Relish the wild Mekong while you can
Two kinds of announcement from conservation groups habitually garner a prominent spot in the news agenda; either species are in peril, or species have been discovered alive and well.
On the face of it, WWF's highlighting this week of the thousand-plus species found in the Greater Mekong region over the last decade falls into the second category.
I don't know about you, but the prospect of a huntsman spider the size of a dinner plate is going to get my attention.
The spectacular green snake Trimeresurus gumprechti that WWF uses as the frontispiece for its report is also a visual wonder, as is the whole notion of the frog Chiromantis samkosensis with its green blood and turquoise bones.
Let's be honest; this is sexy, feel-good, wow-factor biodiversity news.
But when you look to the next decade rather than the last, the most important species in the whole report is undoubtedly the most familiar of all; Homo sapiens.
The Mekong's biodiversity has been preserved largely because a number of factors have kept human development at bay.
Parts of the region consist of wild mountain ranges which, if peopled at all, are home to ethnic groups who still have to live with nature as an equal partner rather than completely taming it. The Delta is criss-crossed with channels, making road-building difficult; people I know who have worked there talk about the local mosquitoes in phrases that conjure up images of flying piranhas.
Conflicts in and between Cambodia, Vietnam and southern China have curbed the pace of development, as have regimes that restricted entrepreneurship.
The Sun shines and the rains fall. Nature is productive, and the human load has not been big enough to subsume most of that productivity for itself; which is why nature has stayed so rich, and so hidden.
But as WWF points out, the balance of power between man and nature is changing fast.
Vietnam's population is rising at about 1% per year, that of Laos more than twice as quickly. Thailand's economy grew by just under 10% per year for a decade, until the Asian economic woes of the late 90s intervened.
Political systems have been liberalised, major conflicts are consigned to memory. So the human demand for land, water, timber, minerals and fuel rises.
According to one recent study, Cambodian fishermen - I guess that's still the word - pull an astounding seven million watersnakes from Tonle Sap lake every year, for food and for crocodile farms.
Laos is planning to turn a pretty coin from damming its abundant cascading rivers, becoming the "battery of southeast Asia". The giant Nam Theun 2 dam, built with European investment, opens next year; there will be many more.
On the plains, cities expand, roads radiate outwards, farming becomes at once more extensive and more intensive, forests fall.
As WWF notes, 70% of the endemic mammals in the region are on the international Red List of Threatened Species - among them five primates, the tiger and the Asian elephant.
The Red List throws up the same diagnosis on page after page; habitat loss and hunting, habitat loss and hunting.
That the region should develop swiftly is no surprise. But it does mean, as WWF points out, that the development is going to have to become sustainable pretty quickly if the region's amazing creatures are to survive beyond much beyond the time of their discovery.
Can it? The portents are not good. As EU nations showed last week when attempting to finalise a package of measures to reduce carbon emissions, the attraction of business-as-usual remains powerful.
I have enjoyed thumbing through the pictures that WWF has collated for its report this week, and thinking about the roles that the animals play in the region's complex ecosystems.
I love the gleam of the tiger's eyes, suddenly illuminated in the forest camera trap. I can almost hear the leaf rustle as the newly discovered Gekko scientiadventura scampers across it.
I'm going to relish the sexy feel-good end of the biodiversity news spectrum while I can.
Because I have a horrible feeling that within a couple of human generations, Homo sapiens will be exercising its untrammelled dominance over most of the Greater Mekong, just as it does now over the Danube, Ganges and Colorado.
The species peering into forest camera traps today will then be only glimpsed in the cages of zoos and the pages of natural history books, and journalists and conservation groups will be telling their even more familiar feel-bad tale of "species in peril".
I would love to be wrong. Are there any arguments that suggest I am?
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~46~RS~)
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Sad though it is, I think the only chance for many species in this world is a global pandemic of something fatal. Even then it would only delay the inevitable tide of human stupidity and selfishness that will sweep these creatures away.
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Unfortunately the only part which you might have gotten wrong is ... the "couple" of generations: I was just talking to my parents about the world they knew as kids and the one we are living in now...
but: scientiadventura?
The adventure of science?
Sounds like a positive name!
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Isn't it time that Homo sapiens was re-named as Homo bardus, or Homo avarus?
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Everyone who reads this blog will probably know my work, though politicians and the media have played Chinese whispers with it.
Our next phase is to solve the global ecological challenge properly. Any interest?
http://celticlion.wordpress.com/our-option/
Celtic Lion
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Two quick related points. First is that I can hear the lament but not much more than that. Europe itself was a forest perhaps from Portugal to the Urals. Then people came in and changed their environment: some non-human species have lost out, others have prospered.
Despite what the WWF tries to depict, we simply do not live in sterile wastelands, and in all likelihood the Greater Mekong region won't become one either.
Isn't it a tad too convenient that as soon as a place like Laos gets a chance to prosper (and WITHOUT emitting CO2!!!) then we jump right in, tut-tutting and saying no-this and no-that? It's like getting Bill Clinton lecturing against cheating on one's wife.
Second point is that there's lot of cultural issues behind our reasoning. One hundred years ago nature was red in tooth and claw, and extinctions seen as the way things are supposed to be. Nowadays nature is fragile in the extreme, and conservation seen as the way things are supposed to be. Who knows what will people think two generations in the future?
I have a feeling they won't look in sympathy at anybody hoping the human race will be wiped out...and in the name of what?
Whatever angst we feel then, there's always the chance that it will simply pass...just don't despair, there is no point in doing that.
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Sadly, Richard, I don't believe there are any arguments to suggest that you are wrong.
Nature is a wonderful thing and all our lives would be less exciting without the wonderful plants and animals that we share the earth with.
Human nature is to expand, conquer new land and subjugate any indigenous population. With advances in medicine, lack of any real wars and the exponential increase in population, the earth will suffer. OK, that's not strictly true. The earth will survive as it always has done, it is bio-diversity that will suffer.
We do need to face the fact that there are too many people on this earth, but what do we do? A cull? Not likely to happen, the first politician to suggest a cull will never be elected and who do we start with?
No, not practicable.
We need to find away of growing more food, whilst retaining bio-diversity. I don't know how, but unless we start diverting the money wasted on finding a "solution" to global warming, we will never get nearer to an answer of how to feed the world, whilst allowing nature to thrive and prosper around us. Technology can help us - we need to get back our respect for the scientific community and ask them to look into a problem that exists, not one that only exists in a computer model.
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I have a horrible feeling that within a couple of human generations, Homo sapiens will be ...
...exercising its untrammelled dominance?
I don't think so. With the rapid global changes we are witnessing, my horrible feeling is that most of Homo sapiens will be on its last legs.
Think about it. Energy requirements will rise more and more quickly and there's no evidence that much of that demand will be met by anything sustainable. The climate will go on changing, and quite probably begin a runaway phase within those 2 generations. Food crises will continue, and only get worse under rising energy costs and rapid climate change.
Any society or economy that causes the loss of biodiversity is by definition unsustainable. And without any doubt whatsoever our societies and economies are causing an increasingly catastrophic loss of biodiversity. What does that mean? It means that our societies and economies are plundering nature in a way that nature simply cannot endure for long.
The few thousand "new" species mentioned in this article are not new - they are only new to science. Taxonomists claim to have named some 1.5 - 1.8 million species, out of an unknown number that could be as high as 10 million. Genuinely new species come along very rarely indeed, and we are driving the loss of species and the collapse of biodiversity enormously faster.
The collapse of the capacity of ecosystems to provide for humans isn't just something we can shrug off. It's the beginning of the end for the way we have so far exploited the planet to provide for our desires.
The next two generations will see interesting times.
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#8 Kalense
"Taxonomists claim to have named some 1.5 - 1.8 million species, out of an unknown number that could be as high as 10 million. "
Possibly up to 100 million according to Edward O Wilson
http://thecelticlion.blogspot.com/2008/02/led-astray-by-insect.html
Probably more people in the world have quoted my work, more people have argued over my work and journalists have written more column inches on my work probably than any other on climate change.
One broadcaster did a weeks programming based on my work in 2004, wrongly attributing it to someone else. When I contacted them and they realised their mistake, they decided to go ahead.
On the grounds he was a media celebrity and that's what gets ratings. When 'things' enter popular culture, the source and the original meaning often get lost and forgotten. The law of unintended consequences.
I feel you prognosis is correct regarding collapse of ecological systems, but the timeline might need consideration.
You say 2 generations. 50 years? I say if you add another exponential factor more realistically that becomes 5 years.
The task now is to get the 'genie of climate change that escaped from the bottle', into perspective. We need to focus on the collapse of the planet's ecological life support systems, climate change being one symptom of that.
Unfortunately 'climate change' is such a simple phrase and soundbite, people can use it without understanding.
Ecological life support system collapse is not so soundbite friendly. Hopefully with support we can stop the destruction of our planet and ourselves.
Thanks
Celtic Lion
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living in Far North Queensland i am highly privelaged to live between 2 natural wonders - the reef and the rainforest which are supposedly protected. Australia is a modern country with a pretty good attitude towards its natural assets (albeit somewhat tainted by K Rudd's recent back pedaling on emissions).
yet still i see on a daily basis evidence of over fishing and run-off to the reef and the rainforest being cut down for farming land and housing. (where will the cassowaries live?)
and in the grand scheme of things man's impact upon the natural assets of Australia is very managed and controlled but still there is a serious impact. what occurs in places with less control and/or interest i don't really want to think about.
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