Why we exist – victory for biodiversity in 2023
Oh no
The natural world is in crisis. Not just one of those ‘I’ve lost my keys and need to get to a job interview’ type crises, or even one of the ‘our political opponent is going to win the election’ type crises (though nature does often have more defenders on one side of the political coin than the other). No, this crisis is one of the most catastrophic events in the history of earth. If nature were the allies in the second world war, the axis would have conquered Britain and the UK government would be reduced to a guerrilla warfare resistance in the Highlands. So, lets call it what conservation has for decades – a mass extinction event.
I have seen a lot of articles from mainstream media over the past year talking about how “wildlife loss means we might be entering into a mass extinction event” or even rather comically asking: “are we headed for a mass extinction?” As an ecologist, let me make this simple. Yes, yes we are in a mass extinction event. We have been for over two hundred years, but it is only now that the Jenga-like web of life is so forlorn and besieged that is on the verge of total biosphere collapse. That’s internationally, anyway. Here in good old blighty, we’ve already had our first collapse. The 1970’s saw populations of all forms of life fall down a cliff, from which almost all have not recovered. The coming decades will (without significant intervention), likely follow this trend with a slow continued decline.
Over 60% of all insect mass (not just diversity) has been lost from England, and 28% from Scotland. Our isles are repeatedly the lowest for natural forest cover, ecosystem health, water quality, insect mass, % of threatened bird species and so many more. At 28, I have never seen a healthy British countryside -and unless you are over 50, likely neither have you.
The Personal bit
All my life I have wanted to work with nature. The incredible diversity of our unique world is fascinating, and I have an innate desire to defend and protect it. I grew up with stories of adventure from my uncle working on South Georgia (Antarctica), of Durrell’s escapades to Madagascar and of looking for birds in my own suburban upbringing. But throughout that, the knowledge of how under threat life is has never been far away. Through my very ill teenage years I was unable to do much, watching and waiting for the ‘adult world’ to fix the problems facing life. I vividly remember in my GCSE (age 15) classroom my teacher telling us that every minute, a football pitch worth of rainforest burned in the Amazon alone. For a long time as a teenager I was too ill to do anything, and I sat – frail and broken, watching earth burn. Since then , I have seen rainforest burning in real life, and its smell is etched into my mind forever.
Then, at 21 – I got better. The wonders of modern medicine, eh?
I started working as an ecological consultant, mitigating the damage of human’s impact on the environment and nature. Truth be told, I wasn’t very good at it. I disagreed horribly with both of my employers on a number of projects, finally finding a work with the RSPB.
One of the interesting things I have found about working both for the existing private sector and the charity sector is that many projects (not all!) were very defence focused (i.e. aimed at protecting areas rather than expanding habitat, for example). Using the wartime analogy again, it is as if the nation of life exists only on the defensive, opting for occasional skirmishes to slow the collapse of the front line. Monitor extinction. Try and teach people to be better. Ask for funding, cup in hand. Ask for an area not to be as developed as it is inevitably going to be.
Conservation of a phoenix (or, how not to save it)
One of the breaking points for me was on a project in REDACTED, west of Stonehaven. Myself and a good friend and colleague were surveying the route of a potential new road to a several thousand house development. This was an ‘ancient woodland’, and whilst this gives it a degree of protection, in reality the woodland was ecologically almost worthless. No structural diversity, only two species of tree (both birch, all the same age) and almost no understory!
Anyway. We are taking it in turns to crawl through gorse bushes to measure these trees, when I pushed through a particularly dense thicket. Clambering through, I stood to see the largest rowan tree I have seen in my life. It was so large its massive trunk had collapsed onto its side through age – and regrown an entirely new, just as large trunk in its place. Where the old branches had hit the ground, a new tree had sprouted. Essentially, this tree had grown into an entire grove. Surrounded on all sides by very dense gorse, it had a natural barrier from herbivores. Not even the deer, which had erased the remaining ground flora from the surrounding woodland, had dared enter. The soil was covered in life. Species were flourishing here, with more diversity in the 10m x10m circle than the entire rest of the 60 acres of woodland. The tree itself was what we call a ‘veteran’, and given that it had fallen and regrown, it was what we in the trade call a ‘phoenix’ veteran, having risen from the ashes of its own downfall.
The road for the development was due to flow straight through this tree. Carving through this hundreds years old giant, into tarmac. I counted at least two hundred and fifty rings on the ‘fallen’ trunk, and its regrown counterpart was a wide, mature size in its own right. This puts it at least in the 1700’s, if not older. Writing a solid page for the ecological report to the council, and explicitly explaining to the contractors that the road needed to be moved, (by less than four meters), to avoid this tree.
A month later, we find out that the man who owned the land and was wanting the development had ordered the route cleared. This was without council permission, without the ecologist’s go ahead, and as far as we were aware (despite our moving the road on the architectural plans) any real world changes to the route. I was informed by him that it was unfortunate, but the developers had ploughed on, straight through it. A tree that was older than the British Empire, than the USA, than electricity. Surviving the clearances, industrial agriculture, weather, disease and all that the world could throw at it. Wiped out because someone couldn’t be bothered to wait for permission.
The company responsible was of course, penalised for their actions. A solid £5,000 fine for doing so. Later on I found out that they had budgeted in for this action to take place, and had been humouring us the whole time. I was personally devastated by the loss. We had found a hidden treasure. A natural wonder that dwarfed anything I had ever discovered before. And it was burned away in front of me, because of an inconvenience. Conservation can be very hard, sometimes.
Determination & our purpose
In a nutshell, that is why we exist. I had spent my career defending habitat, fighting for tiny scraps to save species, life and extraordinary things, and was failing. It isn’t just my ineptitude though. We are all failing, as conservationists. We stare extinction in the face every day, and we lose. We can cling to all of the hopeful small stories, the determination we want, but the reality is nature isn’t getting better, and what we are trying now isn’t working. I am not saying this to belittle the efforts of anyone, but the data on continued declines do not lie.
General Patton of the US army once said “Nobody ever defended anything successfully. There is only attack, attack and attack some more”.
Modern conservation is a conglomerate of well willing individuals, ecological consultancies, charities and ever-underfunded government bodies. All of these entities, through their means and methodologies, are defending. They protect what is left.
I, we, are sick of defending. Patton was right, we cannot successfully defend nature. We must go out into the world and retake ground. The UK’s lovely public is one of the most environmentally conscious and considerate peoples in the world. Why can’t we restore our isles to before the crash? Why must we focus in on protecting ever shrinking pockets of land when there are people out there, willing and able to pay for the restoration of the natural world? That is where The Habitat People fit. We take land that has been butchered by decades of abuse, by heavy industry, neglect or prior usage and bring life back. That is our mission. For every piece of land we restore, we take the fight to extinction, to the enemy. And I swear an oath to you now on this little blog of a small company in the Northeast of Scotland that we will not stop until we win. Until nature has been restored and conservation has been fully integrated into the economy as a service in its own right across the whole UK, and further. Some of you will likely think me a little mad for making such a bold statement, but I do not mind. Right now no one is driving this train, so if we must move the wheels a bit to keep it on the track, then so be it. I would rather be mad than a coward.
Our trajectory certainly points to us playing a significant role in the future. In 2020, we barely existed. In 2021 it was just myself. In 2022 we grew to three employees, and gained our first nature reserve. At the time of writing, we manage over 400 acres across the northeast of Scotland, and have four employees. We are constructing the largest wildflower nursery in Scotland, and have contracts for ecological work for some of the most powerful bodies in the region. We will prove that restoring nature can ease pressure on species, not just by ringfencing protected sites.
Watch this space, because we are going to change everything.
If you have enjoyed this little rambling piece and want to support us, we are currently trailing a new way to get funding into nature, and you can sponsor a square meter of our nature reserve in Peterhead for a year, here: You get the exact, grid referenced location of where your area is, and we give you bi-annual updates on how your land has started changing as part of the restoration. Oh, and the best part? You can visit it whenever you like!
And if you want to get in touch about us restoring your land, about conservation in general, about a specific species or how to make money off of sustainability & stopping extinction, please drop us a line here, we would love to hear from you.
Stay safe and keep fighting the good fight,
David
CEO
The Habitat People