Book reviews, Conservation, Mitigation

Climate and Nature Bill, 2024

 

      Climate and Nature Bill   (2024)   The ‘CAN’ Bill               

   (Briefing Note from Dr John Feltwell, Dip EC Law of Wildlife  Matters . 5 Jan 25)

Summary – the Bill seeks

  • To limit the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C
  • To ‘visibly and measurably’ see species and habitats ‘on the path of recovery’, to be measured from 2020-2030.
  • To abide by the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement,
  • To abide Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, 2020
  • To abide by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 2022
  • To abide by the UNCBD and its protocols , 1993.

The Bill

This Private Members’ Bill was presented to parliament by Alex Sobel on 21 March 2024  and supported by a dozen MPs, mostly Labour, Lib Dems and Green Party –that included notables Caroline Lucas and Ed Davey.

Progress through The House

The Second Reading is scheduled to take place on 24 Jan 2025.

The official  ‘Long Title’ is

A Bill to require the United Kingdom to achieve climate and nature targets; to give the Secretary of State a duty to implement a strategy to achieve those targets; to establish a Climate and Nature Assembly to advise the Secretary of State in creating that strategy; to give duties to the Committee on Climate Change and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee regarding the strategy and targets; and for connected purposes.

 It has two OBJECTIVES  – to ensure that the UK

 (a) reduces its overall contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero at a rate consistent with—

 (i)  limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and

  1. ii) fulfilling its obligations and commitments under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, taking into account the United Kingdom’s and other countries’ common but differentiated responsibilities, and respective capabilities, considering national circumstances; (‘the climate target’); and

(b) halts and reverses its overall contribution to the degradation and loss of nature in the United Kingdom and overseas by—

 (i) increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations, habitats and ecosystems so that by 2030, and measured against a baseline of 2020, nature is visibly and measurably on the path of recovery;

  1. ii) fulfilling its obligations under the UNCBD and its protocols and the commitments set out in the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature 58/4 5 10 15 20 Bill 192 2 Climate and Nature Bill and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; and

 (iii) following the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities; (‘the nature target’).

The Bill has the following definitions of ‘nature’ as

“nature” includes— (a) the abundance, diversity and distribution of animal, plant, fungal and microbial life, (b) (c) the extent and condition of habitats, and the health and integrity of ecosystems;

And the definition of ‘ecosystems’ as

“ecosystems” includes natural and managed ecosystems and the air, soils, water and abundance and diversity of organisms of which they are composed.

Biodiversity  – one big ask

Most of the Bill is about C02, but on Biodiversity there is not so much, only the following statement, and a request to abide by previous pieces of biodiversity legislation

Restoring and expanding natural ecosystems and enhancing the management of cultivated ecosystems, in the United Kingdom and overseas, to protect and enhance biodiversity, ecological processes, and ecosystem service provision;

The three previous biodiversity commitments are:

  1. fulfilling its obligations under the UNCBD and its protocols and the commitments set out in the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature 58/4 5 10 15 20 Bill 192 2 Climate and Nature Bill and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; and

Unpicking this statement, there are three biodiversity legal issues:

  1. “the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature” means the agreement of the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity of 28 September 2020; and
  2. “the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” means the framework adopted by the decision of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal on 19 December 2022; and “the Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy” means the hierarchy adopted by resolution 58 of the World Conservation Congress at the International Union for Conservation of Nature from 1 to 10 September 2016. and
  3. “UNCBD and its protocols” means the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which entered into force on 29 December 1993, and all subsequent agreements and protocols arising from it;

Overall Comment

If all of these recommendations and commitments are upheld the steady plod of the Anthropocene will be stopped, C02 levels curtailed, and everything will be fine. However, history tells us that even after 30 years the 1993 initiatives have not been followed which is why the Anthropocene is upon us.

How will the Climate and Nature Bill fit into local politics?

If enacted, the Act will require Rother District Council to abide (especially) by the paragraph highlighted in red above, and their own declaration of the Climate Emergency in 2019.   They only have five years from NOW.

 Dr John Feltwell, BSc (Hons Zoology), PhD (Botany), FLS, FRES, FRSB, FLLA, Dip EC Law,  Henley’s Down, Battle, TN33 9BN.   07793 006832 john@wildlifematters.com   www.wildlifematters.com

 ends

Book reviews, Conservation

Education of a Prince by Prance & Crosby, 2024

The Education of a Prince, The Diary and correspondence of Frederick Waymouth Gibbs: tutor to King Edward VII. Edited by Ghillean T. Prance and Rachel J. Crosby. 2024. pp141.  ISBN 978-1-908787-50-7 and ISBN 9 781908 787507.

The papers of Mr. Gibbs (1821-1898), including his diary, letters and prints have come directly down the family tree to these two authors, Prof. Sir Ghillean T. Prance (Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1988 to 1999) and his daughter (manager of international projects in Africa and South America), Frederick Gibbs being Prance’s second cousin of his grandfather.  Gibbs’ claim to fame was that he was the tutor to Queen Victoria’s two eldest sons, from 1851-1856, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred.

And what a hard life Gibbs seems to have had. It was not an easy teaching job, since the Prince of Wales was particularly truculent, aggressive and prone to throwing things around. These transcripts of diary entries and letters (some originals are shown written in a spidery quill hand) are revealing and deal mostly with everyday life in royal Victorian circles. Most of the political issues of the day are not included. There are timetables and strict work schedules, often metered out by Victoria who insisted on seven hours teaching, sometimes seven days a week especially if the princes were especially naughty. There were many “wishes of the Queen on a number of small points and generally the host of nothings which become important only when neglected” said Gibbs in a letter home from Windsor Castle in 1852. There were “Rules for Meals” and regulations, such as not being rude to their sisters, how not to fidget with cutlery at the table, and never to interrupt people speaking at mealtimes, and when precisely to wear a kilt.   The Queen also provided approved lists of suitable boys (17 are listed) who the Prince of Wales could have round to play during the summer – and  eight listed for Prince Alfred.  Eton, being next door to Windsor Castle had been a source of teachers and appropriate playmates.

Day to day entries in his diaries are sometimes like entries in a school report…”the impulse to oppose is very strong and offers great difficulties in his education”, and  “nothing makes a deep impression, and he forgets the greatest part of what he learns”…  It seems hard work for Mr. Gibbs considering all the non-cooperation he had with the Prince of Wales, all for an annual fee of £1,000. He took over from a master at Eton who was regarded as being too lenient with the boys, which is why the Queen wanted someone a little more stricter. This did not go down well with the boys so Gibbs took a while to settle in. The diaries show that Victoria gave him presents, and that he dined with her on some evenings. In his role as a teacher he had to work at Buckingham Palace, Osborne House and Sandringham and took voyages around the coast following his subjects. In 1852 the Queen had a phrenologist look at the princes’ heads to see if they were developing correctly. “The predominant organs are still combativeness, destructiveness, self-esteem, firmness and conscistiousness. Concentrativeness also is large, and the cerebellum is of considerable size having increased since May 1851.”  Phrenology was highly regarded at the time.

The book is illustrated with very good sketches from Albert Edward, and black and white photographs of the boys later in life, and Queen Victoria.  There is correspondence between the princes after Gibbs left when he continued to write to them, and received letters from them with presents, and others, including Tennyson residing at Henley on Thames. He was given £400 rising to £800 for his pension after four years.

The book provides a valuable insight into royal life during this snapshot of Victoria’s life. The entries will provide historians with a wealth of finer detail from ‘upstairs’ as seen by a teacher, as well as shining a light on the abundance of courtesy, etiquette and behaviour amongst the royals.  As a teacher Gibbs clearly earnt his keep within the household and the princes obviously appreciated his efforts as they continued to send him presents during his retirement; so did the Queen. This was not an ordinary life of a teacher, but a privileged one.

 

 

 

 

Book reviews, Conservation

Groundbreakers. Lyons 2024

 

                               

Groundbreakers, The return of Britain’s wild boar. By Chantal Lyons. London, Bloomsbury Wildlife. 2024. ISBN  978 3994 0163 0  &  9 781399 401630.  288pp

 Having almost been shot by a chasseur, whilst he was stalking me as a wild boar, and I was stalking him, I am fully aware of how keen the French are to kill les sanglier. The British wild boar was always native to Britain but then it went extinct, then reintroduced. This book picks up the European story. Chantal Lyons has French blood, and whilst visiting family in SW France has embraced what it is like to get inside the way of life of this large herbivore, which also doubles up as an omnivore and carnivore. Lyons says they are 90% herbivorous. Tell that to the French farmer rearing boar decades ago who said if a gendarme fell into the corral there would be nothing left except his pistol.  Her particular boar habitat of study is The Forest of Dean (Gloucestershire) where there is a viable population, and made Sus scrofa her subject of at least two dissertations. Why Dean? She says it is ‘The biggest unintentional field experiment in Britain’s nascent rewilding history’ (steady on). On bluebells she provides evidence that boar eat the bulbs, and help to wreck woodlands, which is understandable as they search for invertebrates in wet woodland. Incidentally she refers to geophytic bluebells, so I am left wondering where the epiphytic ones might be in our delicate Atlantic climate. One very important aspect of boar’s rotavating the soil is that they enhance biodiversity as wildflowers spring up from seeds brought to the surface. Biodiversity is only mentioned in the index in the sense that Britain is in its own Anthropocene where it is declining. I like the book; it follows Ramamoto’s 2017 book ‘Wild Boar’ (Reaktion Books) which has a more historic worldwide edge. I would like more on male ‘solitaires’ which do their own thing, or on ‘ear-tagging’ data, and on cross-country movements in France, and ‘motorway tunnels’ that boar do through impenetrable thick scrub.  I don’t like the flannelly paper used in the printing of this book, already foxed within the year, and which smells!  (not of foxes)  There are no illustrations or references, but there is an index.

Sus scrofa, the wild boar in captivity, with young

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Damselflies & Dragonflies of Sussex, 2024. Martin et al.,

Martin,A., Linington,S. & Foreman,B., 2024. The Dragonflies and Damselflies of Sussex – their status and distribution. REGUA Publications. ISBN  970-0-9568291-3-9  pp 154.   £20 softback.

Three local naturalists have compiled this excellent up to date review of the county’s odonata, some 44 species comprising 28 species of dragonflies and 16 damselflies. The book is beautifully illustrated in colour, mostly shot in SE England, with each species showing males and females and any forms. The prelims are exhaustive on life cycles, and comparisons with neighbouring counties, especially Hampshire, Surrey and Kent; Sussex benefiting from the heathlands of Ashdown Forest when compared to Kent.  The book would not be so good if not for the data provided by the Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre (SxBRC) with access to the 1,900 observers’ records from the last 20 years. Species thus have a map showing dot distribution overlying the habitats of both East and West Sussex. There is also graph data showing trends on occupied 1km squares. The maps showing species per 1km square are interesting if not predictable, highlighting wetland areas and river valleys, and generally indicating that the quantum of records demonstrates greater certainty of known distribution. More odonata are now recorded every year up to 2020 than in 1985. Towards the end of the book there is a comprehensive review of all the best places to view odonata, showing inviting photographs of each location and descriptions. The message from this book is that the future will be like the last few years with new arrivals, vagrants, migrants and others firming up on their new territories gained. Climate Change is discussed, stating that in places such as Ashdown Forest warm periods of dry weather may decline heathland odonata populations.  Some species such as the Small Red Damselfly are at risk of local extinctions and are Nationally Scarce, and the Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly is classified as Near-Threatened on the British Odonata Red Data List. There are references, but no general index. This is a fine compilation of the species of this order in Sussex, not as a field guide for the pocket (it is too big) but as a timely reference for the home or lab. Congrats to all three authors.

Book reviews, Conservation

British Landscape. Crane, 2016

Crane, N. 2016. The Making of the British Landscape, from the Ice Age to the Present. W&N, Orion Books. 581pp.

I had to fact-check with The Making of The British Landscape by Nicholas Crane on the populations of large mammals that roamed these isles before man arrived. All fine and amazing. Crane is familiar with British TV audiences for his walks along the coast (there is a book on coasts along with his other six titles).  He takes a very forensic and mathematical look at all the dwellings he describes from the earliest times to the present. He can read the landscape better than anyone, and can describe the lumps and bumps and the travails that man has had in eeking out a living from the soil and rocks.  If you have watched countless archaeological programs on fascinating discoveries, this book knits them all together to make a good read. From early block houses, natural gathering places, enclosures, roundhouses, urban grids, the influence of the Romans in Britain and when they left are all covered. Crane blends all these together to make sense of them all, a sort of drone’s eye view of how they are all connected. From earliest times (when Britain was attached to the continent) he takes us up the Thames and westwards through the Cheddar gorge visiting all sorts of locations that make sense with the wandering Home sapiens forever chasing food and foraging. By the time William the Conqueror arrived in 1066 he says that there were 100 market towns in Britain ‘by the time the Normans showed up’  ‘By doomsday, maybe as little as 15 per cent  of the 27 million acres of land covered in the 1089 returns were wooded, rather less than the proportion of woodland seen today in France.’  The Forest of Dean was probably felled in the 12th century. I think that Crane cannot look at any earthwork or man-made structure without making a calculation of how many people were needed, and how many man-hours and days were needed to get the job done. For example he says of Windmill Hill around 62,000 worker-hours would have been involved labouring 10 hr a day, in groups of 50 people to make the mound. And this was continued for over 50 years involving generations of families and lots of food and timber. There were about 80 of the temenoi (sacred places) in Britain, and Glastonbury, Aintree and Wembley Stadium locations were built on these important sites. These were places that people gathered for all sorts of social engagements. At this period, by 3,000yrs ago man had felled more tree than raised walls and all the elms had gone he says. The book has a general reference list per chapter, plenty of photographs and an index. It is a comprehensive book much recommended.

 

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Shieldbugs by Jones, 2023

Shieldbugs by Richard Jones. No. 147 in the New Naturalist Series.ISBN 978-0-00-833489-5   9-780008334895.  452pp. RRP £65.

 The author has written a previous New Naturalist Series (NNS) book on Beetles (No.136, 2018), and Shieldbugs is presented with the same vigour and analysis that this expert entomologist gives his books. Covid gave him the opportunity to delve deeply into this group of small and sometimes colourful insects – producing a lockdown special – a very discursive one at that. The author admits to ‘verbose fact boxes and obsessive footnotes’ which I like, the more annotations the better.

The NNS books are mostly British-centric, but authors are always tempted to reference species from overseas particularly when the group they are talking about is biodiverse. Such is the case with this title. The author says that the book is ‘mainly about shieldbugs of the British Isles’, but that he occasionally makes references to exotic species including, for instance, edible species in Africa. He allowed himself this diversion in his other NNS book https://wildlifematters.com/?m=201803.

Jones introduces us to the 79 species of British shieldbugs, the 11 species in the Channel Islands and 16 other species which are potential colonists to these islands. He admits to shieldbug distribution ‘skewed to the southeast’ which makes it a little unfair on entomologists north of the Thames. Climate change has affected the range of shieldbugs just like most insects, in this case incursions such as the Southern Green Shieldbug (arrived 2003). He presents data on even the latest shieldbug to the British list, the Trapezium Shieldbug discovered in East Sussex in 2019.

Slightly less than half the book is text, the remainder a key and descriptions of species illustrated with lots of colour photographs. Most of the shieldbugs are small, brown or black, some with white spots, resulting in identification difficulties – many cleared-up here. There are a number with striking red and black colour and this stands out in the book as if the author likes these shieldbugs particularly (I don’t blame him) and the greatest exemplar is The Firebug is expertly illustrated on the cover. His daughter drew the line drawings in the identification key.

Shieldbugs This is a book that is essential to be on the bookshelf of all those who collect NNS and entomologists in general. It is far too heavy for use in the field, only for reference and verification after fieldwork, for which it is now a definitive key work.  This book thus fills the yawning gap since Southwood and Leston’s 1959 book on Land and Water Bugs. Today there is also a 35pp ‘Provisional atlas of shieldbugs and allies’ (2018) by Tristan Bantock (for the Terrestrial Heteroptera Recording Scheme) which can be downloaded to a mobile phone for use in the field.

The book is written with a sense of humour and a great deal of passion which shines through – giving this generally drab group colour.  Without all this being ‘flippant nonsense’ he writes (and says don’t write in), he has actually designated collective nouns for 16 species that have the tendency to live together in groups – perhaps an attempt to dissuade predators. Two that come to mind, the glamorous firebug is an ‘Inferno of Firebugs’ and the Common dock bug, is a ‘Coven of Dock Bugs’. This is hardly flippant stuff, it is useful that someone has given some time to describe what is going in the hitherto world of unreported bugs.  So it all adds up to the increased knowledge on this group that this NNS addresses.

The colour photography has been sourced principally from Shutterstock and Wikimedia and the author’s colleagues – small shieldbugs are not too easy to shoot, at least to get some reasonable shots showing identification features, but this has been overcome. The production of the book is up to the usual high standards of the NNS with indexes and references.

Book reviews, Conservation

State of Nature 2023

 

The State of Nature report is a massive document (108pp) profusely illustrated in colour (mostly RSPB images) with numerous graphs (mostly showing downwards trends), and covering what is happening in the UK as well as the Overseas Territories (OT) and Crown Dependencies (CD).  Sixty-six government bodies and NGOs supplied information.

There are plenty of references to key works that present the accumulated evidence.  The trajectory of the state of nature is definitely downwards, and the 280 references to ‘decline’ is testament to that. In contrast it was surprising that the concepts of ‘natural capital’ and net loss and net gains are hardly mentioned.  It is perhaps early days to expect any of the mitigation that supports the net gain initiatives that will go live in January 2024 to buck the downward trend, are mentioned.

The review assesses the ‘major pressures on the UK’s nature over the past 50 years.’  What has driven the declines is down to ‘ , significant and ongoing changes in the way we manage our land for agriculture, and the effects of climate change, are having the biggest impacts on our wildlife.’

Knowing that a dozen SSSIs have been impacted to make way for the HS2 railway, I looked for reference to this, and accompanying mitigation to see how the net loss and net gain had been calculated, but there is no mention, and no mention of impacts from infrastructure, railways and roads per se. The nearest reference is under ‘pressures and responses’, but the SSSIs comments are wrapped up in a graph showing that about 40% of SSSIs are favourable across the four countries, leaving ‘unfavourable’ or ‘unknown’ statements for most. Not a good record.

This is what the authors said about various groups.

Flora & Bryophytes:  ‘Since 1970, the distributions of 54% of flowering plant species and 59% of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) have decreased across Great Britain’

Lichens: ‘Strong decreases in plant and lichen distributions. Since 1970, the distributions of 47% of flowering plants, 62% of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) and 57% of lichens have decreased, compared to 27, 25 and 34% of flowering plants, bryophytes and lichens respectively, that have increased in distribution.

Invertebrates:

  • Across 4,979 invertebrate species, there was an average decrease in species’ distributions of 13% between 1970 and 2020
  • Distributions of 2,149 invertebrates increased by 15% on average since 1970. This was driven by climate change and large average increases in the distributions of aquatic insects
  • Pollinating insects (bees, hoverflies and moths), which play a critical role in food production, show an average decrease in distribution of 18%
  • Average 15% decline in species’ abundance, for 407 terrestrial and freshwater species, abundance across Scotland has fallen by 15%, on average, since 1994
  • Of the 62 species assessed in the 2010 and 2021 butterfly Red Lists, 11 species became more threatened and five became less threatened.
  • Average 15% increase in the distributions of invertebrate species.

11% of species are threatened, of 7,508 species in Scotland that have been assessed using IUCN Red List criteria, 11% have been classified as threatened with extinction from Great Britain

 It is worth noting, separately, that Buglife-The Invertebrate Conservation Trust, state in a flier received Nov 2023 that ‘today ..for every four insects around 20 years ago there is just one.

 Birds:  The abundance of 11 seabird species in Scotland has fallen by 49% on average since 1986. These results pre-date the current outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza’  There is nothing on swifts, house martins and swallow which are all know to be in decline.

Mammals: Between 1970 and 2016 the distribution of small mammals (mice, voles and shrews) decreased on average by -29%, those of mid-sized mammals (eg mustelids and hares) showed a similar but not significant change of -15%’

Amphibians and reptiles: there was not a lot on these herps, more information on them in the Overseas Territories and Dependencies.

So, overall  the state of UK’s nature is not so good!

Conservation

Rother’s Climate Strategy 2023

Rother District Council’s (RDC) Climate Strategy, 2023  

Rother District Council released its draft Climate Strategy 2023 (v4) in early November 2023, which will go to the Overview and Scrutiny Council meeting at the end of November to be formally adopted. They have already published their own Environment Strategy, 2020, on which this report is based, and it is working towards a Climate Action Plan 23-26, and a Climate Strategy 2030. .

This  ‘strategy’ is 26pp long and is actually a progress report, as to where Rother is with regard to addressing the Climate Emergency. The search for a quotable policy or strategy fails to bring up any demonstrable statement in  a couple of lines. The only comments relate back to the commitments made in 2019 when Rother signed up to the emergency and pledged to do what was within its powers to make Rother a carbon-neutral district by 2030.   It also says ‘reduce emissions to net zero, RDC’s operational emissions should be reduced by 50% annually’. At their recent presentation (8 Nov in Bexhill) the authors said there are 45 ‘pledges’.

There is a lot on net zero in this report (33 refs) as opposed to carbon neutral (3 refs). (The term neutral is being phased out by Rother (as zero aligns with LETI and the RUK Green Building Council).

A graph on emissions shows that they are all declining slowly, targets being met gradually.  Other facts and figures stand out. ‘Emissions account for over 90% of the Council’s carbon footprint in 22/23. The Council does not have direct control over these emissions (or measurements) but can use its influence through policy and procurement to reduce these emissions’.

The strategy does have five objectives;

  1. The built environment will be low carbon and climate resilient.
  2. The need to travel will be reduced, those that do will be on foot, bike, public transport, or in a low/zero carbon vehicle.
  3. The district will produce less waste and support a thriving circular economy.
  4. Nature will be in recovery across the district.
  5. Renewable energy will be produced local

This comes down to five areas ‘1  Buildings and Energy Efficiency, 2 Transport, 3 Resource Consumption and Waste, 4 Biodiversity and Land Use and 5 Energy Generation.’

Rother does have a Vision   ‘A climate-resilient Rother where communities are well-equipped to deal with the challenges of climate change and are no longer contributing to global warming,  and an Aim: The aim of this strategy is to enable, encourage, and accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions across the district to net zero by 2030.‘

On renewables it does not have a statement on community projects, such as solar farms, but it does say ‘The Council will encourage local generation of renewable energy to support future demand.’   There is a lot in the report about making money for the council using council land for renewables (not so much on boosting energy on private lands).  ‘The Council will encourage domestic renewable energy generation throughout Rother through collective buying schemes such as Solar Together. Decarbonisation support and grant funding will also be provided to businesses.’  Rother now makes available 20% of CIL money for worthy projects. Rother state that ‘Clean, renewable energy will be produced locally’. (item 5 under Objectives 1).

There is nothing in this Climate Strategy on the energy efficient Wunderhaus which has been approved, and promoted, in Rother.

There is nothing new on Dark Skies as both the Rother’s Local Plan and AONB’s upgraded policies on Dark Skies are still awaited.  Both of these have been a long time emerging.

On Well-being (being a tenet of the 2019 climate emergency as signed by Rother) is mentioned here as  ‘ Light pollution negatively impacts wildlife and affects people’s health and wellbeing’. Walking, and footpath use, is not mentioned as being part of well-being, despite ‘a third of Rother residents are age 65+ (32.3%), ranking second highest in the country,’ and 2023 being one of the hottest years on record.  ‘East Sussex County Council estimates the population of Rother to increase by approximately 12.5% by 2035’.

Decarbonising.  Rother is engaged in retro-fitting buildings across the county, it being an ‘enormous challenge’ in the built environment to seek energy efficiency, ‘Most buildings already in place will still be here in 2050 and almost all of them will require some degree of retrofitting to be net zero. There are over 42,000 homes in Rother and the way we heat and power our homes accounts for 32% of emissions in 2021. Added to this are commercial, industrial, public sector and agricultural buildings..  The Council will continue to retrofit operational buildings to improve energy efficiency.’

On Biodiversity the council reminds itself it has a Biodiversity Duty to respect nature and conserve and enhance, as stated in The Environment Act 2021. As 82% of Rother is in the AONB it is not surprising that it relies heavily on what is said in The High Weald AONB Management Plan which is a statutory guide for conserving the nationally important landscape and provides a framework for addressing the major issues faced including food and energy security, housing provision, biodiversity and climate change resilience, and the transition to the low carbon economy. The State of Nature Report (2023) has brought attention to us all of the parlous state of the worlds habitats, flora and fauna, and Rother now says it will integrate the aims of the Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) into its conservation thinking. When it comes to measuring the net gain of any new development Rother will now be seeking a net gain of 20% from all projects instead of the national 10% proposed in The Environment Act to start in January 2024. It has been a long time coming, now at v.4 beset with fundamental algorithm errors.

This Climate Strategy reminds us we only have seven years left until 2030, so will they, and all of us,  deliver?

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Vicar of Amazon – by Howse

Vicar of the Amazon, The Reverend Arthur Miles Moss, in the footsteps of Alfred Russel Wallace. By Philip Howse.  Published by Butterflies and Amazonia. www.butterfliesandamazonia.com  Hardback ISBN 978-1-7398856-0-1  eBook ISBN 978-1-7398855-1-8.  243pp.

                       

It was only in the last twenty years that a series of coincidences occurred to the author that the life and works of The Reverend Arthur Miles Moss is told in this book. Moss was born in 1872 in Liverpool, raised in his formative years in the Lake District, went to Cambridge after Darwin and was ordained Deacon of Chester the year after graduation. He was already a keen lepidopterist when he went up to University, a keen painter, played on the huge organ in Kendal Parish Church and published an appreciation of poetry. This was a typical multi-talented Reverend of the time who was a keen lepidopterist. In 1901 he was a Norwich Cathedral, still collecting in his spare time, publishing items in The Entomologist, and in 1902 he went on a Grand Tour including a butterfly collecting expedition to Switzerland.  The Lake District and the Cambridge hinterland set the scene for his love of the great outdoors, and it is no surprise that much of his collection of pinned butterflies and moths, and ‘blown’ caterpillars are in the Kendall Museum; his note books of that period were lost.

The Rev. Moss was posted to the Amazon in 1907, yes, the whole of the Amazon was his ministry, a vast area from the mouth of the Amazon in Belém (known then as Pará) to the Andes, most of the Amazon being Brazil. He was granted free passage on ships up and down the coast and across the Amazon to Peru, some 60,000 miles of navigable waterway was his parish.   Moss was there for almost 40 years and he even had an organ with him.  He had followed in some of the footsteps of Darwin in the Beagle down the west coast of South America 70 years earlier, whilst issues of yellow fever and plague still persisted in the various ports of call.

Moss was an industrious chap. Prof. Prance, Former Director of Kew states in the Foreword, that he has been to most of the places that Moss had been too, had noted the many plants that bear Moss’s name and noted the various herbarium specimens in various locations, and lamented that the once almost pristine rainforest that Moss went have now been logged-out, Belém now has over two million people. Moss’s church is still there.  So Moss was not only a capable field botanist but a lepidopterist which is the main subject of this book.

A rediscovered cache of over 100 watercolours of insects from the Amazon were found by the author in the Natural History Museum, many of them now used in this book. The author is Emeritus Professor Phillip Howse from the University of Southampton and is the author of many award-winning books colourful on butterflies. Mimicry is brought finely into focus throughout with colour photographs showing caterpillars and butterflies next to animals of the rainforest that they have intimately mimicked, for instance the Dynastor butterfly that looks like the head and shoulders of a piranha (he had an obsession with the butterfly) whose caterpillar has projections that mimic eggs, and the pupa looks like the head of a snake, or the Great Silkmoth whose distal parts of its forewings are snakelike, or even the small hesperid pupa that also looks like a snake ‘a terrifying’ pupa of Bangalotis erythrus.   Moss was also smitten by the stunning vermillion and blue Agrias claudia and went on many expeditions to find it. Moths as wasp mimics with warning colours, hawk-moth caterpillars that also mimic snakes, or bizarre lantern bugs, or owl moths with ‘eyes’ a common disguise across the living world were the subject that caught his attention. Or, the dramatic ‘monkey slug caterpillar’ looking just like a tarantula. The Amazon is like this: biodiverse, bewildering and inextricable.

There is some discussion in the book on the veracity of natural selection then and now, but deep in the hot-spots of the Amazon rainforest species diversity is so prolific that natural interactions are highly likely to evolve when species are living, and trying to stay alive when living cheek by jowl. We are talking millions of years ago, so evolution has had plenty of time to make subtle changes that are beneficial.  Moss’s notebooks are filled with illustrations of camouflage in caterpillars and pupa, a subject explored later by the celebrated expert on colour in animals Hugh Cott.

Moss travelled high in Peru, collected a small moth (which was eventually found to be new to science, 80 years later – thanks to Claude Lemaire working in the Natural History Museum). This was a land full of adventure. His train was boarded by ‘brigands’, one person shot dead, but he survived. He was known in Peru as a pioneering naturalist. Today naturalists ‘do’ the Manu trail in Peru because it is still a hot-spot for biodiversity.

The famous rainforest explorers Wallace and Bates had been in the Amazon in 1845 and employed slaves as cooks, but slavery was abolished when Moss was there in 1912.  Moss was always fascinated by the process of metamorphosis and bred quite a lot of species out. He also caught and sold materials for collectors and sponsors in Europe, especially Lord Walter Rothschild, Miriam Rothschilds uncle.

Working at the edge of the un-exploited rainforest Moss was amazed at the sheer quantity of moths that came to light, in some case they were so thick on the ground that bins of them had to be taken away when the streets were cleaned.  He recalls the travel observations of Theodore Roosevelt and his son in the Amazon, and the paintings by Margaret Fontaine, and of course the travels and discoveries of Richard Spruce. There is also a nod to Nabokov. The Amazon is a large area, and still is a large area over which many have travelled and few have written natural history travel books.

The author has brought us a delight to the eyes on part of the extensive work of this English vicar in the Amazon even if he was always catching butterflies rather than tending his flock. The book demonstrates that it has been intensely researched in both the UK and South America much to the benefit of the reader. There is much history of entomology woven through this important work.  It is certainly a good read that should be in all rainforest themed libraries.    There are appendices, further reading and an index.

Conservation

Flowers ..of Amazonia by Prance, 2023

Flowers, Fruits and Fables of Amazonia, published by Redfern Natural History Productions (www.redfernnaturalhistory.com) in 2023, by Ghilliean T. Prance. 298pp. ISBN 978-1-908787-46-0.

Biodiversity runs riot in this book, which is full of the some of the most colourful plants in the world, those from Amazonia, written by one who has been their most, Sir Ghillean Prance, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew (1988-1999) and has mounted 39 expeditions to all the wet and dry, lowland and highland habitats there, and bringing back 350 new species of plant for science.

It may be a colourful book but there is a sombre message, for the book is dedicated to the President of Brazil and to Ministers Marina Silva and Sonia Guajajara ‘in the hope that they can halt the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and use it sustainably.’

As befits a Director of Kew the book is laid out in a strictly classificatory manner, pteridophytes, gymnosperms, monocots and dicots which is very useful if your thought processes are botanically inclined.   Grasses, which include bamboos, are described even though they have limited colourful appeal, they are big colonisers of the backwaters of Amazonia – many a time our way has been blocked by wild rices which we have had to powerboat–over. On terra firma ones way is often thwarted by stands of dense bamboo.  Where plants have been taxonomically split with new up to date DNA evidence these are explained in good order.

So this is a very colourful book because of the chosen subjects, and we must remember that the colours have evolved because of the pollinators, the insects, other invertebrates, birds and bats. All of these are mentioned in the text, some of them seen doing their bit for pollination, squeezing and nudging blossoms to get their reciprocal rewards. The colourful flowers would not be so diverse if it was not without this co-evolution with insects.  We see the change in floral colours after pollination.

This intimate evolution of plant morphology has not been missed by those who puzzle over the Doctrine of Signatures, particular the Clitonia genus, and Prance recalls the squeamishness of the early taxonomists as to how to describe these female features in a flower. If that was not enough, in Europe the look-alike Fallopian tubes of Aristolochia clematitis are also fair and square examples of the doctrine, mirrored also by other much larger tube-like Aristolochia species in Amazonia.

Prof Prances’ firm favourite in the forest is the native Brazil-nut family (Lecythidaceae) – his group – on which he has researched much with his late colleague Dr Scott Mori (d. 2020) fellow researcher at NY Botanic Garden – there are 340 species in the family. The family includes the Cannon-ball tree and the Brazil nut tree. Both are large unforgettable distinguished trees in the rainforest – just visit the Rio Botanic Garden to see many tree treats described in this book.  Prance describes the Brazil nut tree as the ‘most beautiful tree of the Amazonian forest’; the tree was named after a most beautiful young woman of the Tefé Indians called Caboré, who was mysteriously lost in the forest and came back as a valuable forest tree that brought livelihood and food for the community.

There are many other fables described in this book, true to the books’ title, and they are highlighted in pale green throughout to distinguish it from the main text. The rainforest is actually an unforgiving environment for man, and many of the fables relate to death of revered ones; a long story of  Naia who drowned when trying to kiss her lover (the moon) and came back as a giant Victoria water lily (three species, with the largest undivided leaves in the world at 2m diameter); the white-skinned Tupi girl called Mani who became ill and came back as a root of cassava or manihot, the word coming from a combination of two Tupi words Mani and oca; a long story of the Bacaba palm sprouting at the top of a hill from one lost in battle.

There are a lot of red flowers and fruits illustrated in the book, but then these are multi-purpose colours for advertisement pollinators, signals to fruit eaters for dispersal purposes, and warning colours. The asymmetrical red, black ad white seeds of the guaraná plant arose from the buried eyes of a boy killed by a snake.

In this book we therefore get an insight into the peoples of the forest, the Yanomami preparing the hallucinogenic snuff from the Virola tree, Bixa body paint, the Jarawara snorting tobacco, the weaving of baskets, utensils, woodworking skills for canoes and houses, extracting curare as an arrow poison, and making chewing gum from latex (really puts Prance off it for life).  There are medicinal uses, including covering sick babies with Genipapo paint.

The book would appeal to all naturalists and students of tropical ecology, and those who have never visited a tropical forest. It would also appeal to all those who have visited tropical botanic gardens around the world, since there are some familiar examples that are neotropical or pantropical as described in the book. Others who would benefit from this book would include those who have been on any Latin American tropical field trip. There is an index, scientific and common names indexes and a list of papers from which evidence has been drawn, including just a few of the author’s 590 scientific papers. A fine read and colourful window into the leafy heart of Amazonia.