The loss of biodiversity, meaning the global loss of plant and animal species, could ultimately have very detrimental effects on human health and wellbeing.
Alarmingly, many experts believe that we are now losing species so fast, there is a danger that we could be fast approaching a ‘tipping point’ where, even if we introduce last ditch measures, we may lose vital ‘ecosystem services’ on which the natural world and ourselves depend. That could mean, for example, that we end up with sterile soils where no crops will grow, crops that cannot be effectively pollinated, and pest problems that run out of control because of the failure of natural biological control. There are even worse scenarios, where the failure of natural ecosystems leads to our planet becoming almost unfit for human life. And these doomsday predictions do not take into account the incalculable loss of aesthetic quality in our lives, if we were to lose much of the natural world we are part of.
“There is certainly a risk if you push biological systems to extremes like that, you could actually put at risk human health and wellbeing,” said Dr Purvis who is at the forefront of biodiversity research in Ireland.
The first signs that the world was standing up and taking notice of the potentially catastrophic issue was in 1992 when all European states, and many other nations (with the notable exception of the USA), signed the 1992 Rio Convention. The Convention committed these countries to the principle that they should do what they can to protect the natural environment from the negative impact of human activities.
“The interesting thing about ’92 was that it introduced the idea of a target date of 2010. This has been a kind of albatross hanging around everyone’s neck since. It seemed, from the politicians’ point of view, a safe enough target, pushing the issue into the future. The reality is that it has crept up very quickly, and we still have an unresolved issue; now, I guess there will need to be some revision and extension of that target”, says Dr Purvis.
One of the problems facing anyone who wishes to study changes in Irish biodiversity over time is that the records are poor. Researchers have only belatedly started to gather information on biodiversity. A national Irish Biodiversity Records Centre has been established in Waterford to collate the increasing amount of biological data being collected.
The study carried out by Dr Purvis and his colleagues developed three projects as part of their research, looking at Ag-Biota, Agri-Baseline and AE Footprint.
Ag-Biota
Dr Purvis and his colleagues wanted to develop a national expertise in biodiversity research within the context of modern agriculture. The first step of the overall research project, Ag-Biota, focused on the farmed landscape, rather than special semi-natural areas. This project represented a massive task in data collection and analysis.
On selecting four key indicator groups – birds, bees, aquatic invertebrates and Parasitoid wasps, the next step for Dr Purvis and his colleagues was to understand the relationships between these biological indicator groups and farming practice. The kinds of questions that he wanted to answer included: What kind of impacts do changing farming practices have on biodiversity? How can farmers better manage their land to enhance biodiversity?
By finding the answers to these questions, practices that are very damaging can be curtailed, while those having positive effects can be encouraged. This approach promises to provide, for the first time in Ireland, a means for policy-makers to make informed decisions on how best to protect biodiversity, and balance that against the need to protect farming livelihoods.
Agri-Baseline
The need to focus on creating scientific ‘baselines’ forms the basis of a second major biodiversity research project, Agri-Baseline, coordinated by Dr Purvis and funded by the Department of Agriculture.
Agri-Baseline has a highly practical aim; it is applying the knowledge gained from Ag-Biota about how to measure biodiversity in farmland. To do this, 180 individual farms in three regions – Cork, Sligo and Offaly - were chosen for a major survey of land use practices, habitats and biodiversity.
AE-Footprint
The next step was AE-Footprint, an EU-supported project to develop common methods for agri-environmental evaluation across Europe. As the Irish representatives in the AE-Footprint project, along with researchers in Teagasc and the University of Limerick, Dr Purvis and his group are trying to work out how a common method for documenting the benefits of agri-environmental policy can be developed for use in very different countries, regions and localities.
“You have this massive diversity of farming types, geographical and biological conditions and policy differences across Europe, and the challenge is to develop a common method that can assess the impact of agri-environmental schemes in any geographical region, in any agricultural context..”
“That’s a real challenge and what this project has actually done is develop the concept of an agri-environmental (AE) footprint index, which is simply a way of describing the agri-environment in any context. The result will hopefully help us document the benefits of agri-environmental policy and show how farming across Europe can contribute to achieving the targets set for protecting bio-diversity”.