Tag: nature

The ‘Ecological Emergency’ and what The Cabot Institute for the Environment are doing about it

Posted on by janet.crompton
The white rhino. Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Biodiversity loss and ecological decline pose enormous threats to humans and ecosystems alike, yet due to human activity they are occurring on a scale not seen since the last mass extinction. As part of our campaign running alongside the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), this blog will highlight The Cabot Institute for the Environment’s research contributions to the fight against the ‘Ecological Emergency’. 

The Ecological Emergency and the need for evidence 

Human activity is pushing the natural world beyond the limits of its own resilience, causing populations of species to plummet and ecosystems to collapse. As well as the widely appreciated beauty of the natural world and our responsibility to protect it, our reliance on ecosystems makes their survival essential to our own. Ecosystems provide us with food, oxygen, carbon capture, air and water purification, nutrient cycling as well as protection from erosion, floods and droughts. Under current trends, we could see ecosystems and the fundamental services they provide disintegrate within a lifetime.

The urgent need for action is starting to be recognised; a number of UK councils and organizations have declared ‘Ecological Emergency’ and the Climate and Ecological Emergency bill has recently been put forward to replace the ‘outdated’ 2008 Climate Change Act. Last year’s UN Summit on Biodiversity saw leaders from all regions of the world take the ‘Leader’s Pledge for Nature’, which commits to reversing alarming global trends and putting biodiversity and nature on the path to recovery by 2030. If ambitious but necessary targets are to be met, a strong evidence base surrounding ecological decline and its drivers will be fundamental in devising effective restoration and conservation strategies.

Caboteers have made significant contributions to global knowledge, directly influencing both local, national and international policy. Using statements from our experts, this blog will highlight some of our key research contributions to the field and discuss why they are so important in the fight against the ecological emergency. This is as part of the Cabot ‘Ecological Emergency’ Campaign, which is running alongside COP15, the UN Biodiversity Conference, which is taking place this week.

A coral reef. Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Restoration ecology 

Restoration ecology is the science which underpins ecological restoration – the much-needed repair of damaged and degraded ecosystems. Professor Jane Memmott, leader of the restoration ecology group, explained, “We work on the links betweenspecies, things like pollination, seed dispersal and predation, as it’s really important to reinstate these links between species, as well as the species themselves. We are particularly interested in species that have disproportionately beneficial effects – keystone species – as these can be used to help jump start restoration programmes.”

Identifying which habitats are the most effective to target in restoration strategies is another key element of the Memmott groups research. For example, ‘The Urban Pollinators Project’ led by Jane, was a inter-city, study surveying urban, natural and farmland pollinator habitats run over four years, with the aim of establishing urban restoration opportunities.

While urbanisation is known to be one of the drivers of biodiversity loss, the project found that cities in fact provide unique restoration opportunities. It found that the most beneficial actions for supporting pollinator networks were increasing the area of allotments, which were pollinator hot-spots, as well as strategic management of gardens and green space through incorporation of pollinator-supporting flower margins and meadows. Our reliance on insects to pollinate 75% of our crops and the alarming rate at which their populations are declining make this research particularly fundamental, and the findings have gone on to advise both local and national policy.

A bee, or ‘pollinator’.  Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Experimental conservation 

Experimental conservation is research involving the testing and optimisation of conservation strategies. The experimental ecology and conservation group use mathematical models, small-scale experimental systems and long-term wild population data to do this. These techniques have the advantage of being generally non-invasive, leaving the ecosystems largely undisturbed, while giving huge amounts of crucial conservation information.

Dr Chris Clements, the experimental conservation group leader, explains, “My group develops and tests models which might help us to make more reliable conservation decisions. Our work covers a range of topics, including trying to predict what species and populations might be at most risk of collapse or extinction to understanding how multiple anthropogenically derived stressors might interact to increase extinction risk.” As time is limited and extinction is irreversible, ensuring conservation strategies are optimized and supported by a strong scientific evidence base is crucial to their success.

Forest ecosystems 

Forests are home to more than 80% of all land species of animals, plants and insects and are fundamental to our climate, as an integral part of the carbon cycle. Numerous global changes are causing their coverage to rapidly decline, and as well as this exacerbating climate change through reducing their ability to sequester carbon, it poses an extinction threat to the many species that call them home.

Dr Tommaso Jucker leads research investigating forests and the processes which shape their structure, composition and function. Tommaso explains “We hope to not only understand how forest ecosystems are responding to rapid global change, but also lead research that directly informs the conservation and restoration of the world’s forests.” Establishing a clear picture of what the world’s forests might look like in future is crucial to the conservation of the creatures which inhabit them, as well as for preparing for the impacts on people and climate.

A sloth in its forest habitat. Image credit: Sam J. England, PhD student at the University of Bristol.

Aquatic habitats and oceans 

The ocean constitutes over 90% of habitable space on the planet and the ecosystems within it contribute enormously to biodiversity, livelihoods, the carbon cycle and our food supply. This makes understanding the impact of human activity on these submerged worlds essential. As well as the pressure put on ecosystems by over-exploitation, pollution and habitat destruction, rising CO2 levels and are causing environmental changes in oceans, including warming and acidification.

Microbial ecologist, Professor Marian Yallop, and her group investigate aquatic microorganisms, such as algae and cyanobacteria, and their responses to environmental changes such as temperature, pH and pollutants. These often invisible microorganisms are pivotal to global oxygen production and carbon dioxide absorption, as well as occupying a critical position at the base of many food chains. This makes their fate crucial to that of the planet and all of the organisms on it.

Under the sea. Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Behavioral and evolutionary ecology 

Evolution and adaptations are at the core of a species ability to survive. In animals, a key element of this is behaviour. Rapid global changes are having complex implications on species and in many cases, the implications of human activity on animal behaviour are only just starting to be realised. Cabot has a number of behavioural experts working to better understand a variety of species behavioural responses to human activity, in order to understand how we can better manage our environment for their conservation.

Professor Gareth Jones, who predominantly works on bats, investigates their behaviour, evolution and responses to human activity, for example, how anthropogenic light can affect them and their insect pray, as well as how they can be deterred from dangerous infrastructure, such as wind turbines.

Professor Andrew Radford is a behavioural ecologist working on bioacoustics, so the production and reception of sound, on species from all across the animal kingdom. Anthropogenic, or ‘man-made’ noise has significantly altered the sound scape of habitats throughout land and sea, therefore, it is essential to understand how this might interfere with development and behaviour so that negative effects can be mitigated. Incorporation of behavioural insights into conservation and restoration strategies can contribute significantly to their success, therefore, research in the field is a key pillar of conservation.

A bat in flight. Image credit: Meg Barstow,  Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Conservation Law 

If scientific research is to have a positive impact translated into the real world, it must be implemented in policy, meaning law is a hugely important element of conservation. Dr Margherita Pieraccini from the School of Law, who works predominantly on marine conservation law, explains “My research investigates the socio-legal aspects around ecological governance, with the aim of providing a critical understanding of existing conservation laws and envisaging ecologically just ways of governance.” Ecological decline will negatively affect everyone, however the consequences do not affect communities equally, therefore, evidence based conservation laws are essential to prevent inequality and poverty being exacerbated.

The Nocturnal Problem 

Establishing a full and accurate picture of where evidence is available, and where it is missing, is fundamental to shaping the future path of research and enabling us to protect all ecosystems. Dr Andrew Flack, an environmental and animal historian, is investigating what is known as ‘The Nocturnal Problem’, which is the significant underrepresentation of night-time ecologies in research. Dr Flack explains “My own historical research draws attention to the ways in which nocturnal ecologies and the threats to them have been understood, and that until very recently, scientists have neglected the impact of human activity on night-time ecologies.” Half of everything that has happened or will happen has happened in the night, therefore, nocturnal species make up significant proportions of our ecosystems. Neglecting nocturnal species in research can therefore have catastrophic consequences not only to those species, but to the diurnal (day-time) species that they are intertwined with through ecosystems.

A fox cub. Image credit: Adam Hearne, Student at the University of Bristol.

The University of Bristol’s action on ecology and climate 

As well as being at the forefront of research, Cabot’s home institute, the University of Bristol, has taken a number of actions to support ecology. Wildlife supporting infrastructure, such as wild-flower meadows, bug hotels and ‘living buildings’ are dotted strategically around the campus. The Universities green space, Royal Fort Garden, is a hub of wildlife and supports a variety of species, as well as hosting an installation, ‘Hollow’, made of fragments of 10,000 species of tree from all over the world, inspiring interest in global biodiversity. The University was also the first UK university to declare a climate emergency in April 2019, and has set world-leading targets to reach net-zero by 2030. Mitigating climate change is fundamental to protecting ecosystems, however, as ecological decline could continue alongside decarbonization, or even be exacerbated by the means to get to net-zero, it is essential that it is not overlooked in sustainability strategies.

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This blog was written by Hilary McCarthy, a University of Bristol PhD Student and part of the Cabot Communicators group.

 

Thank you to University of Bristol students and staff for wildlife photography submissions used in this blog and across the campaign: 
Adam Hearne (UoB Zoology student and wildlife photographer, www.adamhearnewildlife.co.uk, Instagram: @adamhearnewildlife) 
Meg Barstow (UoB, wildlife photographer, Instagram: @cardboard.rocket) 
Sam J. England (PhD student researching aerial electroreception in insects and wildlife photographer, Instagram @sam.j.england, https://www.samjengland.com)

Ecological decline: an overlooked emergency?

Posted on by janet.crompton
A blue tit landing. Image credit: Adam Hearne, Student at the University of Bristol.
The words ‘Ecological Emergency’ are appearing in an increasing number of environmental declarations, strategies and parliamentary bills. This blog will discuss the need to recognise ecological decline as an emergency in its own right, as well as being an element of the climate emergency. This will be part of an ‘Ecological Emergency’ Cabot Campaign which will run alongside the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), which is happening this week.

Last year, The Cabot Institute for the Environment’s home city Bristol became the first major city to declare an ecological emergency. This declaration came only two years after Bristol became the first European city to declare a climate emergency. Many UK councils and organizations have since declared joint “Climate and Ecological” emergencies, and the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill has been put forward to replace the ‘outdated’ 2008 Climate Change Act. These declarations show that while climate and ecology are intrinsically linked, there is increasing recognition of ecological decline as an emergency in its own right as well as being a consequence of and contributor to the climate emergency. Climate mitigation is fundamental to safeguarding ecosystems, however, ecological decline could continue alongside decarbonisation and even be exacerbated by the means to get to net-zero, if the ecological emergency is overlooked in sustainability strategies and policy.

The UN Convention on Biodiversity (COP15) is taking place this week and a Cabot Campaign on the ‘Ecological Emergency’ will run alongside it. The campaign will include a series of blogs and posts across our website and social media. Using statements from Cabot researchers in relevant fields, this blog will discuss the ecological emergency and the need for targeted action.

 

Bristol suspension bridge. Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.
 
What is the ecological emergency?

“Biodiversity is being lost on a scale not seen since the last mass extinction” Dr Chris Clements Caboteer and leader of the experimental conservation group explains. While Dr Andrew Flack, an environmental and animal historian, described the ecological emergency as “among the most profound crises of our time, diminishing not only planetary diversity but also the very experience of being human on our beautiful, rich planet“.

More quantitively, the statistics which drove Bristol’s pioneering ‘Ecological Emergency’ declaration include:

  • 60% of the worlds wild animals have been lost since 1970
  • One in seven UK wildlife species are at risk of extinction
  • More locally in Bristol and the surrounding areas, swift and starling populations have dropped by more than 96% since 1994
  • 41% of insects are threatened with extinction, posing a huge threat to our global food supply due to 75% of our crops being reliant on pollination by insects
  • Three-quarters of land and two-thirds of marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions
 
A honey bee on a flower. Image credit: Callum Mclellan, Student at the University of Bristol.

In their statements, many of our academics highlighted that, as well as the beauty of the natural world and our responsibility to preserve it, our reliance on ecosystems makes their survival essential to our own. Ecosystems provide us with food, oxygen, nutrient cycling, carbon absorption, air and water purification, and protection from erosion, floods and droughts. Many of these services are already under increased pressure due to climate change, which ecological decline is intertwined with. Destruction of ecosystems and exploitation of wildlife can also cause the emergence of infectious disease, as has been demonstrated by the occurrence of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Biodiversity loss and climate action failure both earned their own place in the top five threats to humanity in the next five years, according to the 2020 Global Risks Report from the World Economic Forum. Though these interdependent crises will drastically affect everyone, their consequences will not be felt equally among communities and are sadly already intensifying inequality and poverty.

Intertwined emergencies

 “The climate emergency is certainly exacerbating the ecological emergency” Professor Jane Memmott, a leading restoration ecologist, explained. Under current trends, climate change is projected to drive many ecosystems to collapse. Simultaneously, large-scale destruction of ecological carbon sinks, such as forests, wetlands and mangroves, is contributing to climate change. There are several feedback loops at play: destruction of carbon sinks is increasing atmospheric CO2, which drives climate change and in turn further ecological degradation, which then further debilitates natures ability to store carbon. This forms a vicious cycle, with profound consequences for the planet.

The interdependent emergencies share similar causes, consequences and solutions, however, Dr Tommaso Jucker, whose research is on forests and their responses to rapid global change, explains “it is not only climate change that threatens biodiversity, and the effects of biodiversity loss on people will not just be a subset of those brought on by climate change”. As well as climate change, threats to ecosystems include species over-exploitation, habitat destruction, pesticides and pollution of land, air and water. These could all continue simultaneously to our efforts to decarbonise, and even be exacerbated by the means to get to net-zero, if the ecological emergency is overlooked in sustainability strategies.
 
A forest. Image credit: Dr. Stephen Montgomery, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol

A coordinated approach to climate and ecology

The climate emergency is becoming mainstream conversation and it is now widely accepted that huge changes in policy, infrastructure and behaviour are needed. However, while the climate emergency is gaining recognition, the ecological emergency is comparatively overlooked. If we are to avoid ecological collapse, a co-ordinated approach to the crises is essential; focusing purely on technological advancement and decarbonisation runs the risk of allowing and even exacerbating further ecosystem destruction.

Natural climate solutions, such as strategic management of forests, grasslands and wetlands, can offer around a third of the climate mitigation required by 2030 to keep warming below 2 °C. These environments are not only carbon sinks, but biodiversity havens, making them effective solutions for ecological decline as well as climate change. Protecting ecosystems is also often significantly more cost-effective than human-made climate interventions. However, due to our often unnatural lifestyles and a fast-growing population, nature alone will not be enough to mitigate human impact on the environment.  

A peacock butterfly. Image credit: Sam J. England, PhD Student at the University of Bristol.

The need for targeted action 

As well as the intrinsic links and coordinated solutions to the climate and ecological emergencies, there is a lot that can be done to specifically alleviate the ecological emergency. This is exemplified by Bristol’s ‘One City Ecological Emergency Strategy‘ which predominantly focuses on land management, pesticide use, water quality and consumption of products that undermine global ecosystems. This is in addition to climate mitigation, already covered in the Climate Emergency Action Plan.

Last year’s UN Summit for Biological Diversity saw leaders from all regions of the world take the ‘Leader’s Pledge for Nature’, which commits to reversing alarming global biodiversity loss trends by 2030. To achieve this ambitious but necessary goal, both climate action and targeted conservation and restoration strategies will be needed on both a local and global level. For these crises to be mitigated, some uncomfortable truths surrounding lifestyles many have become accustomed to will have to be faced.

The word ‘emergency’ from a scientific perspective 

Despite widespread agreement on the obvious threats posed by biodiversity loss and the need for action, the word ‘emergency’ can be controversial, especially amongst the scientific community. Professor Richard Wallexplained “As a research scientist, my view is that the sound-bite ‘ecological emergency’ is not sufficiently nuanced to be useful in scientific discourse and is best left to journalists and campaigners; it has no scale or quantification and what constitutes an ‘emergency’ is highly subjective.”

Public awareness surrounding our changing climate and declining ecosystems are important, however, if action doesn’t follow declarations, then they run the risk of being no more than empty PR stunt and can increase public immunity to the word as well as the impacts of the crisis itself. COP15, which is happening this week, will be pivotal in deciding the future of our own species, as well as all the other species that share our planet.

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This blog was written by Hilary McCarthy, a University of Bristol PhD Student and part of the Cabot Communicators group.

Thank you to University of Bristol students and staff for wildlife photography submissions used in this blog and across the campaign: Adam Hearne (UoB student and wildlife photographer, www.adamhearnewildlife.co.uk, Instagram: @adamhearnewildlife) Meg Barstow (UoB student, wildlife photographer, Instagram: @cardboard.rocket)
Dr Stephen Montgomery (Senior Research Fellow, Neurobiology and Behaviour, School of Biological Sciences) Sam J. England (PhD student researching aerial electroreception in insects and wildlife photographer, Instagram @sam.j.england, https://www.samjengland.com)

 

Bristol Mock COP Negotiations – Mobilising Imaginations for Ambitious Outcomes

Posted on by janet.crompton
Screenshot of Mock COP26 hosts and facilitators (Master’s students)

On 30 March, Jack Nicholls, Emilia Melville and Camille Straatman from the Cabot Institute for the Environment hosted an online simulation of the COP26 that will happen in Glasgow in November this year. It was set to be in equal measures a playful exercise of the imagination, and deep dive into the acronym-filled world of global climate politics. Students from 11 school groups would represent various state and non-state actors, and 12 Master’s students would facilitate the negotiations, myself included.

It was the first public engagement exercise of its kind for a University in the COP26 Universities Network,  an experimental activity that hoped to lead to a replicable blueprint for other Universities could follow. So, whilst it was all carefully planned, some questions lingered after the training pre-session for facilitators, which would go unanswered until the students appeared on screen the following day:

How will the school groups engage with the exercise? What will they say relative to what we think the real negotiations will be like, and how will they navigate representing actors with values that don’t align with their own? What kind of knowledge and insights will they bring to debates on a broad range of climate resolutions? How might their votes and outcomes differ from those emerging from the real thing in November?

My preparation for facilitating the group of ‘UK delegates’ consisted of re-reading Boris Johnson’s ‘10 point plan for a green industrial revolution’ and the information Cabot Institute members have shared about financing a green transition. The briefing letter we’d received from the ‘PM’ staunchly asserted our actor aims: to protect home economic interests and industries, green or not, avoid any aid obligations to other countries that may hinder our progress towards achieving our own ambitious climate goals, proving that we are indeed on track to achieve these, and convincing others to follow our lead.

The first thing I asked the group once we’d arrived in our breakout room was whether or not they were ready to put their floppy blonde wigs on, eliciting an amusing collective groan. But, they’d done their research on climate action in the UK, and it showed. Students were clearly up to date on climate action in Bristol, updating me on the upcoming diesel ban in Bristol’s Clean Air Zone, which was passed last month and will be implemented in October. This was great for framing the UK’s ambitious Net Zero Emissions (NZE) goals in terms of their impact at city level and on our own lives.

Their background knowledge of issues like nature conservation, sustainable agriculture, and the refugee crisis meant that they took a more progressive stance on some resolutions than one might expect from our conservative government to do so in November. For example, whilst protecting natural assets in the British countryside is often positioned as simply a point of national pride, and agricultural reform hasn’t been a priority. When one student told us that there are only ‘60 growing seasons left in the UK,’ in our current intensive agricultural model, a shocking number that I hadn’t heard before, they decided to vote strongly for a sustainable agriculture transition.

I prompted them to consider the economic concerns that may shape discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the USA in the upcoming rounds, like the Green Industrial Revolution, job security and funding for achieving UK’s ambitious NZE goals. I almost didn’t want the group to step into the more pro-economic and nationalistic agenda they’d been briefed with but was as amused and impressed as the rest when our spokesperson and many of the others dazzled us with compelling impressions of the leaders they represented.

Despite their dramatic flair and feel for the roles, all groups demonstrated an open-minded ambition that I hope we are fortunate enough to find amongst the attendees of the COP26 Blue Zone.

The IMF was represented by two Master’s students, Lucy and Tilly, who had stepped in when one school couldn’t make it to the negotiations. They lobbied hard. But we met consensus on pretty much all the resolutions: a combination of their assertiveness, the UK group’s willingness to be flexible, and their own values meant that resolutions previously not outlined as top priorities (like climate refugee protection) were seriously considered. Their reservations on this resolution, due to needs for job security in a just transition, as well as pre-existing population density, were met with deliberations on ‘why not, then, commit to welcoming as many refugees as we can? If all countries collaborated on this resolution, wouldn’t the ‘burden’ be reduced? So, why not?’ 

Thanks to a successful first round, we had the IMF’s support for resolutions on phasing out coal and non-electric vehicles to mobilise against the USA, who we anticipated might be hesitant to make bold fossil-fuel energy and vehicle phase outs. Spurred by the decisive negotiating they’d witnessed, the UK took the front foot in their following negotiations, securing agreements in both.

Unlike in the pre-arranged 1st and 2nd rounds, the groups got to list which groups they wanted to meet with in the 3rd round. The UK were hoping for Brazil, or Shell. But a ‘wildcard’ meant that the group were surprised to meet with the International Working Group Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and had to think on their feet. IWIGIA were lobbying for votes to amend the resolution on protecting nature and biodiversity so that Indigenous peoples living on areas designated as protected would be in charge of their management. The UK group voted against this amendment, deciding that the UK’s stance would probably be that top-down governance is necessary to reach ambitious climate goals. In my opinion, the best outcome was that Indigenous people’s rights to agency in decision-making on unceded, threatened lands was brought to the fore. I was very happy to see that the students could discuss decolonising the climate movement on the fly like that.

Throughout the negotiations, the UK shelved the staunchly independent rhetoric in their briefing letter about avoiding other countries’ climate burdens as they realised as a group that interdependence was at the heart of most of the issues they discussed. Whilst decisive action from the UK might spur other countries to follow suit, our futures also depend on reaching consensus with them.

Before we had started, I’d thought I could anticipate what role the student’s imaginations would play: getting into character and arguing in line with the actor’s values. But, the group showed me that their imaginations were fit for different purposes: for interrogating why not vote for best case scenario outcomes, and for thinking through problems-as-solutions. For example, the UK may not yet have a strong stance on biodiversity, nature and sustainable agriculture, and our climate obligations seem to represent a point of national pride rather than our collective planetary futures. But, amongst these ‘delegates,’ the intra-group discussions sounded a bit like ‘why not walk away from COP26 with strong commitments to reinvent our food systems, and to protect our wildlife? Wouldn’t these be positive outcomes and proud new communication points for the UK?’

It wasn’t just the ability to debate – not to be downplayed amongst this informed, passionate and articulate group – but to listen, and situate themselves in the perspectives of the groups with whom they were negotiating, that led to agreements for addressing collective problems. What I had assumed would be rapid-fire negotiation rounds seemed to become a crash-course in consensus decision making, a skill I’m sure they’ll go on to hone.

In the debrief session, students were asked if they had participated in any peaceful protests or intended to in future. It’s fair to say that a new spirit of rebellion is rising amongst the nation’s teens, who are increasingly realising their stakes, power, and responsibility in shaping the future. But, what’s missing from most of these demonstrations is inclusion of manifestations of what this future could be, look like, and feel like. Activities like the Mock COP provide a momentary glimpse at the world they chant is possible when they do take to the street. One in which global leaders are open-minded, co-operative and ambitious, and agreements between them are shared wins.

Of course, meeting consensus is just the first step. There’s a difference between promoting and delivering on climate targets, and our leaders must be held accountable. Meaningful youth engagement exercises like this might be a good starting point for ensuring that outcomes of the real COP26 are in line with young people’s visions of sustainable, viable futures. Because, what we hold global leaders accountable to is up to us. And our youth are natural visionaries. That much is clear.

As Donella Meadows, co-author of Limits to Growth asks, ‘who’s idea of reality forces us to “be realistic”? The UK group’s vision of the best-case scenario always took up the centre of the virtual negotiation rooms they entered, rather than the behemoth of brokenness that usually takes up this space and stalls our leaders. If we are to learn something from this Mock COP and the youth voice for climate action more broadly, it’s that “being realistic” about our planetary future does not contradict committing to the best possible outcomes. Quite the opposite, and our leaders need to do both this November.

As COP26 approaches, it’s important that young people are able to engage and to have some insight as to what is happening in the negotiations. A Mock COP is an excellent way to do just that.  Jack Nicholls and Emilia Melville have designed and run a Mock COP26 event for school students ages 16+ which can be run online or in person in the lead up to COP26.  If you would like to run a Mock COP in your university, with local state schools, please join the training session on Tuesday 30 June at 2pm. Register here. 

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This blog is written by Dora Young, Master’s by Research (MScR) student at Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Dora Young is an MScR student and human geographer developing participatory mapping methodologies for environmentally just, inclusive ecological management strategies in Bristol. She is interested in how human lives intersect with urban nature, both in policy and in everyday landscapes facing climate and ecological crises, and reads and writes about these themes in her spare time.

 

 

 

 

Interested in postgraduate study? The Cabot Institute runs a unique Master’s by Research programme that offers a blend of in-depth research on a range of Global Environmental Challenges, with interdisciplinary cohort building and training. Find out more.

Exploring the Wildfilm Archive in University of Bristol Special Collections

Posted on by janet.crompton

Bristol is widely seen as the ‘Hollywood’ of wildlife film-making and is famously home to the BBC’s Natural History Unit, formerly established in the city in 1957. The University of Bristol Library’s Special Collections has embarked on a 2 year project to preserve and promote the mixed-media ‘Wildfilm’ archive, supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust.

An example draft shooting script for the first episode of ‘The Living Planet’ (1984), working title ‘Planet Earth’, later re-used in the 2006 BBC series! [G. Lever]

I am the Project Archivist working to catalogue and re-package the material, making it available to search online and access in person at the Special Collections reading room. There are treatments, post-production scripts, dubbing cue sheets, filming trip planning, photographs, research and correspondence – documenting a given programme from conception to broadcast – as well as audience research reports, publicity and press packs.

A Radio Times cover from 1962 featuring Peter Scott for the ‘Look’ series [G. Lever]

A substantial part of the collection is audio-visual, including several hundred reels of 16mm film footage. Among the cans are films produced by Survival Anglia, the BBC, and renowned film-makers Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988) and Eric Ashby MBE (1918-2003). The archive also contains sound recordings, radio broadcasts and audio from talks and festivals. In Digi-Beta format there is a selection of the 150 most important wildlife films selected by BBC producer Christopher Parsons (1932-2002) and a VHS library collected by Jeffery Boswall (1931-2012), another BBC producer whose papers are also in the archive.

An example of 16mm film cans in the collection [G. Lever]

As evidence of method and technique there are two of the home-made sound-proof boxes made by Eric Ashby, enabling him to capture intimate footage of badgers and foxes in their natural state of behaviour. For further interpretation there are some unusual supplementary objects such as the penguin flipper, skulls and skin collected during filming in South America for ‘The Private Life of the Jackass Penguin’ (1973).

Eric Ashby’s home-made box for insulating sound made by camera equipment [Helen Lindsay]

 

A dubbing cue sheet for an episode of the BBC’s ‘The World About Us’ [G. Lever]

It’s an incredibly exciting project to be involved in. I’m working alongside Peter Bassett, a producer with the BBC Natural History Unit who has acted as guardian and advocate for the collection and is a font of knowledge on the history of wildlife film making. Nigel Bryant, Audiovisual Digitisation Officer will join the project for a year to produce lossless digital preservation copies of selected material, enhancing the accessibility of audio-visual media in the collection and protecting the longevity of these fragile, obsolete formats. We’re confident the archive offers significant research value to a variety of disciplines and interests – from the history of media and television to environmental studies, anthropology, history, philosophy and music.

Consistently these films bear witness to changes in the natural world leading us towards today’s climate crisis, educating us about the animal kingdom and the landscape we inhabit, reminding us of our responsibility to protect it.

The artist Jody’s mural of Greta Thunberg on the side of the Tobacco Factory, North Street, Bristol [G. Lever]

The climate activist Greta Thunberg recently guest edited an episode of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. During a Skype interview with Sir David Attenborough, she said:

“When I was younger, when I was maybe 9-10 years old, the thing that made me open my eyes for what was happening with the environment was films and documentaries about the natural world, and what was going on, so thank you for that, because that was what made me decide to do something about it.”

The archive has its foundations in a project led by another Bristol based organisation, Wildscreen, founded in 1982 by Christopher Parsons. Wildscreen hosts an internationally renowned biennial festival on wildlife film (the 20th anniversary festival will be held later this year, 19-23 October 2020) and supports a variety of conservation organisations. It launched ‘WildFilmHistory: 100 years of wildlife film making’ in 2008, a Heritage Lottery funded project that led to a collection of material which now forms part of the ‘Wildfilm’ archive.

Another compelling aspect of the collection is a series of oral history films made by the WildFilmHistory project, spanning all facets of film-making from producers and cameramen to composers and narrators. The interviews capture both the professional and personal alliance between subject and interviewer, enabling discussion to draw out the working relationships behind the creation of pivotal series such as the BBC’s ‘Look’ (1955-1969) and ITV’s ‘Survival’ (1961-2001).

The content of interviews ranges from anecdotal to technical, covering the logistical challenges of filming in remote places, photographic technique, reliability of equipment, battling physical elements, ingenious ways of tackling technological limitations and reflecting on moments of fortune and failure.

It is a renowned ambition of natural history film-making to capture a rare species or behaviour on camera for the first time; paperwork in the archive documents how this is attempted and achieved, and the role narrative construction may have to play in documentary film.

In a recent speech at the World Economic Forum, Sir David Attenborough said:

“When I made my first television programmes most audiences had never even seen a pangolin – indeed few pangolin had ever seen a TV camera!” 

There has been an astonishing level of cultural and technological change since the programme, ‘Zoo Quest for a Dragon’ was broadcast in 1956 on the BBC – then one channel with national coverage only recently extending beyond London and Birmingham. In his published diaries for the Zoo Quest series, ‘Adventures of a Young Naturalist’, Attenborough recollects the obstacles involved in locating species unique to regions of Guyana, Indonesia and Paraguay. Through such programmes viewers gained their first glimpse of far flung parts of the world, now increasingly accessible with the growth of air travel and the tourism industry.

Improvements in technology allow viewers to observe the animal kingdom from new perspectives. The archive spans an era during which television has evolved from black and white to regular colour broadcasting in the late 1960s, and the invention of cinematic IMAX presentation to home based on-demand UHD (Ultra High Definition) 4KTV offered by streaming services today. In the same speech, Attenborough says:

“The audience for that first series, 60 years ago, was restricted to a few million viewers… My next series will go instantly to hundreds of millions of people in almost every country on Earth via Netflix”.  

As well as the BBC Natural History Unit, the archive contains material for Survival Anglia, Granada, Partridge Films and the RSPB Film Unit, and international networks like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and TVNZ.

There is a slim body of literature and theory on the history of wildlife film, but within the archive there is a unique collection of studies and published papers by academics tapping into this potential. Two excellent books are ‘Wildlife Films’ by Derek Bousé (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000) and ‘BBC Wildlife Documentaries in the Age of Attenborough’ by Jean-Baptiste Gouyon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Some material relating to Granada’s ‘Zoo Time’ series (1956-1968) [G. Lever]

All this material is being described in a detailed catalogue, capturing key words such as species and filming locations to ensure relevant content can be found by anyone with an interest in the archive. When complete the full catalogue will be launched on the Special Collections webpage in the summer of 2021.

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This blog was written by Georgina Lever, a project archivist from the Wildfilm Special Collections at the University of Bristol. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from the Centre for Environmental Humanities. View the original blog.

Forest 404: A chilling vision of a future without nature

Posted on by janet.crompton

Binge-watching of boxsets on BBC iPlayer or Netflix is a growing habit. And binge-listening isn’t far behind. Podcast series downloadable through BBC Sounds are all the rage (with a little help from footballer Peter Crouch). Enter Radio 4’s ‘Forest 404’ – hot off the press as a 27-piece boxset on the fourth day of the fourth month (4 April 2019). This is something I’ve been involved in recently: an experimental BBC sci-fi podcast that’s a brand-new listening experience because of its three-tiered structure of drama, factual talk and accompanying soundscape (9 x 3 = 27).

Try to imagine a world in which not only forests but every last trace of the natural world as we know it has been erased (almost……). This eco-thriller by Timothy X. Atack (credits include ‘Dr Who’) is set in the 24th century following a data crash in the early 21st century called The Cataclysm (404 is also the error message you get when a website is unavailable). The action follows lead protagonist Pan (University of Bristol Drama alumna and ‘Doctor Who’ star Pearl Mackie), a sound archivist who archives recordings surviving from the early 21st century. These include items such as a speech by President Obama’s on climate change, Neil Armstrong’s remarks after landing on the moon and Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in love’. Pan is merrily deleting them all (useless and senseless). Until, one day, she stumbles upon a recording of birdsong in the Sumatran rainforest that inexplicably grabs her. In fact, she’s left intoxicated, almost falling in love with it. So begins Pan’s quest to understand its origin and purpose – not to mention her mission to reconstruct the meaning of an almost completely eradicated world of nature.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been working on a project with the world-famous, Bristol-based BBC Natural History Unit (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council), exploring wildlife filmmaking over the past quarter-century. We wanted to include and support a creative dimension going far beyond the project’s more strictly academic and historical elements. Something poetic and performative that could take the study of nature at the BBC into new territory, and away from the visual. But the core theme remains the same: the value of the natural world and its representation in cultural form. This haunting drama focuses on that cultural value very closely by exploring an alien and alienating future world without nature – a world where the only memory of its former existence is preserved in Pan’s sound archive.

This is a deeply historical approach that re-unites me with a piece of research I published some time in the journal Environmental History (2005) what I called the strange stillness of the past – how sounds, both human and non-human generated, were overlooked by most historians. ‘Forest 404’ also ties in with another recent AHRC activity led by my colleague, Dr Victoria Bates. The project was called ‘A Sense of Place: Exploring Nature and Wellbeing through the Non-Visual Senses,’ and I participated as a volunteer. It was about immersing people in natural sensescapes using 360-degree sound and smell technologies. The idea is that we can potentially ‘take nature’ to people who can’t go to it for a first-hand experience.

With my partners at the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council, I see ‘Forest 404’ as part of an emerging research area known as the environmental humanities. The starting point of ‘enviro-hums’ is the conviction that a scientific perspective, no matter how important, cannot do full justice to the complexity of our many layered relationships with nature.

The humanities and arts have a big contribution to make in helping us to appreciate the value of what ecosystem services researchers call cultural services. This denotes the so-called non-material benefits we derive from the natural world – its aesthetic value (beauty), how it inspires imaginative literature, painting and music, its spiritual significance, and its role in forming cultural identities and giving us a sense of place. Last spring, Radio 3 broadcast a week-long celebration of all things forest and trees, following it up with another week in the autumn. ‘Into the Forest’ was all about how forests have supplied an almost unlimited source of inspiration for creative activity. ‘Forest 404’ confronts us with the brutal possibility of a world not just without forests and trees but even lacking a conception of nature. And it makes us think about how that absence impoverishes us culturally and spiritually as well as the more obvious ecological dangers we face.

Accompanying the podcast is an ambitious online survey devised by environmental psychologists at the University of Exeter and operated by The Open University. Data on how we respond to nature has previously concentrated on the visual. This focus on natural soundscapes will add a fresh dimension to what we already know about how contact with nature benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Give the podcast a listen. Then please do the survey – over 7,000 people have already done so. It takes less than 10 minutes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06tqsg3

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member and environmental historian Professor Peter Coates.

Peter Coates

This blog has been republished with kind permission from the Bristol Centre for Environmental Humanities. View the original blog.

Prospective postgraduate students interested in Peter
Coates’ work have the opportunity to apply for his research project on the
Cabot Institute MScR in Global Environmental Challenges, ‘Fishscapes
and fish as biocultural heritage.’ This
one year research master’s project spanning both humanities and natural
sciences investigates the status of fish as a cultural as well as an ecological
species, occupying individual and collective memory.  For more information
about the Cabot
Institute MScR please contact Joanne Norris at cabot-masters@bristol.ac.uk.

The EU, Brexit and nature conservation law

Posted on by janet.crompton

In the lead up to the sold out Brexit debate at the University of Bristol on Friday 29 April 2016, we are posting some blogs from our Cabot Institute members outlining their thoughts on Brexit and potential implications for environmental research, environmental law and the environment.  

The EU plays a fundamental role in shaping the environmental law regimes of its Member States and that of the UK is no exception. A significant proportion of current domestic environmental law derives from EU Regulations (that automatically become part of English law) and EU Directives (that are implemented through national legislation).

Nature conservation law, i.e. the legal regime used to protect environmentally significant habitats and species, is a case in point and the focus of this blog. Conserving nature is key not only from a purely biodiversity standpoint but also from an ‘ecosystem services’ perspective. Ecosystem services are the benefits nature brings to the environment and to people, including supporting services (e.g. nutrient cycling), provisioning services (e.g. food), regulating services (e.g. carbon capture) and cultural services (e.g. recreation). 

Site designation and management is a favoured technique of nature conservation law. The well-known Natura 2000 network, would not be there if it were not for EU Directives, namely the Habitats (92/43/EEC) and Wild Birds Directives (2009/147/EC), implemented in the UK by the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010. Under Article 3 of the Habitats Directive, Member States are indeed required to set up the Natura network composed of Special Areas of Conservation (sites hosting the natural habitat types listed in Annex I and habitats of the species listed in Annex II of the Habitats Directive) and Special Protection Areas (sites for the protection of rare and vulnerable birds as listed in Annex I of the Wild Birds Directive and for regularly occurring migratory species). 

Greenfinch by Mschulenburg – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

In the UK, there are a substantial number of European protected sites: 652 Special Areas of Conservation (including candidate Special Areas of Conservation[1] and Sites of Community Importance[2]) and 270 Special Protection Areas, covering a total of 8,013,467 ha (JNCC statistics as of 28 January 2016). 

Has the establishment of Natura 2000 made a difference to biodiversity protection?

As part of its Smart Regulation Policy, the Commission has initiated a fitness check of the Habitats and Wild Birds Directives to evaluate their effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, relevance and added value. Though the final Commission report on the results of the fitness check will be available only later this year, the draft emerging findings prepared by a consortium of experts do suggest that the Habitats and Wild Birds Directives have substantially contributed to the conservation of nature and to meeting the EU’s biodiversity target.  

It is fair to note that, prior to the EU Directives on nature conservation, the UK did have its own system for habitat protection, most notably based on the designation of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). Introduced in the post-war period by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, the law governing SSSIs has been strengthened over the decades by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, amended by Schedule 9 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. However, the management measures in place for SSSIs are not as stringent as those for the protection of Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas. 

Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) were introduced in the post-war period in the UK to help manage habitat protection.

It is also fair to note that in the marine environment, the UK has taken important steps domestically: the passing of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 in England and Wales (and similar Acts in the devolved administrations) has brought in new domestic marine conservation zones that contribute to the establishment of an ecologically coherent network in UK waters. But the building of such a network is not so disentangled from EU law, considering Art 13(4) of the EU Marine Strategic Framework Directive (2008/56/EC) requires the formation of marine protected areas’ networks in the marine environments of Member States.

Clearly therefore, EU law has contributed much to the development of nature conservation in the UK. Moreover, being part of the EU means that the Commission can exercise its power to bring infringement proceedings against Member States for incomplete or ineffective implementation of EU law, thereby exercising an external check on implementation (for nature conservation, see Commission v UK, Case C-06/04 [2005]  ECR I-9017).

What would Brexit mean for the future of nature conservation law?

What is unknown however is what would Brexit mean for the future of nature conservation law in the UK because much depends on the type of post-Brexit EU-UK relationship and the agreement that will be negotiated. However, it could be argued that compared to other environmental sectors (such as waste and water) nature conservation may be more at risk.  

Indeed, even in the not-too-radical scenario in which the UK chooses to stay within the EEA, the future of nature conservation law will depend on whether there is political willingness to continue to abide by existing commitments, rather than legal obligations stemming from the EEA agreement. This is because, though the EEA agreement does contain many environmental provisions, nature conservation is excluded (Annex XX of the EEA agreement excludes the Habitats and Wild Birds Directive). Consequently, the future of nature conservation law is very uncertain in a post-Brexit world, even in the event of EEA membership.

 

 

[1] Candidate Special Areas of Conservation are sites that have been submitted to the European Commission, but not yet formally adopted.
[2] Sites of Community Importance are sites that have been adopted by the European Commission but not yet formally designated by the government of each country.
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This blog has been written by Cabot Institute member Dr Margherita Pieraccini, a Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol. 
Margherita Pieraccini
Read other blogs in the Brexit series:

How ancient warm periods can help predict future climate change

Posted on by janet.crompton

Several more decades of increased carbon dioxide emissions could lead to melting ice sheets, mass extinctions and extreme weather becoming the norm. We can’t yet be certain of the exact impacts, but we can look to the past to predict the future.

We could start with the last time Earth experienced CO2 levels comparable to those expected in the near future, a period 56m to 34m years ago known as the Eocene.

The Eocene began as a period of extreme warmth around 10m years after the final dinosaurs died. Alligators lived in the Canadian Arctic while palm trees grew along the East Antarctic coastline. Over time, the planet gradually cooled, until the Eocene was brought to a close with the formation of a large ice sheet on Antarctica.

During the Eocene, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere were much higher than today, with estimates usually ranging between 700 and 1,400 parts per million (ppm). As these values are similar to those anticipated by the end of this century (420 to 935ppm), scientists are increasingly using the Eocene to help predict future climate change.

We’re particularly interested in the link between carbon dioxide levels and global temperature, often referred to as “equilibrium climate sensitivity” – the temperature change that results from a doubling of atmospheric CO2, once fast climate feedbacks (such as water vapour, clouds and sea ice) have had time to act.

To investigate climate sensitivity during the Eocene we generated new estimates of CO2 throughout the period. Our study, written with colleagues from the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff and Southampton, is published in Nature.

Reconstruction of the 40m year old planktonic foraminifer Acarinina mcgowrani.
Richard Bizley (www.bizleyart.com) and Paul Pearson, Cardiff University, CC BY

As we can’t directly measure the Eocene’s carbon dioxide levels, we have to use “proxies” preserved within sedimentary rocks. Our study utilises planktonic foraminifera, tiny marine organisms which record the chemical composition of seawater in their shells. From these fossils we can figure out the acidity level of the ocean they lived in, which is in turn affected by the concentration of atmospheric CO2.

We found that CO2 levels approximately halved during the Eocene, from around 1,400ppm to roughly 770ppm, which explains most of the sea surface cooling that occurred during the period. This supports previously unsubstantiated theories that carbon dioxide was responsible for the extreme warmth of the early Eocene and that its decline was responsible for the subsequent cooling.

We then estimated global mean temperatures during the Eocene (again from proxies such as fossilised leaves or marine microfossils) and accounted for changes in vegetation, the position of the continents, and the lack of ice sheets. This yields a climate sensitivity value of 2.1°C to 4.6°C per doubling of CO2. This is similar to that predicted for our own warm future (1.5 to 4.5°C per doubling of CO2).
Our work reinforces previous findings which looked at sensitivity in more recent time intervals. It also gives us confidence that our Eocene-like future is well mapped out by current climate models.

Fossil foraminifera from Tanzania – their intricate shells capture details of the ocean 33-50m years ago.
Paul Pearson, Cardiff University, CC BY

Rich Pancost, a paleoclimate expert and co-author on both studies, explains: “Most importantly, the collective research into Earth history reveals that the climate can and has changed. And consequently, there is little doubt from our history that transforming fossil carbon underground into carbon dioxide in the air – as we are doing today – will significantly affect the climate we experience for the foreseeable future.”

Our work also has implications for other elements of the climate system. Specifically, what is the impact of higher CO2 and a warmer climate upon the water cycle? A recent study investigating environmental change during the early Eocene – the warmest interval of the past 65m years – found an increase in global precipitation and evaporation rates and an increase in heat transport from the equator to the poles. The latter is consistent with leaf fossil evidence from the Arctic which suggests that high precipitation rates were common.

However, changes in the water cycle are likely to vary between regions. For example, low to mid latitudes likely became drier overall, but with more intense, seasonal rainfall events. Although very few studies have investigated the water cycle of the Eocene, understanding how this operates during past warm climates could provide insights into the mechanisms which will govern future changes.
The Conversation
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This blog was written by Cabot Institute member Gordon Inglis, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Organic Geochemistry, University of Bristol and Eleni Anagnostou, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Delivering the ‘Future City’: our economy and the nature of ‘growth’

Posted on by janet.crompton

In Bristol’s European Green Capital year, the University of Bristol and its Cabot Institute have been working with the Bristol Green Capital Partnership and its members to convene a series of four conversations between Bristol academics and city ‘thinkers’ from across public, private and civil society exploring how Bristol delivers the ‘future city’ –  what capacities it needs to be resilient, sustainable and successful and how it can start to develop these in times of changing governance and tightened finances. The conversations will be reflected in a series of four blogs (the fourth below) and then brought together as a policy report as well as discussing at the Festival of the Future City in November.  You can connect to the other blogs from this series at the bottom of this blog.
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Wordle of what we thought we’d talk about…

Cities such as Bristol are increasingly prominent in national growth strategies. The economic growth that Bristol helps to drive plays a fundamental role in shaping many aspects of life within the city. Different sectors, areas and social groups participate in and feel the impacts of growth in different ways. For some, the need for growth is unquestionable, particularly in an era of austerity, with the assumption that growth somehow underpins the pursuit of all other objectives. But for others, the pre-eminent growth logic is divisive socially and unsustainable environmentally. Growth therefore needs to be at least managed and possibly challenged more fundamentally. In this fourth conversation we considered what economic models make sense for the city and what capacity the city has to make changes in the context of a national and international economic system.

Growth – the elephant in the room?

In considering the future economy of the city, growth is the dominant idea but does this have to be economic growth with the associated ongoing increase of resource consumption? As we saw when discussing austerity, GDP growth is not contributing to long term stability environmentally or societally.   This debate was an opportunity to further explore growth and other measures of prosperity and how much is within the city’s control.

One participant drew an analogy with the natural environment and the way that living organisms are born, develop, mature and die – there isn’t enough space for everything to grow indefinitely. If we only talk about growth then we are only talking about half of life and missing the bit where some things die in order to make space to develop and nurture other life or something new.

There are two big reasons for needing growth, one is to service (interest bearing) debt – to pay back more than was borrowed needs growth. The second reason that growth is the mantra, particularly internationally, is that if a population is growing, you need economic growth otherwise by definition living standards are declining – and population growth is something else that is difficult to talk about. There is a common perception of growth as meaning success, an investment for your children.
What are the alternatives and how to we get to something that is more about leading happier, more fulfilled, healthier lives, something about development rather than growth?

International vs. local

One of the problems is that we are part of a global system, but there are things that a city controls and can change. The more business that is done locally or regionally, the more that power and funds move away from big corporations to something more transparent and locally based, where the organisations have a direct interest in the populations that they serve.

If the current systems seem too embedded and talk of developing alternative frames and narratives too difficult to achieve then don’t talk, just do things differently. The idea of ‘everyday making’ is that individuals just start behaving differently day-to-day, it has a cumulative effect and the end product is change. It’s an idea in academic literatures but it can be seen in real life too. Examples include buying food from local suppliers, ethically sourced clothing, and saving in green investment funds. In Bristol, the Bristol Pound is a manifestation of this idea – that by having a local currency people can gradually make more conscious consumption decisions. The new ‘Real Economy’ network has been developed through the Bristol Pound in an attempt to challenge the dominance of big business supermarkets. In the Real Economy, buying groups source food from local producers to start to create a food system that is fairer to all.

Talking about economics

Another issue is that many people feel disempowered when there is talk of economics, they feel that they don’t know enough, that somehow only the experts understand and can manage the system. It’s not really a conversation for the pub or at the school gates and that plays into the hands of the vested interests. The dominant free market right have captured the narrative with the idea that only growth can support ‘hard working families’.
There is such a dominance of growth as being the necessary outcome that it’s easy to portray everyone outside as excluded or naïve. In this narrative, growth translates as success and anything else is irresponsible.

Is it really a free market?

Could a true free market take account of climate change and value natural capital and social capital? These issues are not even really in the (mainstream) discussion yet whilst government subsidies support some industries and don’t let them die or change when they should. For example, banking; or the petroleum industry, which perhaps should be dying because of its costs – even before taking into account the environmental cost. Subsidies skew these markets.

There’s also a simplistic perception that everybody who is in the private sector (or at least the big business, multi-national part of it) must be bad but there are many entrepreneurs who act ethically and responsibly, who want to create good (local) businesses that employ people on fair wages and give back to their communities.

Part of the problem is that we’re all part of a very complex, interdependent system. This interdependency allows risk to be shared. For example if a city loses core industries, employment and income, shared resources from central government are there to help out. These interdependencies are highly complex which is why cities and businesses are not allowed to fail – for now at least, we’re all tied together in a global monetary system.

Politics, power and change

Our current political system draws some of its power from big business, paying taxes and providing employment, but also with the power to lobby to maintain the status quo. The powers in the system not only prevent things from dying but prevent change too and, although of course we need employment and tax receipts, there needs to be a mechanism whereby changes can happen more quickly. At a personal level, change is uncomfortable, so people vote for what is familiar, even if they don’t really like it, because it feels safer. It was suggested that the neo-liberal movement has succeeded in making all of us resistant to change. It’s scary, change takes us into the unknown and that feels risky, especially when we’re feeling vulnerable.

The constant growth narrative feels to some like a form of oppression. Individuals feel disempowered and that no-one else feels like they do, that they are all alone in being the good guy, all alone in arguing against the current system and narrative. There are many groups and conversations reflecting this view but they are fragmented and weak against the established power structures. Can a city bring its dissenting voices together into a more powerful collective? What is within its power to change?

…Wordle of what we talked about during the debate.

New approaches

This conversation started feeling a bit gloomy, that all the wrong people have the power, that we’re all alone in trying to make changes, that anyway we’re a bit powerless in such a globalised system and that the two big reasons for needing growth seemed unarguable.

A few good examples from around the world got us thinking about what could be done at the scale of Bristol. The examples from elsewhere included Ecuador which has legislation for the rights for nature, Sweden is experimenting with six-hour working days and Bhutan has a measure for gross national happiness. What could be the different ways of measuring economic welfare in the city – and which are not trying to put a monetary value on non-monetary issues such as quality of life or care for the natural environment?

The shift from growth to development or other forms of prosperity could involve a major change in how we see the economy and what we want from it. Rather than seeing growth as the end in itself, the economy should be seen as a means to achieve different development goals such as better public services, improved housing, increased inclusion, reduced inequality and greater levels of sustainability.  This would take a cultural and structural shift – overcoming the vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

What about Bristol?

There are already many parts of Bristol that are taking on big business and creating their own alternative economies with flourishing local enterprises and community-led prosperity coming out of them. The people of Bedminster are fighting against supermarkets and pawn shops, Knowle West are looking at pop up manufacturing and 3D printing, Lawrence Weston and Southmead have great momentum and visions for the future. Neighbourhood partnerships are working really well in some of the areas that need them most, and there are great social enterprises in many areas. BUT, there is still the dark side and, unlike some parts of the North, people across the city don’t feel like they’re all in it together, more like ‘us and them’. As we have observed before in these debates, there is significant racial tension and inequality in the city, high levels of child poverty and differences in life expectancy of 10 years between different areas – and, even more shocking, a 20 year difference in healthy years lived.

With these problems in the city it feels really important that we make efforts to work together better, to learn from the good examples and to join up this conversation outside the university and across the city. The big organisations in the city, such as the health sector, universities, council and businesses, have an important civic role in contributing to the wellbeing of the city. They have the resources and potential in their workforces, customers and supply chains to create new partnerships and city-wide change.

A new economic future?

When we talk about the allocation of limited resources there is no shared theory of value and no broader plan against which to share resources. So, for example in the health service, the budgets are boundaried and it’s easier to measure success of spending on cardiac surgery than it is to allocate resources to preventing heart disease with less predictable results somewhere in the future (that short-termism again). People across organisations collaborate in multi-agency partnerships but much of the actual resource allocation comes back to core service delivery. We need to understand where the power lies that can unlock these behaviours and allow longer term decisions to be made.

Again in this debate we talked about reducing inequality and creating a fairer system. The aim of the Bristol Pound was to support a green and fair economy – more equality and a more sustainable way of using resources. There is a wider role for business in contributing to life in the city, to have a positive impact. Local businesses and social enterprises are more connected with their communities and larger organisations have a civic role.

In the future we need to think more about what the economy is for – how to help pay for public services and improve housing, increased inclusion and greater levels of sustainability. We need to understand how to measure the real cost of environmental damage and that growth in itself is not the aim.

And sometimes we just need to do it, to make changes locally, to work together and to act on our beliefs in a way that supports the new economic system that we want to see.

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This blog is written by Caroline Bird, Future Cities and Communities Knowledge Exchange Manager at the Cabot Institute.
Caroline Bird
 
Other blogs in this series

Blog 1: Delivering the ‘Future City’: does Bristol have the governance capacities it needs?
Blog 2: Delivering the ‘Future City’: collaborating with or colluding in austerity?
Blog 3: Delivering the ‘Future City’: engaging or persuading?

Do we care too much about nature?

Posted on by janet.crompton

Over 80% of British adults believe that the natural environment should be protected at all costs. Yet, a recent report suggests that “government progress on commitments to the natural environment has been largely static” (1). Indeed, the budget for DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has been slashed by 10% (£37m) and a reduction in green levies is likely as the government attempts to reduce domestic energy bills.

Has the government lost interest in the environment? Or do we care too much about nature?
To discuss this further, the Cabot Institute hosted a public recording of BBC Radio 4′s Shared Planet, a show which explores the complex relationship between the human populations and wildlife. John Burton, CEO of the World Land Trust (WLT), was the first panellist and is a well known journalist and conservationist who has raised £19m for nature conservation in Africa, Asia and Central and Southern America. He believes that we should think about policy on “the life scale of an oak tree” and that further measures are required to protect the environment, both at home and abroad. The second panellist, Hannah Stoddart, is the head of the economic justice policy team at Oxfam GB and believes that fairer redistribution of wealth is more important than wildlife conservation.
Do we care about nature?
A new report, by the Environmental Funders Network, suggests that one in ten UK adults are now a member or supporter of Britain’s environmental and conservation groups (2). This equates to nearly 4.5 million people, with 81 organisations protecting species and 78 working on climate change. Although 44% of funding is allocated to biodiversity and nature protection, only 7.3% of total funds have been allocated to the climate and the atmosphere. This suggests we are more interested in ‘traditional’ environmental issues than climate change. A recent research project by the RSPB indicates that four out of five UK children are no longer connected with nature (3). Dr Mike Clarke, the chief executive of the RSPB, explains that “…nature is in trouble, and children’s connection to nature is closely linked to this”. At a time where UK species are in decline, are we doing enough to engage young people in the natural world?
An alternative to conservation
Both John Burton and Hannah Stoddart agree that nature is important and that conservation can help protect endangered landscapes. However, many conservation sites are maintained in ”favourable condition”. In other words, they are kept in the condition they were found when designated as conversation sites. A alternative concept, known as rewilding, attempts to reverse the destruction of nature by standing back and allowing nature to control its own destiny.
Currently, farmers have to prevent the development of foreign or exotic vegetation on their land. This results in the development of bare land, lacking in biodiversity. Removal of the ‘agricultural condition’ rule and the introduction of rewilding may allow this land to flourish once again. George Monbiot, author of Feral, is particularly interested in the reintroduction of megafauna, large animals that existed at the end of the last glacial period (>11ka) (4). It seems hard to believe, but over ten thousand years ago, elephants, rhinoceri and camels roamed Europe while other animals, such as bison, wolves and wildcats, were particularly widespread throughout the UK.
Indeed, the re-introduction of missing species can have a profound effect on wildlife. In 1995, grey wolves were reintroducedto Yellowstone National Park for the first time in 50 years (5). The elk population, who were now at risk of predation by wolves, began to redistribute. This allowed willow and aspen trees to flourish and increased the habitat for certain bird species, small mammals, beavers, and moose. This effect, known as a trophic cascade, suggests that careful reintroduction of megafauna into the wild can allow ecosystems to flourish. However, rewilding can backfire. In 2008, endangered Mallorcan toads were reintroduced into the natural population but were infected with Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a well-known fungus that can threaten amphibians (6). As a result, the Mallorcan toads are now in danger of being wiped out once again. Despite this, I believe that rewilding in the UK is feasible and could allow the public, especially children, to reconnect with nature in new and exciting ways.
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  1. Nature Check 2013. http://www.wcl.org.uk/docs/Link_Nature_Check_Report_November_2013.pdf
  2. Passionate Collaboraton. http://www.greenfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/Passionate-Collaboration-Full-Report.pdf
  3. RSPB Connecting with Nature. http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/connecting-with-nature_tcm9-354603.pdf
  4. Monbiot, G. Feral: searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding. Allen Lane.
  5. Ripple et al,. 2001. Trophic cascades among wolves, elk and aspen on Yellowstone National Parks’s northern range.Biological Conservation. 102. 227-234
  6. Walker et al, 2008. Invasive pathogens threaten species recovery programs. Current Biology. 18. R853-R854
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