Why UK Biodiversity SUCKS.

Now guess who’s back with a brand new rant.

In my last piece, I highlighted the woes of being a young naturalist on planet Earth. Now, just to add insult to injury, I’m adjusting the spotlight on somewhere a bit closer to home. I say closer, I mean literally at home.

Sorry guys, but the fact is: the biodiversity in the UK officially SUCKS.

Now before you sharpen your pitchforks and google my IP address, hear me out. Of course, we have no rainforests or savannahs but even in the most simplistic of contexts, the UK’s natural environments are feeble. We do all deeply love the nature on our doorsteps but sometimes, we just need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The flora and fauna of this country are pathetic in comparison to every single one of our neighbours and we have practically no grounds to dispute it.

I suppose you now want me to provide my grounds to dispute that the biodiversity is fantastic. Well, gladly.

Let’s start with something that’s completely out of our hands: geography. Now the UK has a temperate climate, much like the rest of Europe, but with more interesting biomes surrounding us, our deciduous woodlands, sandy coasts and occasional mountains seem vanilla. We’re not cold enough to draw drown the titans of the tundra yet we’re too mediocre to tempt upwards those from the Mediterranean. Sure, climate change has helped, bringing bee-eaters north and walruses south but still, that’s only a result of the deeply depressing temperature changes that have shaped the earth. Whilst large mammals like wolves and lynx have freely expanded across the subcontinent, our position surrounded by water has obviously hampered this. The only hope of bringing back the large land mammals we once decimated is to drag them by our own accord. Even If they could get here, would they want to stay?

From an ornithological perspective, I find myself looking at the incredible species that you can find so easily on the continent but would be a treat in the UK. Common cranes in their thousands in Germany, black-winged stilts in France, griffon vultures in Spain - the list could go on. My point is that the birds we regard as rarities may as well be garden birds across the channel. The habitats are more or less the same, the population densities aren’t too dissimilar - they just clearly hate it here.

To add insult to injury, this already isolated island in the North Sea also happens to have one of the longest histories of any country on Earth. To cut a long story short, it has been a tumultuous last 2000 years for the inhabitants of Great Britain. Even before that, we set about doing all that we could to eradicate species like cave bears and mammoths as best we could. Let me tell you, we did a smashing job. Over the centuries of various kings and queens, we’ve taken what was a rugged and wild island and completely coated in our artificial world. Forests felled for farming, rivers ruined and populated cities popping up left, right and centre. Our developments in industry and agriculture came at the price of our natural history. Then again, when the factories of the north were booming and London became one of the most important cities in the world, not many people stopped to ask where all the wildlife had gone. As a country, we were just very good at putting people first.

The relief is of course that this history of bullish ignorance towards our biodiversity is long behind us. Guess again. In the modern era, many of the mindsets of old have carried over. Fox hunting is somehow a cherished cultural event. Grouse shooting is condoned by the highest royalty. HS2 is all of a sudden a great idea. The logic of a disregard for the wild is deep-rooted in our society, more so than most other countries. Today, we’re met with a demand for more housing, bigger arable fields and more convenient transport infrastructure, all within the same island which remains the same size. Actually, which sea-level rise and coastal erosion, it’s shrinking.

Despite climate change and environmental decline being a hot topic for many world leaders, our government has failed massively. This isn’t a political statement, it is a scientific fact. 41% of UK species are in decline, birds like the turtle dove and hen harrier could be on the brink of national extinction and our iconic hedgehogs are staring over the edge of the precipice. Having been given twenty biodiversity targets to hit within ten years, the UK fell short in seventeen of them and was argued to have gone backwards in six of them. These included sustaining wildlife populations, managing land use for conservation and providing funding for conservation. The government had a clear set of goals and like a disinterested sixth-former, got a U in almost every exam. But how many more chances are there for a resit?

Sucks, eh?

But, it’s not all doom and gloom. Trust me.

As a country, we have spawned some of the most significant conservation charities in the world, including the Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. We have successfully brought avocets, red kites and otters back from the brink. We’re working hard to bring back white-tailed sea eagles, beavers and white storks. Rewinding projects like at Knepp or Wild Ken Hill are proving that we can develop our wilderness once again and let it thrive. We are the nation that inspired David Attenborough, Peter Scott, Chris Packham etc. If these heavyweights of conservation were engaged enough by what we have to offer, it can’t be that bad?

What can you do to better the situation? Well if you fancy building your own nature reserve or harass the prime minister until he agrees to ban driven grouse shooting, that might help! The main thing we can all do is small collective changes. Support your local conservation charities, feed your garden birds, reduce how much waste you produce. The list is endless. However, my biggest piece of advice is to try and engage as many people as you can with the environment. The more people that care, the better.

It may be dishevelled rocky outcrop filled with smoggy cities and a hopeless government, but it’s ours. As much as it’s depleting nature worries us to our core, it’s why we care for it so much.

Adios...