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 19th 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.
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