Читать книгу Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World - Tony Juniper - Страница 12

Modern scientific investigation tells us that today we sit at the pinnacle of some 3.5 billion years of evolutionary refinement. It seems to me that the interdependent web of connections, relationships and flows of energy, the finely woven tapestry of life, is undoubtedly the greatest marvel ever placed before us.

It is not necessary to travel to the tropical rainforests or to dive among tropical coral reefs to be at the cutting edge of our knowledge of life on Earth. In 2008 a scientist working at the Natural History Museum in London was presented with what turned out to be possibly a ‘new’ species of bug. It was picked up by his son while eating his lunch in the museum’s central London gardens. The almond-shaped insect, about the size of a grain of rice, had made itself at home in the sycamore trees in the nineteenth-century museum’s grounds. About a mile away at Buckingham Palace, two species of mushroom, apparently new to science, were recently found in the gardens.

I have for many years been privileged to spend time speaking with and learning from some of the world’s leading experts on the natural world. Today they have a new name for this tremendous variety of life: it’s called biodiversity. The most incredible fact about the multiplicity of forms of life and the myriad associations they all form is the amazing variety. The most alarming is the rate at which it is disappearing. There are many stories that underline the urgency we face in stemming the tide of biodiversity loss that is taking place all around us. One that is close to my heart begins high on a hill in New Zealand.

Taiaroa Head is at the northerly tip of the Otago Peninsula, overlooking the entrance to Otago Harbour, at the head of which is the town of Dunedin. Here in Spring it is possible to watch at close quarters one of the most remarkable of all birds: the albatross – more specifically the Northern Royal albatross. The birds that nest here each year make up the only mainland albatross colony in the world. All the others are on small islands, with many located on some of the world’s most inaccessible oceanic outposts.

The albatrosses that breed at Taiaroa are enormous creatures. White, with great long black wings, they are surely the most majestic of birds. They nest in peace because they have the full protection of New Zealand law. They are a major tourist attraction and have made Dunedin world-famous. But when they have reared their single chick and set out to sea once more, they face great peril. For millions of years albatrosses have wandered the oceans as masters of wave and wind. Twenty-four kinds of these great birds hunted and roamed in a watery world apparently without limit. During my time sailing the high seas when I served with the Royal Navy nearly forty years ago, I watched these birds, marvelling at the vastness of their world and the way they were perfectly adapted to the conditions that enabled them to thrive in what for us humans are such hostile conditions. But even this great ocean wilderness is no longer the sanctuary it was for these mariners of the remotest seas. No fewer than twentyone species of the twenty-four are now regarded as being in danger of extinction.

The Taiaroa Head Royal Albatross colony at Dunedin in New Zealand is an unforgettable place to visit. This six week old chick is doing well.

This young Laysan Albatross died after being repeatedly fed with plastic debris collected from the sea by its parents.

This is because it is not only albatrosses that seek a living from the vast and seemingly empty oceans that ring Antarctica. Thousands of miles from their home ports, long-line fishing boats also patrol these wild seas. They come after large predatory fish and catch them with hooks trailed out on lines up to an astonishing eighty miles long carrying tens of thousands of small squid for bait – exactly the food of albatrosses. The hooked lines aim to catch valuable species such as toothfish, tuna and swordfish, but the baits are also lethal for albatrosses.

The birds dive onto the baited hooks and the sharp barbs slice into their beak or throat. A vain struggle is soon followed by a painful death by blood loss or drowning. It is an unglamorous end for birds that, during a lifetime that can span sixty years, will have travelled considerably further than the distance to the moon and back. The plight of the albatrosses has recently emerged as a conservation cause célèbre, and I have been pleased to help BirdLife International and others to make the case for a change of fishing methods, but despite some efforts to protect these incredible birds, long-line fishing boats continue to take a terrible toll. It is a situation, though, that as in so many other cases is complicated by the ability of countries to cooperate internationally, and is not helped by the fact that the USA has still not signed the International Agreement on the Protection of Albatrosses and Petrels. And alongside the decline of the albatrosses has come the near destruction of the populations of the large fish most prized in international markets. There is an awful congruity in the fact that the Chilean Sea Bass that these boats catch also live for sixty years and, like the albatrosses, they do not begin to breed until they are between 10 and 20 years old. If they are caught before that time the chances of any future stock are gone for good.

A long-lived Patagonia Toothfish is gaffed aboard a long-line fishing boat.

While the fish have become scarcer, the rewards to be gained from catching them have only increased. Controls are in place to help avoid the complete collapse of the populations of the most valuable species, but illegal fishing has become a major problem. Even with the best will, policing the vast expanse of ocean that is plundered by illegal fishing presents a massive challenge.

Given the low numbers to which many albatross species have already sunk (and some hang on as just a handful of remaining birds), it is obvious where these trends will take the world’s most charismatic and endangered sea birds. This situation is made worse still for some species because not only are they attracted to baited hooks, but they also go for pieces of discarded plastic. The adult birds pluck plastic items from the sea, mistaking our consumer detritus for food, and then they feed it to their young – which often kills them. Recently I was told of the vast rafts of plastic that now float in the Pacific Ocean some 500 miles off the coast of California. This appalling phenomenon of today’s world has doubled in size over the past decade and it now occupies an area of 540,000 square miles of the Pacific – nearly six times the size of the United Kingdom. This ‘plastic vortex’, as it has become known, comprises up to 100 million tonnes of man-made waste – plastic packages, bottles, cans, tyres and broken-down chemical sludge. This monstrous plastic island is situated in a relatively stationary region of the ocean because it is bounded by a system of rotating oceanic currents called the North Pacific Gyre. Its proportions are truly eye-watering and it puts the plight of these amazing sea birds, as well as all kinds of marine life including turtles, into its proper perspective, not least because hardly anybody seems to know about the problem so nothing is done about it. Call me a ‘busybody’ but I am determined to do all I can to make sure this is not the case for much longer…

On land there are just as many problems. Perhaps surprisingly, one of the main reasons for the extinction of many creatures over the past few centuries has been the sometimes subtle impacts caused by introduced species. Rats, for example, have found their way to remote oceanic islands courtesy of explorers’ ships. When aggressive generalists like these turn up in ecosystems where the native animals have evolved in isolation and do not have the defences to deal with alien invaders, mayhem can result. Indeed, most of the recorded extinctions that have occurred since 1600 have been due to the effects of introduced exotic species. The dodo, the very emblem of extinction, appears to have succumbed more to the pigs and monkeys released by sailors than it did to excessive hunting.

The native Red Squirrel has disappeared from most of its former range in Britain.

In the UK we welcome North American visitors with open arms – except perhaps for one: the grey squirrel. This charming-looking creature has a dark side. It has devastated our native population of red squirrels, hastened the disappearance of our native dormouse, and in some places has caused decline in songbird populations. It also causes untold damage to young hardwood trees such as oak, beech and ash. These little creatures are frustrating so many worthy efforts to re-establish native hardwood plantations, and they provide one more example of how our interference with natural systems can cause chaos.

I don’t suppose we will be able to do much about the grey squirrels, save controlling them locally when their numbers grow, but my heart sinks every time I hear of the latest big idea to introduce yet another new species of animal or insect from elsewhere in the world in order to deal with a problem caused by a previously imported species. And I am completely exasperated when such schemes from time to time are given the blessing of wildlife groups. Clearly even some of those who work closely with Nature, and who struggle so hard to protect her, sometimes think with the same mechanistic ideas that created the very problems they are trying to solve.

There is some good news, however. The Red Squirrel Survival Trust is for example, working hard to maintain and expand the populations of this wonderful creature. I have been pleased to help them with their effort to save these utterly charming creatures from what looks like imminent oblivion in these islands.