From Mark Avery, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Sandy, Bedfordshire
Rob Edwards takes English Nature to task for lack of scientific credibility,
but this is just one symptom of a greater malaise
(This Week, 24 January, p 18).
Since the 1992 Rio Convention on Biological Diversity, Britain has led the world
in committing itself to targets for the restoration of habitats and the
conservation of a wide range of species. Meeting these targets will depend on
understanding the ecology of threatened ecosystems and species, yet I fear that
the funding of British science is not structured to respond to these
challenges.
The main candidates to commission, direct and fund studies of threatened
species and ecosystems include English Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage, the
Countryside Council for Wales, the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, the
Environment Agency, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Biotechnology
and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the
Scottish Office, and the Environment and Heritage Service, Northern Ireland.
Incomplete though it is, this long list says it all. No organisation has a
clear responsibility to coordinate and fund biodiversity research, and to ensure
that research makes a difference on the ground. If responsibility for providing
scientific underpinning for British biodiversity conservation is too widely
shared, then all who share that responsibility will, partly justifiably, claim
that they thought it was someone else’s job.
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Government departments seem to see biodiversity research as the conservation
agencies’ and Natural Environment Research Council’s role. The NERC appears to
many to be detached from the process—even though it has the word “applied”
in its mission statement and has identified biodiversity as a strategic issue.
Staff at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology seem to have to spend their time
and energy chasing contracts rather than being allowed or encouraged to take a
scientific lead. This brings us back to the conservation agencies and their
perceived lack of interest in the science of conservation, as noted by
Edwards.
Is there a solution? There seem to be two ways forward. The first is
simple—those in the statutory sector who fund science should respond
better to the challenge of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, a plan the
government claims to endorse wholeheartedly.
Alternatively, perhaps we need a body with a nationwide responsibility for
funding British biodiversity research? This could be based in either the current
Joint Nature Conservation Committee (the umbrella body for English Nature,
Scottish Natural Heritage and the Countryside Council for Wales), or in the
Department of the Environment, Trade and the Regions itself as the lead
department for the action plan.
Where would the money come from? Some extra resources are probably needed,
but a first step would be to carve out resources from the bodies that are
currently failing to meet the challenge. £25 million a year is spent on
agro-environment R&D expenditure by research councils, government
departments and others. In theory, £8.6m of this is spent on wildlife
conservation. If only half this sum were diverted specifically to serve the
scientific needs of the action plan, it could make a huge difference to our
knowledge of threatened habitats and species.
It is ironic that one of John Major’s announcements on stepping off the plane
from Rio was about setting up the Darwin Initiative to spread British science
expertise across the world. We seem to have neglected to meet the same needs at
home.
