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INTO THE EREMOZOIC

~ perspectives on the biodiversity crisis

INTO  THE  EREMOZOIC

Tag Archives: Habitat loss

British Moths in decline

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by Into the Eremozoic in Europe, News, Quotes

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Climate Change, Habitat loss, Moths, Pesticides, UK

A recent report from the charity Butterfly Conservation and the agricultural research station Rothamsted Research has cast a revealing light on the status of Britain’s moths.  The report is based on analysis of data from light traps, to which the insects are attracted (like a moth to a flame…) and safely held so they can be identified before release.  The study uses trapping records dating back to 1968 from a nationwide network of traps, and thus represents a uniquely comprehensive overview of trends in moth populations.

Unfortunately, it’s not good news.  The report reveals that populations of two-thirds of Britain’s macro-moths declined since 1968, with some suffering drastic declines, and 62 species suffering extinction in the 20th Century.  Population declines were more marked in southern England than in northern areas of the British Isles.  The study also identifies a (much smaller) influx of previously unrecorded species, with 27 new moths found here since 2000.

Garden Tiger (Arctia caja) : 92% decline in 40 years

Garden Tiger (Arctia caja): 92% decline in 40 years

There are several factors thought to be driving this general decline, notably urbanisation and habitat loss, and increased use of agricultural and garden pesticides.  It also seems that climate change – an increasingly significant pressure on biodiversity – is exerting a measurable effect on moth populations; for example, warmer conditions in the north of Britain may contribute to the less drastic population declines there relative to the south (which has also suffered the most intense habitat depletion).  Climate change is also thought to be encouraging the colonisation of southern areas by continental species new to the UK.

Although this significant report did attract some mainstream media attention, it’s fair to say that this decline will, in practice, not trigger widespread concern.  Although UK moth species outnumber butterfly species by over 40 to one, moths are much less appreciated than their more glamorous relatives.  Popular interest in nature conservation all too often foregrounds more attractive or charismatic species, and neglects the less prominent or “important”, a bias also reflected in conservation biology research.  Moreover, despite the essential role moths play in ecosystems – the Rothamsted report estimates a mind-boggling 35 billion caterpillars are eaten by chicks of Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) in Britain every year! – moths are easily overlooked and unappreciated.

This is a shame.  Moths are a fascinating group, with names that seem to evoke the world of the 18th Century naturalists who first named them.  True Lover’s Knot, Figure of Eighty, The Confused, Archer’s Dart, Green Horned Fairy, The Sprawler, Merveille du Jour, Scarce Silver Lines, The Lackey, Maiden’s Blush, Dark Dagger, Angle Shades, Red-Necked Footman: it reads like a list of characters from some fantasy novel.  For me, moths have a definite air of mystery about them, an association reinforced by the fact that most fly only at night.

Most of us are familiar with the classic sight of a disorientated moth fluttering around a candle or lightbulb, perhaps to its doom; it is drawn to the many artificial light sources with which humans have blitzed the night, and is suddenly blind to the moon its ancestors have followed for millions of years.  When one of these mysterious, less-appreciated Lepidopterans careers confusedly towards the light, we’re seeing a mysterious denizen of the natural world colliding headlong with the inhospitable human-dominated one, and often coming off worst.

However, the same phenomenon can be used deliberately and benignly to study moths via light traps, and thus inform measures to conserve them and their habitats.  I hold out hope that the light shone on the moth decline by this recent report may increase the will to address it.

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

E. O. Wilson

Bankers take their cut – from rainforests

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by Into the Eremozoic in Asia, Context, News

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Campaigns, Forests, Greenwash, Habitat loss, HSBC, Sarawak, WWF

Banking giant HSBC have been getting bad press recently, with allegations of provision of bank services to criminals in the tax haven of Jersey under scrutiny.  The scandal of the bank’s involvement in permitting extensive money laundering in the USA also continues.  Another example of HSBC’s impressive grubbiness has received much less media attention, but shows a similar relaxed ethical attitude – the bank has been investing in rainforest destruction in the Malaysian territory of Sarawak, on the world’s third largest island of Borneo.


A report by campaign group Global Witness claims HSBC has provided financial services to companies linked to large-scale deforestation and “widely suspected of systematic bribery and corruption”, earning some $130 million in the process.  Four companies in particular – Shin Yang, Sarawak Oil Palms, WTK and Ta Ann – are using HSBC investment to finance clearance of biodiverse forest in Sarawak.  Several of the companies implicated have links to the family of the corrupt First Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Borneo is one of the most important areas for tropical forest in the world, but its ancient forests have taken a brutal battering over the last few decades.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Sarawak region of the island.  The Malaysian state has only 0.5% of the world’s forest area, but exports nearly half the world’s tropical plywood, and, incredibly, more tropical timber logs than all Latin American and African countries combined.  This onslaught has predictably dire consequences for both biodiversity and the quality of life of indigenous people.

Trashed forests and logging roads in Sarawak, intact forest over the border in Brunei…..

HSBC’s involvement is significant beyond the actual money they supply to the logging mafia; their backing gives dodgy firms an undeserved legitimacy that comes in very handy in attracting other business and investment. Global Witness estimate that the Sarawak firms have expanded to pursue similar operations in a dozen other countries.

HSBC spend a lot of time in cultivating a responsible image, for example co-opting conservation giant WWF into helping present a green face to the world.  Of course, the bank hopes we’ll take this at face value and won’t ask too many awkward questions about what they do with their (our?) money – presumably WWF also share this hope, despite, ironically, having explicitly criticised Ta Ann’s corrupt practices last year.  However, the recent wave of scandals assailing HSBC mean this image is wearing extremely thin, and their involvement in the devastation of Sarawak speaks more truth about the bank than their green rhetoric will ever reveal.  There’s also a lesson here about the sort of company to which WWF are happy to lend their prestigious panda; if HSBC get to use it, what value as a conservation icon does it really have?

Campaigners fight roads threat to UK’s “protected” sites

01 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by Into the Eremozoic in Europe, News

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Campaigns, Habitat loss, Protected areas, Roadbuilding, UK

Plans by the UK government to push through a new programme of road-building is attracting opposition from environmentalists.  The planned schemes threaten a number of supposedly protected wildlife sites, including 4 National Parks, 7 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 39 Sites of Special Scientific Interest, 3 National Nature Reserves, 54 Ancient Woods and 234 Local Wildlife Sites.  The cumulative cost of the schemes is £30bn, which is four times the internationally-negotiated total global budget for biodiversity protection.

It seems that the lessons of the recent past have not been learnt by UK policymakers; a hugely controversial roadbuilding programme was opposed in the 1990s by a wave of determined action by protestors, which led to large cuts in the programme, and thus many schemes being scrapped and green places spared.  The fact that campaigners are mobilizing on a national scale again to oppose the new roads is a welcome response to the return of the bulldozer mentality.

Ethiopian Wolf populations genetically fragile

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by Into the Eremozoic in Africa, News, Species Focus

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Ethiopia, Habitat loss, Wolves

A recent study into the genetic make-up of populations of the Ethiopian Wolf (Canis simensis) has worrying implications for the conservation of this endangered canid, only 500 of which are thought to remain.  The 12-year study found that populations of the species are relatively isolated from one another, which means that the populations are less robust in the face of pressures such as disease or environmental change.

The Ethiopian Wolf is the world’s rarest canid, and Africa’s only wolf, and is threatened by the degradation and fragmentation of its highland habitat.  It would be a tragedy if this species loses its struggle for survival.

Madagascar’s endemic palms at risk

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Into the Eremozoic in Africa, News

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Endemism, Habitat loss, IUCN, Madagascar, Palms, Red list

A recent report from the IUCN warns that 83% of palms on the island of Madagascar are at risk of extinction, threatened mainly by habitat loss and over-collection.  Because all palms on Madagascar are endemic – unique to the island – any palm species lost there represents a global extinction.

The Critically Endangered “Suicide Palm”, Tahina spectabilis….only 30 mature trees remain

These alarming palm statistics were contained in the latest update of the IUCN Red List, a global assessment of the conservation status of species.  The recent update lists 20,219 species as at risk of extinction worldwide.

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Always think of the universe as one living organism, with a single substance and a single soul; and observe how all things are submitted to the single perceptivity of this one whole, all are moved by its single impulse, and all play their part in the causation of every event. Remark the intricacy of the skein, the complexity of the web.

Marcus Aurelius, first century CE

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