Scotland ‘Sliding Towards the Collapse of Our Ecosystem’
By IAN JOHNSTON ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT
SCOTLAND will fail to meet an international deadline to stop the alarming decline of its wildlife, a report seen by The Scotsman warns.
Up to 60 per cent of the nation’s species could be in decline, raising fears the country is facing a future eco-system collapse.
Among those most at risk of extinction are the great crested newt, the red squirrel, the common skate, the black grouse and juniper, according to the report by some of the country’s leading environmental groups. Now those same groups are calling for a renewed effort to insure the demise of some of the country’s rarest species is reversed.
In the report, Call 999: an emergency for Scotland’s biodiversity, the country’s leading environmental groups said the target of halting the loss of species and habitats by 2010 – as promised 15 years ago at the Rio Earth Summit – was not going to be met on current trends.
The Scottish Environmental LINK umbrella group now plans to launch a joint campaign next month to mark 1,000 days before the start of 2010 to highlight the need for urgent and renewed action to safeguard Scotland’s animals and plants and prevent a slide towards ‘ecosystem collapse’. This is the feared consequence of allowing continual dramatic declines in wildlife: that whole food-chains could essentially fall apart causing serious problems for all life on the planet, including humans.
According to the latest figures, 60 per cent of species and 68 per cent of habitats in Scotland are declining or in an unknown condition. About a third of animals and plant environments are stable or increasing.
The landmark 1992 Rio summit in Brazil saw politicians around the world commit to at least halting biodiversity loss over the next 18 years.
But the Call 999 report says: “Taken together, the trends indicate that we will not meet the target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010 and moreover… the UK biodiversity action plan does not have a realistic chance of achieving the target.
“Significant changes to processes supporting biodiversity conservation are required if Scotland and the UK is to get anywhere near its 2010 target.
“With climate change likely to become a key driver affecting the quality and composition of biodiversity in the next decades, we urgently need to build resilience into our fragmented eco-systems by creating extensive habitat networks and giving nature the room to adapt.
“Incentives for agricultural and land management practices must tackle the biggest threats to biodiversity by starting to deliver a wider landscape that supports biodiversity as a result of land use and not despite it.
“Given the increase of resources necessary to support sufficient levels of monitoring, we consider it unlikely that Scotland can increase its rate of progress towards the targets sufficiently by 2010.”
Dr Deborah Long, convener of Scottish Environmental LINK’s biodiversity taskforce and a co-author of the report, called for a new target date to be set because 2010 was now unachievable.
“We are not going to make it. Everyone is pretty much agreed on that at least in private, if they are not saying it in public,” she said.
“We need to maintain momentum because if progress isn’t quick enough, there is a tendency to ditch the process and try something new, which could work, but always sets you back.
“We don’t want to get to 1 January, 2010, and the government says: ‘Oh well, we didn’t make it, never mind’. We want to assess where we are and extend the target. If we don’t have something to work towards we are never going to make it.”
Speaking privately, a senior figure in one of the LINK organisations also dismissed the chances of halting biodiversity by the target date.
“We have absolutely no chance of doing that. We have failed,” he said, adding that convincing the public of the need to save species was a key issue.
“One of the things that’s always an issue when you are talking about biodiversity, is how do you make it interesting and tangible to somebody? We have lost so many species, what difference does it make to the world losing passenger pigeons? There are 30 million species on the planet and most of them are a beetle. How do you get people excited about losing a beetle?”
The loss of an individual species might not cause humans any serious problems, but a general decline in biodiversity risks sudden and dramatic falls in populations. In simple terms, ecosystems can collapse like a house of cards if a plant species dies out, causing the extinction of herbivorous animals that eat it and carnivores that eat them.
Some believe the 2010 target would be achievable if enough money was made available.
Stuart Housden, director of RSPB Scotland, said about GBP 43 million a year should be enough. “Meeting the 2010 target for halting the loss of biodiversity, as agreed by the EU, will be a challenge for the next Executive, of whatever political hue,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said: “We accept that some of the UK biodiversity action plan targets covered in the report will be difficult to achieve. We are currently revising Scottish specific targets so that they now reflect more accurately our current understanding of the situation and what can be achieved.”
RED SQUIRRELS
RECORDS show that the grey squirrel is continuing to spread into Scotland, displacing reds and spreading a disease fatal to them.
The North American grey was introduced to the UK in the 19th century and the bigger and more aggressive incomer has steadily displaced the native red. Only isolated pockets of red squirrels still exist in uncolonised areas of Scotland.
Methods of controlling the grey squirrel population range from a mass shooting campaign to a contraception programme.
GREAT CRESTED NEWTS
THE population in Scotland is less than 1,000 and its continuing decline has been attributed to “loss and fragmentation” of water and land habitats as well as pollution.
The largest of Britain’s three newts, the great crested newt can grow to 17cm long.
It breeds in water, but spends much of its time on land.
Its ideal habitat is a group of several ponds close to each other, but such areas are becoming increasingly rare in this country.
COD
THE mainstay of the British diet has been under threat for years from over-fishing, according to environmentalists.
Cod was added to the World Wildlife Fund’s list of endangered species nearly seven years ago.
Cod stocks in 2000 were estimated to have fallen to just one- tenth of the 1970s level.
Scientists recently warned that, unless cod fishing is banned, North Sea cod will die out, like the populations of the Grand Banks, off the Canadian coast, in the early 1990s.
BLACK GROUSE
THE species has declined in Scotland due to forestry and moorland management, predation, loss of open areas and climate change.
A trend towards more intensive farming and larger forestry tree plantations, had cut the diversity of landscape black grouse need to thrive.
Research elsewhere has shown that the black grouse population is in inverse proportion to the fox population. Fox numbers have increased in Scotland since hunting with dogs was banned.
CORN BUNTING
THESE small, brown birds were once commonly associated with arable and mixed farmland – in fact they are one of the few British species largely dependant on cropped land.
Numbers fell by 85 per cent between 1970 and 1998, according to the RSPB, largely because of a lack of food – seeds, spiders and other insects – available to them.
They also nest late in the season, usually June or July, which means their flightless chicks can be killed during harvest time in August.
COMMON SKATE
THIS species is said to be “very scarce” throughout European waters and is provisionally classified as endangered.
Its slow rate of growth and reproduction makes it vulnerable to fishing.
Due to their large wing span, skate are particularly vulnerable to being caught in the nets which are used to catch other species of fish such as plaice and cod.
Skate do not mature until aged 11, so are also vulnerable to being caught before they can breed.
JUNIPER
LACK of regeneration of juniper populations is of concern in Scotland. Juniper is also now listed as a target species in the Scottish Forestry Grant Scheme.
The prickly shrub, a relative of the cypress family, grows in pine woods and on moors and coastal dunes.
Excessive grazing prevents seedling development, while loss of grazing leads to development of tough scrub and tree cover which in turn causes shade, which kills off juniper.
(c) 2007 Scotsman, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.