We need more than words to reverse wildlife decline

ANOTHER LIFE:'BIODIVERSITY" WAS NEVER a word to fire the heart. We know what it means – or do we? According to the Eurobarometer, half the Irish in 2007 had never heard the word and only one in five knew what it meant. But yes, we readers of The Irish Timescan take a bit of scientific shorthand, and the word is so much handier than "everything in nature: all the different species, all the patterns and systems of their lives."

Most schoolkids should be well up on the subject: it’s 17 years since world leaders at Rio made the steady shredding of nature a global concern. But for local county councillors voting on development, mention of biodiversity can still raise hackles. In between, we have a patchy web of aspiration meant to save the wildlife of our countryside and seas.

“We have action plans, commitments, delivery groups, local action, priority lists of species and habitats and a multitude of other measures – in fact, all the kit we need,” says Dr Bob Brown. “The real test is whether any of it is actually making a difference. Sadly, we have concluded that there is little sign of progress . . .”

Dr Brown, a respected ecologist, is chairman of the Northern Ireland Biodiversity Group, a voluntary “stakeholder” body charged with assessing the delivery of the north’s Biodiversity Strategy. We’ve got one of those in the Republic – a National Biodiversity Plan – and a similar Irish Biodiversity Forum to scrutinise progress. The two groups will be comparing notes at an all-Ireland conference in Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens next Wednesday, staged together with Comhar, the Sustainable Development Council, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The inelegance of its title – “Biodiversity and Planning: Developing Connectivity for Sustainability” – is excused by its purpose: to help wildlife move about in Ireland, surviving pressures from people and escaping the impacts of climate change.

The need for wildlife “corridors”, linking conservation zones and letting species meet, mate and keep their gene pool healthy, has been obvious for ages, but climate change adds new imperatives. A future of floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves, spread of alien species, a rising pollution of coastal waters, have all changed the ecological picture. Escape from wrecked or intolerable habitats, and species movement north or upwards to cooler conditions, demands conservation planning that will take in whole landscapes, as well as riverbanks, woods, hedgerows and other linking routes to survival. New sanctuaries will have to be chosen, on a scale that offers the widest range of habitats and niches.

But will this ever happen? Looming over next week’s conference is the logo “2010 ­ International Year of Biodiversity”. That’s one way of presenting it. In 2004, when Ireland held the EU presidency, an international congress sent out the “Malahide message”:­ 2010 was to be the year by which Europe had halted its loss of biodiversity. Few had much hope this could be realised. Even in Northern Ireland, with a more generous target date of 2016, all the evidence points, says Dr Brown, to continuing declines of wildlife. From the part of Ireland that has pioneered the central collection of wildlife data, based in the Ulster Museum, and conducted some of the most ambitious surveys, it is startling to find Dr Brown’s group complaining strongly of “a complete dearth of data relating to priority species” and a wide failure of other usable information on habitats and their wildlife. Of 271 priority species, for example, the group had to settle for a mere 18 examples to assess progress. The continuing decline of the curlew (pictured) sets the tone of many conclusions in its report.

When it comes to knowing what species live where, however, and sharing the knowledge online, the Republic has been catching up fast.Established only two years ago on the initiative of the Heritage Council, the National Biodiversity Data Centre at Waterford Institute of Technology has assembled its first million records of Ireland’s flora and fauna, gathered in from some 40 different sources. There could be another million to go, judging from a study earlier this decade that found 84 separate sets of data scattered between different government departments and agencies, universities, ecological consultants, NGOs, hobby groups and amateur naturalists.

But already the knowledge archived at Waterford is being made freely available online through an interactive GIS mapping system, as described in the current Biodiversity Ireland, the Centre's colourful bulletin (maps.biodiversityireland.ie). Its director, Dr Liam Lysaght, promises further potential as the data is fed into the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, linking all the EU partners in planning the future of nature conservation.

• Report available from NIBG Secretariat,
• 89 Loopland Drive, Belfast BT6 9DW.
• E-mail NIBG@nienvironmentlink.org

EYE ON NATURE

Lár mí Dheire Fómhair, le linn an aimsir bhreá, cúpla míle taobh ó dheas de Chluain Mhic Nóis, áit a bhfuil an abha breá leathan, chonaic mé sionnach ag snámh trasna na Sionnainne, gan stró ar bith air.

Donncha Ó hÉallaithe, Indreabhán, Co na Gaillimhe.

Large numbers of long-tailed tits appear in the garden every autumn. Where do they come from and where do they go?Robert Hill, Faithlegg, Co Waterford.

In autumn, family parties come together and form roaming flocks looking for food. They break up in spring to breed in woodland and hedgerows.

I collect slugs and snails after dark. They seem to be out in far greater numbers around the full moon. Is this an illusion or is there a scientific basis for it?

Joy Larkcom, Bandon , Co Cork

This is an opportunity for you to carry out a scientific survey by taking a specific area and counting there for several months, taking prevailing conditions into account.

Among the sparrows that came to my garden this summer was an albino. At first it was completely white, but gradually through the summer the ordinary sparrow colours came through.Sean O'Connell, Edenderry, Co Offaly

Michael Viney welcomes observations at Thallabawn, Carrowniskey PO, Westport, Co Mayo. Email: viney@anu.ie. Include a postal address.