Why?

The case for the importance of biodiversity at the University of St Andrews

Imagine it’s 25 years’ ago. Ok this is easier for some of us than others – but bear with me – you don’t have to have actually gone to see Jimi Hendrix to appreciate him. So imagine it’s the last years of the last century and I am here to tell you about how St Andrews should worry about carbon. You already know there is a problem – you are intelligent and well informed – it has already crossed your mind, to a small degree, that the way we live and our country’s development path might be causing global warming, and that sooner or later we need to do something about it. But probably we can worry about it tomorrow, and those lifestyle changes, those consumer decisions, that rethinking of how you carry out your job, are not pressing. Global warming 25 years ago existed as a back of the mind issue, a real issue, but one where we couldn’t yet be bothered to do anything about other than worry. Now things have changed somewhat – each of us, I am sure, will have carried out actions to reduce our own carbon footprint, each of us will be working or studying in an environment where our carbon responsibilities are mentioned every day. We are not there yet, but we are at least moving in the right direction. But for biodiversity now, sadly it’s still 25 years ago. You already know there is a problem – you are intelligent and well informed – it has already crossed your mind to a small degree that the way we live and our country’s development path might be causing biodiversity declines and species extinctions, and that sooner or later we need to do something about it. But those lifestyle changes, those consumer decisions, that rethinking of how you carry out your job with respect to biodiversity are not pressing. This has to change, as surely as it did for carbon.

But why? Why is biodiversity important now – surely we have been worrying about and acting for endangered species for the last 100 years? There are three reasons why biodiversity is important – why the number of species and their abundance on this planet makes a difference. The first is that there cannot be sustainability with species loss – there are no options available to future generations post extinction. Almost everything else in sustainability we can create or substitute, rethink and try again to get right – but sadly Jurassic Park is fiction, and we will never get back the thylacine, the passenger pigeon or the great auk. The second is that biodiversity makes the world go round: ecosystem services arise because of biodiversity. And the poorer you are the more you rely directly on ecosystem services for your quality of life; for many it is fundamental to livelihood and survival, and everyone has to eat and breathe. The third reason, and the one that you might consider the least important – but is actually key to us becoming biodiversity positive – is biodiversity makes us happy. Daily engagement with biodiversity – with the animals, plants and fungi around us, and the environments they create – vastly contributes to the quality of our life. You don’t have to know much about the plants and animals around you for this to be true. I have never had a conversation with anyone on this planet who did not have a joyful nature story to share with me. But, if you can speak a little of the language of biodiversity – if you are a little bit biodiversity literate – then this improvement in the quality of your life is much larger. And most importantly, you then become part of the solution. The solution to biodiversity conservation, to true sustainability and pretty much inevitably, to reducing your carbon footprint.

The big issue to sustainability or carbon zero is changing human behaviour. Getting people to act on 50-year timescales. Getting people to properly understand risk, and costs and benefits. Getting people not to be selfish. The big issue for biodiversity conservation is changing human behaviour too. But the advantage of enacting biodiversity positive relative to something like carbon net zero is that it is local, immediate and joyful. Planting that tree or managing that meadow gives you the birds and bees the next year, and the next and the next. And even just the act of going for a walk and identifying some of the animals you see – spotting a dunnock or a dipper on a walk along the Lade Braes in St Andrews – can change things. You know and appreciate what we have, and so any actions you might do that might affect this biodiversity are now personal, invested, and so likely to be more positive.

That is the case as I see it for worrying about biodiversity, but it is also the solution. Get people engaged with biodiversity more on a daily basis through immediately positive and joyful experiences, so positive actions for biodiversity and eventually sustainability become inevitable. We are starting this process here at the University of St Andrews. The devil is always in the details, and there are many real problems to overcome within the University to make sure we become biodiversity positive. But fundamentally, our overall goal is to get everyone at the University from first year student to Principal to engage with biodiversity so that everyone includes biodiversity in every conversation about sustainability or net zero. This process is what I call transformational biodiversity.

Let me explain this. If we had some giant pandas to look after on our campus at the North Haugh, they might be our clear priority. Some biodiversity within our estates that is unique and that we have a global responsibility for. We do have species of conservation concern on University owned land – red squirrels, otters, corn buntings, for example – but in reality nothing we do to the St Andrews estates here and in Guardbridge will affect even Fife indices of species richness and abundance. Every little helps of course, the whole is the sum of its parts and we don’t want to contribute to the death of biodiversity by being one of the thousand cuts. But my point is, we have no justification for prioritising conservation on university estates in terms of directly halting global biodiversity loss. But what we do have is the opportunity to make our biodiversity a key part of halting global biodiversity loss indirectly, by the transformative effect of the biodiversity we have, on the people that pass through the University. It might just be a holly blue butterfly we have on the North Haugh, but that butterfly could count more than 100 giant pandas when it is observed, identified and appreciated by students that might then go on to make biodiversity positive decisions for the rest of their lives. And of course because we are a university, and a good one at that, we do have a little bit of a hope that our graduates go forth into the world and have a little bit more influence than most, so magnifying that butterfly’s effect even more.

So why notice and care about biodiversity? It’s good for you, your children and the planet. It is a positive easy step that cheers you up and gives instant benefit, making you part of the solution. We have been caring about individual species for the last 100 years – there are humpback whales back in the Firth of Forth right now because of this. Now is the time to care about the whole lot – to get to know about and make positive actions for the local biodiversity around us – to change people and so change the world.

Prof. Will Cresswell Chair of the University of St Andrews Biodiversity Working Group