A changing landscape: the threat to Britain's biodiversity
From Future of Local Services to the Public
Contents |
Summary
Biodiversity and natural habitats are increasingly under threat as a result of technological developments, the alteration of social habits and the possibility of large-scale responses to phenomena like climate change. Factors already having a threat on biodiversity include the rising demand for food and biofuels sea-level rise, extra fire risk and extreme weather events.
Horizon-scanning research published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology suggests that environmental manipulation could be a quick-fix way to mitigate climate change: putting trillions of lenses in orbit to deflect the sun's energy, building giant mirrors in space, fertilising oceans with iron filings and laying reflective covers on deserts have all been suggested, and these technologies are likely to impact heavily on biodiversity.
Impacts
- As diseases such as bird flu are introduced into humans public attitudes may alter and there may be less political and financial support for conservation and willingness to care for the environment
- As humans lead more sedentary lives their engagement with nature is eroded and there is less incentive to counter human impacts on biodiversity
- Politics and public policy may be unable to keep pace with the environmental changes of the future
- Science may be unable to predict and find solutions to the environmental changes of the future, and will become less able to inform policy
Relevance
Innovations
One potentially positive development could be the large-scale restoration of habitats to encourage wildlife seen as iconic. In a Dutch experiment, a 13,800-acre reserve was created with populations of animals that were common in medieval times. The paper says that comparable schemes are likely to occur in places such as East Anglia and the Scottish Highlands where creatures such as the lynx might be introduced.
References
Related Links
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/20/climatechange.endangeredhabitats
