The disappearance of wildlife on this scale is not only sad in itself but it is threatening the very existence of humanity. How have we become so separate from the natural world that we cannot see our reliance on it for our own survival? Our wellbeing is dependent on the world's ecosystems for food, clean water and energy and we rely on the natural regulation which governs climate, pollution, floods and pollination. Meanwhile a third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste with by far the biggest proportion being lost before it even gets to the point of retail. Each person in Europe wastes around 100kg of food per year but twice as much is lost between production and retail.
The second nugget of information I heard recently was that 90% of seabirds have plastic in their system. This is the result of eating fish which have unintentionally consumed micro-plastics which end up in the ocean in colossal volumes, often invisible to the naked human eye. These are a hidden menace, often found in cosmetics, fleece clothing and toothpaste or as part of the degradation of larger plastic items. Of course we also eat fish and other seafood so we too are consuming these microplastics but we also consume plastic which leaks into the food we buy from plastic packaging. Exactly how our health is affected by this remains unclear but laboratory tests on mice (don't even get me started!) have shown how these tiny pieces of plastic accumulate in the liver, kidneys and intestines and can harm the brain.
And the third is that half of all Killer Whales are likely to be lost due to chemical pollution from....yep, it's us again. PCB chemicals (which we have known to be dangerous for fifty years) were actually banned in the 1970s and 80s but it is thought that around 80% of the million tonnes of these chemicals produced are still around, leaching into water courses from landfill sites etc and the Orca, being the top predators, find themselves with the highest concentration of PCB chemicals found anywhere and this poison is passed to their calves in the fat-rich milk they produce.
I heard these things the other day (having of course already been aware of these issues in general terms but not truly appreciating the magnitude of the situation perhaps) and I honestly felt utter desolation and despair. I felt helpless and hopeless, at a loss to know how it could have come to this and how to process this global tragedy. My immediate therapy was to put my boots on and take the joyous Olive for a slow walk through the woods, embracing her simplistic appreciation of the moment, taking time to look up, listen to the birds and then stride across the fields to pick mushrooms for supper, the orange Meadow Wax Caps few and far between in this cold dry autumn. Connecting with nature in our small, local special places always makes me feel better, reminds me that life is precious and simple, puts things into perspective. We stopped to watch a Dipper bobbing above a small waterfall, Olive unsure why she had to sit still for a few moments but obliging nonetheless. This bird is in my top five favourites for its tenacious escapades over and under the white water of our rivers and streams, diving and swimming for food and rearing its young amidst the deafening roar of the rapids.
It is true that some of the devastation we have caused is reversible; recent projects to restore the habitat of the Bengal tiger have resulted in a 20% rise in a species that came frighteningly close to extinction and conservation efforts around poaching and habitat protection have also lead to an increase in the population of the Giant Panda, the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund. It's too late for some species but many others could be saved if we are prepared to make some changes and this should give us all hope. I think we need that hope in order to feel that it is worth trying to make some changes.I don't mean to preach and I hate to write a depressing piece but the facts I have heard and the implications of them have left me compelled to think more deeply about the shocking reality we are facing as a species and to contemplate what small changes we each can make to halt or even reverse this seemingly unstoppable downward spiral. Last week Nick got the children she was working with to spend a few minutes collecting litter from the beach and in a short time they had filled a bucket with mostly plastic paraphernalia. She pointed out to them the power of numbers; that she alone could collect a few pieces in a few minutes but by working together they could multiply this by a significant factor. Back at the centre the plan is to create a visible collection of all the waste that the visiting groups can collect on their weekly trips to this small North Devon beach. I think it will make quite a spectacle, a non-degradable art installation showing the human impact on our oceans and how that affects our own bit of coastline because it's not all about faraway exotic animals and places we cannot identify with, it is happening everywhere and we are all responsible to some degree.
I think it all goes back to our relationship with the natural world and how a fundamental connection has been lost. In our pursuit of 'progress' somehow we have lost sight of our place in the balance of ecology and of how our actions are inextricably linked with the world around us. We are newcomers to this planet and yet we act like we own the place!
By far the worst offenders are the multi-national companies responsible for producing and transporting plastics and chemicals along with those producing our food and the waste that goes with it but we cannot hide from the fact that we as consumers drive demand for these products and therefore we can also drive change. There's only one way to deal with feeling helpless and hopeless in the face of something massive and apparently insurmountable - to tackle it with one small step at a time. The first step is simply caring. Conscientious consumerism I guess you could call it. Convenience has become everything to us and the price we pay for that is starting to become very evident.
I have no personal connection with the Orang Utans whose forests succumb to the ubiquitous need for palm oil and there is nothing I can do about those PCBs that are no longer produced and yet continue to cause devastation but I love those Dippers, I know the family of Roe deer in our woods intimately and I need to think of them when I shop as well as when I throw things away. I personally don't chuck plastic in the sea but the more plastic I use the greater the demand and therefore the more that will inevitably end up in the sea. As I walk around the woods or explore the moor it's easy to forget that all is not well in the world. While I'm happy in my little corner of this island, feeling connected to nature, witnessing food chains functioning pretty well, seeing birds, fish and mammals producing their young I could easily turn a blind eye to those alarming statistics. Except that the evidence is everywhere if we stop and think; we've seen a marked decline in cuckoos here in the last 12 years and my dad used to talk of 'flocks' of cuckoos when he was first obsessively watching birds as a child in the early 1940s. I haven't seen a yellow hammer or heard a grasshopper warbler since I was a child and we see far fewer butterflies every summer.
So I will try to do my little bit to help no matter how insignificant that feels, I will stay closely connected to the natural world because this not only reminds me how precious it is but also keeps the hope in me alive every day. I doubt any of us could live a plastic free life but I am committed to reducing the amount I buy, use and waste for sure. Everything is complicated; 'don't use palm oil' we are told but not only is palm oil hidden in many products without our knowledge it is also just one of many oils responsible for the destruction of massive swathes of forest habitat, if we avoid palm oil we'll be unwittingly choosing another guilty product. So 'sustainable' seems the best we can do along with eating stuff with fewer ingredients that we don't know the origin of. We've been focussed on recycling for many years but now we hear that much of what we send to the recycling plants is either transported overseas to be dumped, or possibly recycled, or is left to pile up in warehouses because local councils cannot afford to recycle it. So perhaps the focus should shift and we should use less in the first place and try to reuse as much as possible. None of these ideas are new of course but the urgency of making it happen is very real.
It's so hard to make these changes a priority in our busy lives but every little helps and as long as we don't lose sight of that we can hopefully start to turn this thing around before it really is too late for us.
