Back from the brink

From New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/nl/0923/back.html

Conservation isn't all doom and gloom. There are plenty of success stories like the bald eagle, and we need to hear more about them, says Andreas Gigon CONSIDER the following news bites: "Today's rate of species loss has been matched only during periods of mass extinctions", "Industrial emissions of carbon dioxide will lead to massive disruption of the global climate with catastrophic consequences for humankind", "Soil erosion in Africa is threatening millions of people with starvation". We have all read these, or others like them, for they are typical of the kind of stories that conservationists tend to stress and newspaper editors like to publish. News is rarely news unless it is bad. It has always been assumed in conservation that bad news is a more effective means of motivating people to act, but this is dangerously misguided. Being steadily bombarded by stories about environmental failures can lead to hopelessness and resignation. People start to question the point of spending up to ?2 billion a year in Europe on nature conservation if the situation seems only to deteriorate. Supporters of conservation become more and more discouraged. Conservation successes are more common than people think. Many species are on the road to recovery. In the US, the bald eagle and the relict trillium are no longer declining. Better still, the brown pelican and the Mississippi alligator might no longer need the protection of the US Endangered Species Act. In Europe, the ibex has been successfully reintroduced in the Alps. Sparrowhawks and goshawks have recovered in many parts of the world after the banning of certain pesticides. Most of these improvements have not been widely reported, yet celebrating them can counter the apathy induced by bad news and give people hope. With this in mind, I have got together with over 30 other scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the University of Zurich and local conservation authorities. We have drawn up "Blue Lists": registers of endangered species whose fortunes have improved. We have reported on this in detail in Conservation Biology, vol 14, p 402. The Blue Lists complement the Red Lists kept by conservation authorities and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which were drawn up to cover plant and animal species in decline or threatened with extinction, and those that are already extinct. Blue Lists register those Red List species that have stabilised or even increased in a particular region. The point is to provide a scientific way of measuring the success of conservation efforts. We tried this out in a densely populated, intensely farmed region of 3431 square kilometres in northern Switzerland. Of the 482 animal species--vertebrates, butterflies, grasshoppers and dragonflies--and 1624 species of flowering plants and ferns living in the area, about 40 per cent are on the Red Lists as "vulnerable", "endangered" or "critically endangered". We found that over the past 10 to 15 years, 240 of these species had stabilised at a viable level, and a further 74 had actually increased in abundance. We included all these on a Blue List. In 90 per cent of cases the success was due to conservation efforts, which tended to help the whole ecosystem and its inhabitants, as well as the particular species targeted. For example, planting new hedges and reducing the intensive farming of grasslands led to a dramatic increase in the numbers of red-backed shrike, so much so that it could be removed from the Red List. Regular mowing of large abandoned limestone grasslands, along with local reseeding, increased the abundance of several regionally endangered plant species such as meadow sage, small scabious and kidney vetch. This also stabilised populations of some butterflies, including the pearly heath and the chalk-hill blue. Protecting the nesting sites of the endangered mouse-eared bat significantly increased the numbers of this species. These turnarounds are partly due to the fact that in this particular region the destruction of biodiversity was so apparent, and the Red Lists so long, that the public and politicians wanted to do something about it. By highlighting these improvements, the Blue Lists should build on this enthusiasm. We do recognise, though, that our results cannot automatically be extrapolated to other parts of the world where the conservation and political situations are very different. Just as too much bad news can discourage people from campaigning for change, there is a risk that too much good news can lead to complacency. To avoid this, and ensure the Blue Lists give an objective and balanced view, it is important that they are always used in parallel with the Red Lists. There is another danger with success in conservation: boosting the population of one species can have a negative impact on others. For example, adult crested newts feed on the larvae of the endangered tree frog. Too many newts could spark a decline in tree-frog numbers. So conservation projects should consider not just individual species but whole communities and ecosystems. The stumbling block in saving species from the threat of extinction is not a lack of scientific or practical knowledge, but its application. The priorities and whims of local people and politicians play a crucial role in deciding whether correct conservation measures are taken. This is where the Blue Lists come into play. They show people that efforts in conservation are worthwhile because they do yield positive results. Judging by the reactions of the public, the media and politicians to our investigation in Switzerland, Blue Lists can motivate people and give hope and encouragement to conservationists. Bad news may focus attention on environmental tragedies, but success stories bring it home to people that the outlook needn't always be bleak. Andreas Gigon is professor of plant ecology and conservation biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich From New Scientist magazine, 23 September 2000.