I recently had the opportunity to join a guided walk across chalk grassland at the National Trust’s site at Devil’s Dyke and Saddlescombe Farm, near Brighton in Sussex, led by the Trust’s Lead Ranger Dan Fagan. It was a reminder of how much more you can see and learn about in the company of an expert guide. As well as enjoying spectacular countryside and views, we learned about the huge pressures on England’s chalk grassland, 80% of which has been lost since the 1940s, and the real value of this critical habitat.
We learned that as many as 40 plant species could be found in one square metre of good quality chalk grassland, and how some species depend for their existence on the availability of others. The iconic Chalk Hill Blue butterfly needs readily available Horseshoe Vetch plants for the larvae to feed on, and the proximity of one particular species of ant, which harvests honeydew from the larva and drags it into their ant colony to protect it until it emerges as a butterfly. This day out, and hearing from Sam Page and Gary Webster at the National Trust about the big cooperative efforts to protect and restore chalk grassland in the Changing Chalk programme were a great insight into the determination needed to reverse biodiversity loss, but also how working together can deliver big results.
Worldwide, a million species are at risk of extinction. Habitat loss and changing agriculture is the main factor, as well as pollution, over-exploitation, invasive species, and now the twin sister of biodiversity loss, the closely interrelated issues of climate change impacts. Internationally, this has led to last year’s landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, where 196 governments committed to really radical measures to halt and reverse mass human-induced species extinctions and biodiversity loss. If each signatory of that accord could be got to do what they said they would do, we would be taking significant steps towards addressing the issue.
Biodiversity is in some ways the poor relation to climate change, and I have been trying to develop workshops for young climate activists to show them a bit of the legal resources and commitments made by governments on biodiversity and how they can help advocate for both. Our climate website at COP26 and beyond is also working on a new short film on Biodiversity and Climate Change to reinforce that link, and I got back from the hike across chalk grassland to find an inbox full of film clips of fantastic biodiversity in the Pantanal in Brazil, and Giant Otters scrunching fish.
International commitments need the political will, national legislation and effective well-resourced implementation and enforcement to make them work. In the UK, we have some national legislation that promotes Biodiversity Net Gain, and it has been interesting explaining some of the opportunities as well as obligations in that for companies and organisations. Political will is fitful and inconsistent, and has ranged from enthusiastic government support for the Global Biodiversity Framework to the efforts by Sir Jacob Rees Mogg and allies to revoke nearly two thousand environmental laws and implementation of the Habitats Directive. Even in politics, there is biodiversity, as the same, quite long, day while chairing an online session for the UKELA conference with Dr Nerys Llewelyn Jones, Interim Environmental Protection Assessor for Wales, I learned about plans by the Welsh Government to endorse the aims of the Global Environmental Framework in its Biodiversity Deep Dive.
It seems that halting and reversing biodiversity loss and mass extinctions is going to take a concerted effort, and many different disciplines working together, from the dedicated scientists and botanists at the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst, to zoologists in the Pantanal, to legislators in Cardiff, Westminster and worldwide, young climate and biodiversity activists, and chalk and grassland rangers in Sussex able to communicate the importance for all our futures of the grass beneath our feet.
Article on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
https://www.cop26andbeyond.com/blog/kunming-montreal-global-biodiversity-framework