecosystem and the consequences of these management interventions.  Ideally experiments would be repeated and a control experiment, in which no action is taken, should be carried out alongside the intervention, this is unlikely to be the case for conservation practitioners who cannot justify a control experiment (as no intervention may be too costly) or who do not have the means to carry out multiple, well controlled repeats.  However, this is not to say that nothing can be learned from the experience of each conservation practitioner.  By summing the experience of all conservation practitioners, just in England, it would be possible to identify interventions which do and don’t work.

Futhermore, I believe that the greatest gains in knowledge will be made when conservation runs in both directions between conservation academics and practitioners.  Academics posses the skill of ensuring that, for given resources, they can create an experiment which maximises the knowledge gained.  Therefore, I suggest that a structure should be in place which ensures that those with an experimental background help co-ordinate the work of conservation practitioners so that valuable information regarding the effectiveness of current interventions (as well as novel potential interventions) can be generated and captured

If you are interested in this subject then please check out www.conservationevidence.com

Green and pleasant land?

Returning to blog again after a long break whilst I sat my finals I will start with a late blog regarding the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.

It was recently revealed that Danny Boyle has designed a huge British ‘countryside’ set to celebrate the ‘green and pleasant land’ of the UK.  His notion of the countryside and the implication that he is celebrating (fairly) wild nature is an indictment of our relationship with nature in my opinion. 

Firstly it is worth considering the phrase ‘green and pleasant land’, first penned by William Blake in the verse

‘And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!’

Here Blake used the phrase to complain that England’s ‘green and pleasant lands’ had been lost to the industrial revolution at the start of the 19^th century.  So when Blake used the phrase he was complaining about the state of wild nature in the UK.  Since then agriculture has been revolutionised such that the farms are now struggling to support wild ‘farmland’ birds.  Yet somehow Danny Boyle is celebrating the current state of English wild nature, using the term ‘the green and pleasant land’, which has been largely lost to industrialised agriculture since Blake used the term to complain that the industrial revolution had damaged nature.

Essentially, our concept of wild nature has shifted over time as cities and industrial farms have replaced more wild landscapes.  Hence it is hugely important that people are aware of what is wild and just what nature looks like when people don’t interfere too much.  Otherwise, successive generations grow up believing that the farmlands they see represent ‘nature’.  This problem has been termed the ‘falling baseline syndrome’ and has been neatly demonstrated with respect to fish stocks by showing that successive generations of sport fishermen have considered successively smaller fish to constitute a ‘big catch’.

If Danny Boyle is aware of the changes which have occurred to the English landscape over the past 200 years and still wishes to celebrate the British countryside then that is fine but I believe that he has a responsibility to communicate that to his audience.  I believe that there is still a lot to be celebrated in our dramatic coastline and protected areas however I do not agree that we should romanticise ignorantly over a countryside which largely doesn’t exist.

Moreover, the whole set strikes a chord with me in the way in which it aims to take control of nature by selecting a certain number of sheep and other animals, bringing them into the stadium and showing them off to the rest of the world.  If Danny Boyle wanted to celebrate our landscapes then I would far prefer it if he sent everyone to walk along the Welsh coastal path or the London WWT so that they could experience nature as people instead of spectators.  Nature should not be paraded we should be encouraged to go and explore it for ourselves.

Therefore I am sad that a largely false and romantic idea of the British countryside will be paraded in front of a stadium of spectators in the Olympic ceremony.  Yet perhaps some publicity is better than none.  I just wonder what Blake would say?

Finding beauty in nature

A surfer will tell you that they find intrinsic beauty in a clean, well shaped wave.  They will have gained an appreciation of waves over many hours spent among them.  Similarly a climber will be able to point out to you a challenging rock face and with their eyes will be able to trace a possible route of assent, a skill they were not born with.  My point is this: we can all, with experience, find beauty in nature and by nature I do not only mean that which is alive.

Forests of pines, or intensively farmed fields, fairly poor in terms of biodiversity can hold a beauty.  Whilst you may argue that a tropical forest or biodiverse meadow is more beautiful because it has more species and there is more to appreciate, we are unlikely to appreciate this beauty without exposure, without a chance to learn to enjoy it. 

As we become accustomed to habitats impoverished of biodiversity we learn to love these habitats, the habitats we grow up with.  Conservationists, therefore, may sometimes face a challenge in convincing people that the felling of a pine forest to restore an area to a more natural and biodiverse state such as a heathland is a good idea.  It is not an easy issue to solve and in my opinion it requires a combination of good clear communication (in two directions) between conservationists and members of the local community as well as encouragement for local people to spend time enjoying the new habitat.  Ultimately, individuals will favour conservation where they have a strong, personal appreciation for the landscape, probably not because they 

believe a world with more species is better per se.

Ecological snobbery clearly is not the way forward.  The National Trust has, over the past few years, made a great push to get more people from more backgrounds involved.  Some people are of the opinion that this has resulted, in some way, in a lowering of the naturalist ‘quality’ of the members.  Organisations such as the National Trust need not concern themselves soley with those that appreciate nature but should direct their efforts, as they do, at involving those who value nature less.

We can learn to love any aspect of nature.  Scientists may be said to have a slightly unfortunate role in as much as, when conducting research etc, they must act logically to provide high quality information to ensure that the information required to protect the planet is available.

Please take a few minutes to watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1swPZzxv0tI by a surf photographer Mickey Smith who is better than most at conveying his love for the natural world.

On criticism of scientists and their work

After reading the following article http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2012/mar/26/climate-change-oceans  and the comments left regarding it, I wish to consider the role of climate scientists as well as their public perception.

Climate scientists’ work seems to be the subject of some of the most fierce criticism aimed at any scientific work.  Intelligent scientific criticism can only be a positive force, encouraging improvements.  Climate predictions are based on models and models contain uncertainty.  However much of the criticism climate scientists receive regards not the parameters used in their model (criticisms which, if correct could lead to an improvement of the model), but more general criticism.  They are accused of being alarmist for reporting worst case scenarios (as well as best case scenarios) or flat out dismissed on the basis that members of the public have no confidence in scientist’s ability to model future climate change or accurately incorporate their uncertainty into their model.

In the face of this criticism I feel it is important to reflect upon the role of climate modelling.  I maintain that it is the role of conservation scientists (including climate modellers) to inform policy makers such that better informed decisions can be made.  For example, the article to which I have posted a link above refers to a paper yet to be published.  Based on the article the authors have, in my opinion, attempted to answer a very relevant question: based on current knowledge and understanding what is the projected cost of not reducing CO₂ emissions?  Their answer appears to be 2 Trillion Dollars per year by 2100 (worst case scenario).  Next they ask another relevant question: what would be the benefit of reducing CO₂ emissions (to a quantified lower level)?  Their answer is 1.3 Trillion Dollars per year by 2100.  With these two pieces of information (particularly the later) as well as the costs of reducing CO₂ emissions (which I hope will be included in the full paper) policy makers are in a better position to decide whether, from a purely economic perspective, investments in reducing global CO₂ emissions are economically viable.  As a result, I feel that this paper will only contribute to our understanding of the potential costs and benefits of mitigating CO₂ emissions.

paper will be peer reviewed before being published and once published is open to scientific criticism.  The authors themselves acknowledge that ‘much is still unknown and uncertain’ and have only quantified the costs of changes to the 5 best understood components of the oceans yet it has still be fiercely by members of the public (please see comment section of above link).  On another point, the costs of climate change considered do not take into accounts the costs of damage to terrestrial ecosystems and changes in rainfall pattern etc.  This is not a flaw of the paper and the paper should not be criticised as being incomplete because of it.  In a similar way, many papers which promote land sparing (intensive agriculture coupled with preserved ‘pristine’ habitat) are criticised as not taking into account whether ‘pristine’ habitats will be preserved or socio-economic impacts of intensive agriculture.  I also believe that these criticisms, which may be correct, are misguided.  A scientific paper should be assessed on its responce to the question it attempts to answer.  Stating that it considers the wrong question may be helpful for further research but each paper should be assessed on its attempt to answer the question which was considered. 

Food and Biodiversity

The food and biodiversity crises are and will continue to be the biggest problems facing the world for the next 100 years at least.  Currently, of the 7 billion humans on the planet roughly 1 billion live in food poverty, malnourished.  At the same time, over the past 100 years the greatest cause of extinctions has been the conversion of natural habitats for human uses, the most important human use being agriculture.  Our current system of food production and distribution has the potential to be greatly improved without large damages to biodiversity however, with the population predicted to rise to around 9 billion by 2050 and as individuals across the world demand a higher quality diet consisting of more meat, improvements to the current system will be insufficient to prevent more damage to the world’s biodiversity.  The question which scientists should help answer is ‘how to produce a set yield at the lowest possible cost to biodiversity?’.

A consideration of the current situation reveals that there is potential for the relief of food poverty without damage to biodiversity.  Food is not equally distributed throughout the world and, whilst 1 billion people live in food poverty, another billion suffer from obesity.  It is therefore clear that a more fair or ‘equitable’ distribution of the food produced by the world could help alleviate food poverty.  Secondly, much of the food we produce we do not eat.  I am not only talking about food waste through supermarket discard or food lost due to lack of infrastructure in developing countries (e.g. food which expires before consumption due to lack of good storage and distribution infrastructure).  I also refer to food crops which are fed to animals for the production of meat for example, 7 kilograms of grain are required to produce 1 kilogram of beef.  As a result, 7 times more land is needed to produce the grain to feed people on meat than on grain directly.  Analogously, any potential food crops, or land which could be used to grow food crops, which are used for biofuels instead of human consumption should be expected to result in increased land conversion as land elsewhere is converted to fill the gap of foregone food production.  Therefore, if the whole world ate a vegetarian diet and if food equity was greatly increased then it would be possible to feed the current population without further land conversion.

The food demand of the planet is the product of the world population and the per capita (or individual) food demand.  Unfortunately both of these are set to rise as the world population approaches 9 billion and Eastern countries approach a Western, meat rich diet.  As a result conservationists are left to inform policy makers how this increasing world demand can be met at least harm to biodiversity.  Recently this has given rise to a debate which highlights interesting aspects of our attitude towards science.  The debate revolves around the following question: is it better to farm at a lower intensity, producing less food per hectare but maintaining more biodiversity on-farm and using more land or is it better to farm at a higher intensity, preserving less on-farm biodiversity but using less land (therefore sparing more ‘pristine’ habitat)?  If I were to ask you whether it would be best to farm less land intensively or more land in a wildlife friendly way to produce the same yield then what would you say?  There can only be one correct answer: I need more information.  The answer to this question depends on how much biodiversity survives on wildlife friendly farms and how the yield differs between these farms.  So far, work in Ghana and India has supported the idea that farming some land intensively and sparing other natural land is best.  Many people, including scientists, have objected to this finding for many reasons, none of which are, in my opinion, good reasons.  People look at a monoculture of coffee and cannot believe that this is better for biodiversity than coffee grown organically amongst native trees which are preserved.  This is precisely where science excels, to show not what ‘feels’ right but what is right.  So far, as I have stated, the answer appears to be land sparing.

Considering how to use the agricultural tools available (see above) is one issue.  Another is deciding which agricultural tools to use.  More specifically, should GM crops be used  After attending a debate regarding the future of GM crops I was surprised by the reaction of many members of the audience, it was one of fear, fear that GM crops will turn out to be a dangerous mistake.  I believe it is the role of conservation scientists (I include agricultural geneticists in this category) to explain, in a way in which the general public are happy with, why, in their scientific opinion, GM crops are safe.

In conclusion, feeding the world and saving all species will be incompatible.  Conservation scientists have the important role of conducting good quality research addressing the relevant problems such that policy makers can make better informed decisions

For a brief review of the land sparing and wildlife friendly farming debate see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/sep/02/farming-biodiversity-conservation-nature-reserves.

Considering 'Extinction'

The ultimate end point of every species is extinction.  Irreversible and permanent extinction.  This is a natural process, it has been happening for as long as evolution, why then should conservationists and members of the public be worried about current extinctions?  The reason is simple, although extinctions are natural, the rate of extinctions over the past 30,000 years is 100 to 1,000 times the natural rate.  Put another way, the world is currently in the midst of a mass extinction, possibly the biggest ever mass extinction.  It could take millions of years for the World’s biodiversity to recover from our actions over the next few hundred years.

Confronted with statements like this it can be hard to process them, to fully grasp the message.  This blog will present different ways to think about extinction, to make it more real, something you can relate to.

I would love to see a live wild giant sloth or a 12 foot tall Moa bird or a woolly mammoth.  I wont because they are extinct.  I can see their skeletons on the internet or in museums but I will never see a live Moa.  Moas lived in New Zealand until around 800 years ago when the first human settlers arrived and killed them.  They had not been exposed to any land predators before and would walk up to humans who would kill them with ease.  Perhaps you to think the world would be a better place if these, and other, species were still alive today?  Looking at this issue in another way we can ask what species humanity will miss 200, 500 or 1,000 years from now.  What will the humans of the future hold against us as our greatest ecological crimes.  What species will they blame us for depriving them off?  Will they inherit a world without hawksbill sea turtles, Sumatran Tigers or European eels?  Perhaps you don’t care if we lose hawksbill turtles so long as we preserve some other turtles or perhaps you really don’t care because you are never going to see them anyway.  I cannot argue with these personal valuations, we are all entitled to feel however we like about species.

I have already mentioned museums and I think that it is interesting to consider how exposure to extinct species changes how we view these extinctions.  We don’t care about the extinction of species we have never heard about, how could we?  Therefore, zoos can argue that the keeping of species which they know will never be returned to the wild can be justified in terms of their educational value.  What about videos.  If you type in ‘lyre bird’ you can watch as the bird sings elaborate songs including imitating a chainsaw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y). Having seen this video how would we feel if this species was threatened with extinction: more concerned that it should be conserved or unconcerned as it has been captured on camera and will therefore be preserved for future generations.  I would argue that the value of this bird to all who ever hear or see it in the wild (and therefore to the world as a whole) is greater than that of any video recording.

Alternatively a more moral consideration of extinction may prove interesting.  You were born onto a planet populated with millions of species, each of which is the result of many millions of years of evolution.  Each of these paths will never be replicated or repeated, no species which is forced to extinction will ever be recreated by evolution.  Therefore, every single extinction represents the loss of a valuable and irreplaceable piece of the world’s history.  Moreover, many of these species won’t end up in museums, species are being lost before they have even been found, perhaps before they have even been seen by humans.

Ultimately, biodiversity is not a luxury but a necessity.  When we force species, which provide the world with services we rely on, to extinction, we have to pay the price.  If we, as a world, make an informed decision that we would rather pay that price and lose species instead of paying an equal or smaller amount to preserve species then conservation scientists can say that they have done their best.  There is still much work to be done to reach that point of species valuation.

An economic valuation of nature

‘In the kingdom of ends’ wrote Kant, ‘everything has either a price or a dignity.  What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity’.

Historically, nature has been viewed as having a dignity, as priceless.  Though I believe that biodiversity should be preserved for its own sake, that it is an end in itself and therefore has a dignity, I also believe this attitude has been partly responsible for the overexploitation of nature.  Businesses are fundamentally concerned with profits.  They weigh up costs and benefits of potential actions and chose those which yield the highest benefits at the smallest costs.  When a mangrove forest (for example) is felled and replaced by aquaculture conservationists could protest that a ‘priceless’ habitat is lost.  This approach does not help inform business’ decisions; accountants can only enter this cost into their calculations as £0.  As a result, when weighing up the costs and benefits of a business decision, the costs of ecological damage are not taken into account.  There are two possible solutions to this problem: change the world economic system so that objects of dignity are protected at all costs, or quantify the economic costs of ecological damage so that businesses can take them into account when weighing up potential costs and benefits.  The first option is not viable, even human life is not protected at all costs (otherwise the NHS would be extremely costly).  This leaves us with the second option.  It is an option which many people are uncomfortable with for reasons I will explore.  First I will start with an example.

Take the example of the felling of a mangrove forest to replace it with aquaculture.  Not taking ecological costs into account, a business may generate a profit from converting to aquaculture and growing shrimp.  However, this does not take into the account the costs of felling a mangrove forest.  These costs include the services the intact mangrove forest provides humanity with such as: flood prevention, timber production and a habitat to species which can be sustainably exploited as food.  Having taken this information into account it is more likely that a business will choose to maintain the mangrove forest in its pristine form to sustainably harvest timber.  Alternatively there are benefits which are shared between people who do not own the resource such as flood prevention.  If the benefits of flood prevention are made clear to the government then they will have the option to pay a business not to cut down the mangrove and to protect it instead, saving themselves the costs of dealing with flood damage.

A problem with the argument is that it ‘admits’ biodiversity has ‘equivalents’.  Thus, this approach can be used to rationalise and justify the loss of species.  However, these species will go extinct anyway with no value attached to them if they are only deemed priceless.  Therefore we have nothing to lose.

Another possible solution is to use markets, again many people are sceptical and distrustful of markets but first it is important to understand what markets are and what they are good at.  Markets facilitate the transfer of goods between people.  They ensure that those who value the good highest receive the good and the seller gains the highest possible price, thus markets create efficient solutions.  Markets can be applied to conservation where the benefits an ecosystem provides are shared over everyone in the world.  For example trees act as Carbon sinks, reducing the CO₂ in the atmosphere.  Deforestation releases this CO₂ into the atmosphere, a cost paid by everyone in the world.  A mechanism which is being considered and trialled is the payment for people to protect forests (REDD).  In this way a market is established in which money is paid for the protection of forests.

In conclusion, many are instinctively wary of attempts to put economic values on nature, however, until now nature has been given no value at all.  By giving it a value we have nothing to lose.

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The importance of learning to connect with nature

‘More children are admitted to hospital with injuries resulting from falling out of beds than falling out of trees’ (https://twitter.com/#!/NTPressOffice).  The importance of learning to love nature

Firts of all let me start by stating that I agree with the sentiment that the world will be a better place if more children are exposed to, and emersed in, nature.  Let me also say that I would rather we did not all get hung up on the above statistic for two reasons: 1) statistics can be misleading and manipulated, it’s better to concentrate on the underlying message, 2) complaining that not enough children are admitted to hospital as a result of injuries sustained whilst enjoying wild nature is not the greatest piece of PR for the argument promoting a greater exposure to nature.

So what does it matter if kids don’t spend any time in trees anymore?

The future of biodiversity, of nature, depends largely upon how we value nature.  If the general public don’t enjoy trees, birds and bees then these species are less likely to be saved and are more likely to go extinct.  Moreover, developing an appreciation of nature helps us develop as people.  In a world of information overload, a world in which many kids are exposed to high levels of stimulation (e.g. television, facebook and twitter) children struggle to catch onto one idea and run with it before the next is presented to them.  Nature gives us an opportunity to slow down, to explore a whole idea and reflect upon it.  

Taking an analogy from my previous essay, I believe that we all have an innate ability, a predisposition, to enjoy nature (the Biophilia hypothesis).  But we cannot enjoy nature without practice (think of your own analogy).  So, if we are to value nature then we must be exposed to it, immersed in it.  If we are not, we will not learn to enjoy it, will miss out on the spiritual fulfilment it can offer us and miss out on opportunities to slow down and reflect.  Moreover, from the conservation perspective, if the children of today do not learn to value nature then the adults of today will not bother to conserve it. 

For the above reasons I believe that organisations such as zoos and the national trust have a hugely important role to play in the education and development of the next generation, especially as more and more people live in cities.  Also, taking this approach it is important not that those who enjoy nature encourage other likeminded people to get into nature.  Instead, efforts to engage people with nature should be prioritised, should be aimed at inner city children.  I acknowledge that it is difficult to create a tick list for the personal development of children, I appreciate that it is hard to quantify the extent to which children engage with nature.  More importantly though, I believe that the personal development of children and an appreciation of nature, upon which everyone one of us relies, deserves a proportion of education resources.  For this reason also, I would like to acknowledge the purposeful work of zoos and organisations working towards this end.

If you are interested in the Biophilia hypothesis then recommend W. O. Wilson’s ‘Biophilia, or some of the work of Andrew Balmford (which is more accessible) such as ‘http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1389192/Is-that-a-bee-a-bird-or-Pikachu.html’

Attitudes towards failure and excellence

I’m going to start by blogging about something which, at first sight, has nothing to do with conservation.  I’m going to start with a blog about our attitude towards success and, more importantly, towards failure.  There are two fundamentally different attitudes towards the attainment of excellence which fall at opposite ends of a spectrum.  The talent theory of excellence states that those who achieve highly do so because they are ‘naturally gifted’.  The practice theory of excellence may acknowledge (or not) that individuals differ in their natural abilities, but maintains that these differences are insignificant compared to the effect of training.  The practice theory of excellence states that training is not only necessary but sufficient to make one world class in any skilful discipline.  This has been the subject of much debate which has really gotten nowhere.  I am not going to support either argument.  Instead I am going to write about what I think that we can learn from the two attitudes.

Our attitude towards excellence is something which we generally do not question but it can have very important impacts on how we view failure and how those we influence (such as children) view failure.  A person who believes in the practice theory of excellence believes that their achievements are the result of hard work and learning from past experiences.  When they fail they are aware they they have the capacity to improve upon their performance, to improve through experience.  In contrast, if one is constantly told ‘you did well, you must be really gifted’ then one will begin to believe that their achievements are not the result of their hard work but of their natural talent.  When one fails they will be more likely to believe that they have hit their peak.  In such a mindset every challenge becomes a risk of realising that one can progress no further.  One cannot be blamed for deciding not to try, to adopt the attitude ‘if I don’t try, I can’t fail (and if I don’t fail I am more likely to still improve)’.

Therefore, even if the practice theory of excellence is not correct and some individuals are naturally more predisposed to excel in a discipline, such individuals will still benefit from the mindset that the practice theory of excellence fosters.  A mindset in which failure is embraced as a chance to learn, improve and progress.  A change in mindset must begin in schools where children’s attitude towards success and failure can be moulded.  But it must continue with us past school into our everyday lives.  We must continue to search for feedback, to put aside our egos, honestly assess our mistakes and learn.  Obviously this applies to conservation, where our margin for error is so thin that, rather than sweep failures under the carpet, we must expose everyone and learn from them.  This is why only funding assessment of habitat restoration projects for 2 or 3 years is so senseless.  To invest a large sum of money in a project and then not learn from its shortcomings or to only tick a box to denote a project either a success or a failure is not good enough.  Each conservation intervention represents an opportunity to learn especially the ones which fail.