To download copies of Denbighshire's Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) and for more information about biodiversity in Denbighshire, visit www.biodiversityindenbighshire.co.uk
What is Biodiversity?
Biodiversity is the richness and variety of life. It includes all living creatures and plants from the commonest species to the most endangered and also the complex variety of habitats in which they live.
These range from vast tropical rainforests and warm seas that are teeming with life to deserts and arctic tundra where conditions are harsh and only a small number of plants and animals survive.
1.9 million species of plants, animals and microbes are currently known about but new species are constantly being discovered across the world – scientists believe there may be 5-30 million species in existence!
Biodiversity is everywhere, from the smallest insect to the tallest tree, it includes us and its survival will greatly depend on our ability to understand, appreciate, and make space for it.
The fabric of life
All living things are dependant on each other. Even we humans rely on biodiversity to survive. We are dependant on biodiversity for our food, clothing, health, well-being and enjoyment of life. The fundamental social, ethical, cultural and economic values of Biodiversity have been recognised in religion, art and literature from the earliest days of recorded history. Wildlife also provides vital environmental services that we would find extremely difficult to do ourselves. It is believed that an ecosystem with high biodiversity is more resilient and better able to adapt to and recover from stresses such as drought, than one with very little diversity. Below are just some of the ways that we humans benefit from Biodiversity.
Food
We rely heavily upon plants and animals for our food although only a small proportion is used on a large scale. Of the 10-50,000 plants thought to be edible, about only 150 are used as human food and as economics have become more global, humans have concentrated on fewer species so that today about 90% of the worlds food comes from 15 species and of that two-thirds from only three – wheat, corn and rice. An important reason for conserving biodiversity is the wild plant gene pool, needed to augment the narrow genetic base of these established food crops and provide disease resistance, improved productivity and different environmental tolerances. Similarly, although many kinds of animal are utilised as food, again most consumption is focused on a few species. This means there is a vast untapped potential for increasing the range of food products suitable for human consumption.
Medication
Many drugs are derived from biological sources, many of which have been derived from plants that were used in traditional medicine. For example, Peruvian Indians used an extract of the bark of the Cinchona tree to cure Malaria. This led to the discovery of quinine as an anti-malarial treatment. Other examples include aspirin which is derived from willow and the heart drug, digitalis, which comes from foxgloves. Relatively few plants have been thoroughly investigated so there are many potential sources of new drugs.
Raw Materials
Many industrial materials come from biological resources. These include building materials like wood and stone, fibres like cotton and wool, dyes such as indigo (from a plant) and cochineal (from a beetle), rubber and oil. There is enormous untapped potential for sustainably using materials from a wider diversity of organisms. (Illustrations, especially someone tapping for rubber, picking cotton.)
Vital services
Biodiversity provides many services that we take for granted. It plays a part in regulating the chemistry of our atmosphere, through plants using carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, and our water supply. Plants absorb water through their roots and release it through evaporation from their leaves. Sewage is broken down by microbes at our water treatment plants. Vegetation in water catchments regulate and stabilise water run-off and act as a buffer against extreme events such as flooding. Biodiversity is also directly involved in recycling nutrients and providing fertile soils. Worms and soil microbes breakdown dead plant and animal matter releasing nutrients back into the soil – the basis of composting. Trees and other vegetation protect the soil from salinisation and leaching of nutrients, prevent landslides and safeguard coastlines and riverbanks from siltation. Bees and other animals pollinate various plants, many of which are of commercial value, for example, approximately one third of the food we eat relies on bumblebee pollination and they are thought to have an annual commercial value in the UK of about £200 million.
Pleasure
Wildlife is worth conserving simply because of the pleasure it gives us. It, and the landscapes it is part of, are beautiful, spectacular and intriguing. Many people enjoy walking, cycling or horse riding in the countryside, others like bird watching and many more watch natural history programmes on television. Biodiversity has provided inspiration for a myriad of artists as well as biologists and naturalists, such as musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, poets, photographers and explorers. Photos of people enjoying themselves in Denbighshire.
Income
Much of our tourism is dependent on a rich biodiversity as it is the beauty of the landscape and its associated wildlife that draws many visitors. A visitor survey carried out by the National Trust for the whole of Wales showed that well over half of all holiday trips to Wales are motivated by the environment and that it is also an attraction for many others coming on business or to visit relatives.
Future Options
We do not know what all of our needs will be in the future, or what the human race will value as important in hundreds of years time. We have barely begun to discover the medicinal qualities of the plants on Earth and may not yet be aware of all the life supporting services Biodiversity provides us with. One of the main reasons for preserving biological diversity is so that we, and all the other species on the planet, can adapt to unforeseen changing circumstances. By allowing species to become extinct and destroying ecosystems we are cutting off options that we do not yet know exist or are needed.
Biodiversity under threat...
The UK has lost over 100 species during the past 100 years.
Extinction is a fact of life. Since the first life forms appeared on Earth, the fossil record has documented species evolving and dying out. In former geological times as species became extinct, new ones evolved to fill the gaps they left. However, now, this is in many cases impossible as not just individual species, but whole habitats are being lost and the rate of extinction is far higher than at any previous time.
The Earth’s environment is changing more rapidly than ever before, largely due to the effects of human activity. Humans have had the greatest impact on the survival of wild plants and animals for thousands of years since hunter-gatherers first collected seeds and fruits and hunted mammoth and bison. When the human population was small and their lifestyles simple, the impact was low. As populations increased and technology developed, human needs and our ability to manipulate the natural environment increased, resulting in an even greater impact. It is over the last 200 years, particularly the last 50, that the impact has been greatest with huge losses of habitats and many species driven to extinction across the globe.
For example, more land has been converted to agriculture since 1945 than was in the whole of the 18th and 19th centuries combined. It is estimated that 90% of all large fishes have disappeared from the worlds oceans in the past half century as a result of industrial fishing activities and that 20% of corals have been lost in just 20 years with a further 20% severely degraded. It will take hundreds of thousands of years to restore what is being destroyed in just a few decades.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment whose results were published in March 2005, concluded that humans have changed most ecosystems beyond recognition in a dramatically short space of time and the way in which society obtains its resources has caused irreversible changes that are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth. It is thought that the rate of species extinction is now 100 – 1,000 times greater than the normal background rate and that 10-30% of all mammal, bird and amphibian species are currently threatened with extinction.
It is modern day life that poses the greatest threat to biodiversity. The rate of loss of species is greater now than at any time in history.
In Denbighshire the picture is just as bleak with our natural environment today much poorer and depleted than in our grandparents time. The need to halt this loss of biodiversity is just as important here, at this local level, as in the Amazon rainforest or the tropical reefs. Click here for a list of Denbighshire’s declining habitats and species?
The main reasons for the decline of Biodiversity?
• Habitat loss has been the greatest factor affecting biodiversity. Habitat loss and degradation affect 86% of all threatened birds, 86% of all threatened mammals and 88% of all threatened amphibians. Some of the main causes are:
1. Changes in agriculture
Feeding the large human population has inevitably led to many areas of land being cleared which has considerably lowered its biodiversity. In the UK, modern agriculture has intensified, with larger fields and increased use of chemicals. This has resulted in hedgerow destruction, loss of wildflower meadows, drainage of wetlands and increased pollution.
2. Commercial forestry
Extensive stands of non-native trees can produce high timber yields, but they are, in many cases, virtual deserts in biodiversity terms as few native UK species can utilise them as suitable habitats. Improvements are, however, being made to increase the biodiversity value of many of these forests through management practices such as thinning.
3. Over - exploitation of natural resources
In modern times, humans have rarely given consideration to conserving the environments they inhabit or species they utilise. In the age of technological progress and mass consumerism, little thought has been given to our natural environment and its ability to withstand the pressures of human activities and lifestyle. Internationally, the felling of rainforest for tropical hardwood has destroyed huge expanses of our most species-rich habitat, and quarrying and mining can destroy habitats at an alarming rate. Many fish populations in waters around Britain, such as cod, have been reduced to critically low levels through over-fishing. Once a population has crashed it may take decades to recover, if it recovers at all. For example, some fish species are being fished from our waters before reaching sexual maturity, thus preventing natural replenishment of populations.
4. Development pressure
The UK is a relatively small collection of islands with a large human population where there are many demands on the land. The building of roads, industry or housing has often taken priority over nature conservation. Even if habitats are not wholly destroyed they may be fragmented (broken up) into very small areas, which may be too small for the plant and animal communities to remain viable.
• Introduction of non-native species
This is believed to be the second greatest factor affecting biodiversity. Exotic plants and animals that have arrived from other parts of the world (often because humans have transported them) are known as introduced or alien species. Their impact on local ecosystems can be severe as they may prey on native species or compete for resources. In the UK, plants like Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam have spread along the banks of many of our rivers, choking out many of the native species. American Mink is an introduced fauna (animal) species that has devastating effects on native wildlife. Having been introduced to the UK in the 1920s for fur farming, Mink have spread to almost every part of Britain, with the exception of a few isolated islands. Their presence has caused dramatic declines in numbers of certain ground-nesting birds and, in particular, Water Voles, now believed to be Britain’s fastest declining mammal. The grey squirrel is another infamous alien, being strongly linked to the decline of the native red squirrel in the UK. In addition to the effects of predation of introduced species, there is also concern about the interbreeding of introduced species with native organisms. Unnatural hybrids may differ greatly from well-adapted native plants and animals.
• Pollution
One consequence of industrialisation has been the release of chemicals into the environment which, more often than not, has had adverse effects on wildlife. The Otter, for example, nearly went extinct in Wales during the 1980s due to the pollution of water ways. The situation has improved, and there are laws and regulations in place to safeguard against such polluting activities, though accidents and deliberate dumping do continue to pose threats to wildlife.
• Climate change
Most scientists agree the planet is warming, and that this is partly due to increased carbon dioxide emissions from human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. Whilst fluctuations in climate over the Earths history are a natural phenomenon, it is believed that this process is being accelerated and exacerbated through the actions of man. It is not completely known how global warming will affect biodiversity, but it will have an effect. Changes in climate could affect the ability of species to survive and reproduce. A relatively small increase in temperature could have very significant effects on patterns of biodiversity. Climate change is already recognised as a serious threat to coral reefs. Increases or decreases in temperature cause corals to expel their symbiotic algae upon which they depend for most of their food. It is estimated that even with the best case scenario predictions for global warming, the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world, will lose 95% of its corals by 2050.
• Lack of environmental awareness
It may be argued that many of the environmental problems we face today (including all those mentioned above) have come, in part, from a lack of mainstream awareness and understanding of the fragility and true (non-financial) value of our natural environment. The more aware we become of biodiversity and how to conserve it, the more equipped we will each be to play our part in protecting and enhancing this precious resource.
Conserving Biodiversity
The concept of biodiversity was first introduced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 (commonly known as the Rio Earth Summit). Conservationists have been working to conserve wildlife and habitats for decades but it is only since this Summit that governments across the globe have collectively recognised the dramatic biodiversity losses experienced over the past 50 years. From this the International Convention on Biological Diversity (ICBD) was drawn up and signed by over 150 countries of the world, including the UK, to halt the ever-increasing global loss of biodiversity. Signatories recognised that it was the prime responsibility of each country to address biodiversity losses falling under their jurisdiction and agreed to produce action plans and programmes to achieve this.
The UK Biodiversity Action Plan was one of the first to be produced in 1994. It outlined a more targeted approach to nature conservation in Britain and recommended that every county should produce its own strategy for maintaining and enhancing biodiversity, translating national priorities into local action. Thus, Local Biodiversity Action Plans (LBAPs) were born.
