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Biodiversity: Can local conservation efforts grow into global impact?
Welcome to Series 5 of our Generation One Podcast!
What do vultures in India and beavers in West London have to do with protecting our ecosystems? What’s the link between biodiversity loss and human-driven climate change? Why does Simon love beavers so much? And what exactly is “COP16”?
This second episode explores some of the key issues at play – focusing on global ecosystems and local conservation efforts, and coincides with the Sixteenth Convention on Biological Diversity in Cali, Columbia.
Hosts Mark and Simon are joined in the studio by Elliot Newton of The Ealing Beaver Project: a collaboration between the Ealing Wildlife Group, Citizen Zoo, The Friends of Horsenden & Ealing Council. And UCL expert Dr Alex Pigot, whose work on evolutionary biodiversity helps predict how ecosystems are responding to climate change.
While at the conference in Cali, Simon also catches up with freshwater systems expert: UCL’s Dr Izzy Bishop, to discuss the work she took to COP16.
Views expressed by our guests are their own.
- Listen to this episode on: SoundCloud / ApplePodcasts / Spotify
Transcript
UCL Minds 00:02
We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about it.
00:08
We have some of the worst biodiversity of any country on the planet in the time of a global mass extinction, which I think is, you know, absolutely terrifying.
00:18
I think as scientists, we like to think that we're quite important. We are by no means the loudest voice in the room.
00:26
If we want to halt extinctions and if we want to sustainably manage our ecosystems, we should be spending around $900 billion
Mark Maslin 00:37
this is generation one from University College London, turning climate science and ideas into action.
Mark Maslin 00:49
Welcome back to UCL, generation one podcast and episode two of season five. I am your host, Mark Mazon, Professor of Earth System Science here at UCL, which hopefully by now you know, means that I study climate change in the past, the present and the future.
Simon Chin-Yee 01:09
And I'm Simon Qin Yu from UCL School of Public Policy, and at the moment, I'm focusing on climate negotiations here, there and everywhere.
Mark Maslin 01:17
we're back with our second episode of the new series in which we'll be bringing you action based climate stories every month. Today, we are turning our attention to biodiversity, focusing on the question, Can local conservation efforts grow into global impact? This episode is coming out during cop 16, which, in case you don't know, stands for the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It's taking place in Cali, in Colombia, and excitingly, Simon will be going there.
Simon Chin-Yee 01:57
Yeah, I'm pretty excited to go there. I've never been to Colombia when we normally think of all these cops and Mark, when we, you and I talk about these cops all the time, we tend to focus on these climate change cops and hold that space, because next month's podcast will be on just that. But in the next two months, there are actually three cops taking place. Biodiversity is the one in Cali, but there's also the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which will take place in Saudi Arabia in December. So with one cop after another here.
Mark Maslin 02:27
So Simon, you and I usually go to the climate change cop, why you going to the biodiversity? Cop?
Simon Chin-Yee 02:35
The last cop took place two years ago. Then there they managed to agree on the Kunming Montreal global biodiversity framework. Its mission is to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 in order to achieve the ultimate goal of a society living in harmony with nature by 2050 but so at COP 16 in Cali, we'll be looking at the reality of this framework. So far, not too many countries have submitted national biodiversity plans, which they're supposed to much like the other cops that we go to in these nationally determined contributions. It's a similar thing, except that again, once again, not many countries have submitted their actual plans yet, including the UK. So at the end of this episode, I'll be bringing you updates direct from COP 16 in Cali.
Mark Maslin 03:25
We are delighted to be joined in UCL studio by two real experts on biodiversity. Welcome to Elliot Newton, the co founder of citizen zoo, an organization that specializes in urban rewilding. They engage with communities to help them connect with nature and be part of pioneering projects that promote nature recovery. He was also a key member of the Ealing beaver project to reintroduce beavers to paradise fields in Greenford, West London. Welcome Elliot.
Elliot Newton 04:00
Good afternoon mark, and thank you for having me on.
I'm really excited to talk, start talking about beavers frankly, but also with us, we have here our UCL, our own UCL academic Professor Alex Pigott, Professor of biodiversity in the Division of biosciences, Alex's research seeks to understand the evolutionary origins of biodiversity and predict how ecosystems are responding to human driven climate change. And full disclosure, I have been pestering Alex to work with me on a biodiversity project looking at how pollution and emissions from shipping are affecting marine ecosystems, which is one of the reasons I'm going to Cali. Welcome to Alex.
Good afternoon, Simon, and thank you for having me.
Mark Maslin 04:40
And also, to add to the listeners rich knowledge of us. The reason why, of course, Simon is obsessed with beavers is because he is Canadian, and I gather it is the national animal of the country, yeah,
Simon Chin-Yee 04:55
symbolically, it's right up there with the maple leaf market.
Your listener. To UCL generation one, turning science and ideas into climate action.
Mark Maslin 05:06
Elliot, I am fascinated by the Ealing beaver project because students here at UCL have worked on the reintroduction of beaver both in Scotland and also in Cornwall. But why London? And I gather this is the first time we will have them there for 400 years.
Elliot Newton 05:25
Yeah. So, so beavers became extinct in the London in the UK context, like 400 years ago. Beavers are incredibly important mammals. We can delve into that in a moment, hopefully. So it's the first time beavers are being reintroduced into an urban setting within the UK context. Let's not forget, if you look across Europe, you look across North America, you've got beavers living in urban places like Berlin, Munich, Stockholm, Vancouver, you have beavers living in the heart of these urban spaces. So beavers aren't a wilderness species, like some people really like to sort of imagine they are. So yeah. So we think is an incredibly important project this because not only is it urban, but it's also the very first project in the whole of the UK that people can actually walk into whenever they want. We have school kids walking to school for a beaver landscape, with people walking to work for a beaver landscape. So it's an incredible way to sort of challenge perceptions about what sort of nature we should expect from our urban spaces.
Mark Maslin 06:21
So beavers are often referred to as ecosystem engineers. Can you explain to our listeners, why do they help to restore biodiversity in fresh water ecosystems, and what are you expecting to see in paradise fields?
Elliot Newton 06:37
So I like to call beavers biodiversity bombs. You put them into a space and biodiversity just explodes. You get so many sort of in a good way, so in terms of getting more and more species. So yeah, beavers, quite rightfully, have the term of an ecosystem engineer. Nobody has told the beavers that are currently living in kneeling that there are no wolves about to jump out of a bush to try and grab them. So the beavers have an innate fear that they're going to be predated by a lynx, a wolf, a bear, and being a world second largest rodent weighing up to 30 kilograms, which they're not very, very sort of good at roaming the sort of terrestrial landscape. So to make themselves feel safe, what they do, they build these incredibly complex wetlands where they can forage their herbivores. Some people think beavers eat fish. I've got a bone to pick with CS Lewis about that, actually, because when, when he wrote, like in the rich the wardrobe, he depicted two beavers in their lodge, but frying a Kipper or something, which I think has confused many people for generations. But yeah, so beavers will create these amazing complex wetlands by creating these dams. He also do other things, like dredging and sort of a whole range of techniques within their arsenal to create these amazing biodiversity filled spaces. So when they create these wetlands, you have a whole niche, a whole complex mosaic of incredible habitats that start to emerge from pools to deeper water to more light filled woodlands. So you get to see ecological processes unfold. You get more natural regeneration within the woodland. You get more amphibians. You get more dragonflies. You get more bats. For example, we've seen snipe for the first time. We've seen water rail for the first time. Mostly, more activity of King fishes is incredible in such a sports short space of time. That's
Mark Maslin 08:18
amazing. And I think you'll find actually that Mr. And Mrs. Beaver had a cup of tea with that kippers, but Elliot. So there's no fear, then that the Beavers are going to overtake and dam up the entire waterway system here in London. Yeah. Well,
Elliot Newton 08:32
that's a very good question, very good question. So of course, beavers do sort of store water. That's why in sort of urban, sort of more sort of rural landscapes where they cause flooding, because beavers obviously do cause flooding by creating these dams, making the land be able to hold more water. And for example, that can bring them into conflict with farmers, because farmers don't particularly want their fields flooded. They're also, if they're an arable farmer, they don't want their crops eaten by a beaver. So if it's a part of this project, we the area that we've released beavers is an area that was always meant to be a place where we're meant to hold water. It's a place that we want to become flooded. We want as these torrents, you know, the last two years have seen the wettest 18 months in record. We're getting more occasions of flooding. I think with climate change, we're going to see these more extreme river events when it comes to comes to flooding. But by beavers, by creating these series of dams, slowing the water, we're actually already starting to see a significant impact. For example, two weeks ago, we had big rain events. I'm sure you all saw in London, and every year for as long as I've known it, in Greenford, which is very close to where we've released the beavers, Greenford station has flooded this year, the first time, you know, we had the we've had these beavers on site. Nothing was different, apart from the fact that beavers were there in terms of the water that was within the system, and Greenford station wasn't flooded. So, you know, we can all it's sort of anecdotal at this sense, as there's data that we want to analyze, but we're actually showing these beavers are actually making our landscape more climate tolerant, more rivers. Into the impacts of flooding, also drought. You know, they can hold more water on the landscape as well. So they really are a proper nature based solution to climate change, as well as all those co benefits that you get from biodiversity and also social engagement as well. I
Mark Maslin 10:12
can see the I can see the headlines, beavers save tube station. I love it. So Elliot, can I ask you the question that I'm sure all our listeners are thinking and they don't want to think it, which is, are there any downsides to having beavers in your back garden?
Elliot Newton 10:30
Yeah, it was, again, a very good question, and a question we get asked quite a lot, but it's when it comes to sort of species, especially we're living in such a human dominated planet, it comes down to management, to how we manage these beavers, I sometimes get it say, Elliot, you must absolutely hate trees. Why do you hate trees so much? Because, like, your beavers are going to come and eat all these trees. It's like, actually, no, actually, beavers actually co evolved live trees. It's not a problem. But, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions out there when it comes to beavers, but I think there are conflicts. You know, they will cause flooding, but it's up to us to us to make sure they're flooding the right spaces. So, for example, in Ealing, we've targeted the area which, if you want to be flooded, to hold the water there, not somewhere else, but one thing to not worry about. Beavers pose no risk to human safety when it comes to that. Actually, if you were confronted on you're walking through paradise fields at 11 o'clock at night, you're walking through and you get confronted by a beaver in front of you. I promise you, they that beaver will just move off. They pose us no actual threat.
Mark Maslin 11:24
Alex, can I turn to you now because you work on a much larger scale, and freshwater ecosystems are among the most biodiverse, but they're also the ones most threatened. Can you explain the relationship between biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and why this is being driven by human caused climate change? Sure.
Alex Pigott 11:45
So I think kind of taking a step back and thinking about ecosystems in general, whether that's forests or coral reefs, we can think of ecosystems like a machine. These machines perform a variety of different functions, such as stabilizing the soil, capturing sunshine and converting this into biomass, reducing flooding. And each species in those ecosystems, whether that's a beaver or a butterfly or a bird, is performing a unique ecological role. It's a cog in that machine. And as we're changing the climate, we're pushing climate conditions beyond those which those species have adapted to. We're having hotter heat waves, longer and more intense droughts, and this is resulting in population declines and in some cases extinction. We're essentially removing cogs from the machine. So over the short term, you might not notice the loss of a particular species, because their functions might to some extent be compensated by another species that's persisting. But eventually, as you start to remove more and more cogs, the resilience is lost. The machinery starts to break down. It starts to lose efficiency and stability, so its ability to withstand and recover from shocks, such as these extreme weather events and these losses may happen gradually or it might happen suddenly and sometimes with little warnings. So when you remove that last vital cog for providing an ecological function. That's when you start to see ecosystems collapse. And the problem is, because these ecosystems are so complex, there's so many cogs, and we don't understand how they all work, it's sometimes really difficult to predict in advance what the effect of losing a particular species is going to be.
Mark Maslin 13:15
Well, we've heard from Elliot that they're reintroducing a single species that seems to have a huge effect. Are there particular species that, when you remove them, can actually affect the whole ecosystem? And how do we identify those?
Alex Pigott 13:30
So I think you know, beavers are a classic example because of their role in Ecological Engineering and altering the physical environment. But there are also many other examples where we've lost species that have resulted in effects that, in hindsight, were perhaps obvious, but in advance we certainly didn't predict. So one is actually a bit of a grim example, and that's to do with the extinction of vultures across India. So around 30 years ago, back in the 1990s the populations of vultures started to plummet, so in some cases, losing over 99% of the individuals. And it turned out that what was driving these really abrupt losses was a drug called diclofenac, which was an anti inflammatory pain killer that was being administered to cattle When cattle were dying. Vultures were the sort of the rubbish removers. They were scavenging the carcasses and getting rid of the the animal waste, but without the vultures, the carcasses were were accumulating, and this then had all these knock on impacts on on the ecosystem. So one of the first was that with all the accumulating carcasses, this then started polluting the water supply. It also resulted in an explosion in the population of feral dogs, which were now scavenging on the carcasses that the vultures would have been eating. Those dogs carry rabies, and so there was a spike in the incidence of rabies among the human population by the early 2000s all of these impacts were it's estimated, resulting in an extra 100,000 And human deaths every year. And the economic impact of that was it was estimated to be around $69 billion per year resulting from premature deaths. So vultures were providing these really vital ecological services completely for free. And as we removed them, it impacted not only the surrounding ecosystem, but also the health and prosperity of the human societies living there.
Mark Maslin 15:26
So Alex, the your case study of vultures in India is fascinating. Can I ask? Have they done something similar to what Elliot's doing in London? Have they started to try and bring back vultures to India?
Alex Pigott 15:41
Well. So the first thing is, they they banned diclofenac, which is important because this is about back in 2006 which is important because if that's driving the decline, there's no point in trying to restore the populations. If that's there. Unfortunately, they still continue to use other anti inflammatory drugs, which have similar effects. So the pressure on the vulture populations is still there. The positive signs are in places that are protected. The vulture populations are doing okay. So it shows that if we relieve the pressures, the populations can bounce back. But still, unfortunately, at least larger scales, we've still got this pressure, which is keeping their abundances historically at a fraction of what they used to be.
Simon Chin-Yee 16:25
I mean,that's really interesting. We were all out in Dubai last year at COP 28 looking at how the world is trying to limit global temperatures to 1.5 degrees. But in your recent work, Alex, you discuss how a 2.5 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures could cause species populations to collapse abruptly, rather than gradually. Now, I think I might know the answer to the question already, but are we acting fast enough to prevent a sudden breakdown?
Alex Pigott 16:53
I'm guessing you want more than just a note some context here, so I think you know when it comes to the major drivers of biodiversity loss, and that includes climate change. The answer is, No, we're not doing enough, because all of these drivers are still increasing. We're continuing to destroy natural habitats for our expanding cities, roads, farms. We continue to pollute the environments, spread dangerous invasive species around the world and global temperatures continue to rise. Our best estimates are that around a million species of animals and plants on the planet are at risk of extinction over the coming decades, and this is a number that's growing each year rather than declining. So I think we need to radically scale up our political and economic ambition and just to kind of give a sense of what we are doing and what we should be doing. At the moment, we spend around $130 billion per year on biodiversity conservation globally, but it's been estimated that actually, if we want to really tackle this nature crisis, if we want to halt extinctions and if we want to sustainably manage our ecosystems, we should be spending around $900 billion per year. That might sound quite a lot, but actually, when you put it in context, it's not, it's less than the US currently spend each year on their military. And when you compare it to actually what nature is worth, it's a it's a tiny fraction. So the World Economic Forum have estimated that actually half of global GDP, so around $44 trillion is highly or moderately dependent on nature.
Simon Chin-Yee 18:28
Yeah, I think when people hear huge numbers like that, they don't understand why that's not enough. But one of the things that is happening actually out in Cali, this, this particular, these next two weeks, is the fact that this fund, they created a fund last year to fund biodiversity, and the idea is, there's, there's not much in it, even though there's nearly 300 billion in it, actually, but it's simply nowhere near the money needed for those for these approaches. So if you're thinking of these innovative approaches that you've been talking about, Alex through policy or conservation, how have these approaches helped? Or can they help ecosystems recover?
Alex Pigott 19:05
So I think there's, there's sort of some really good news here, and that's that we know that, when done properly, conservation really works. And if we hadn't done all the conservation actions that we've been doing over the last few decades, even though biodiversity is still declining, we'd be in a much more, you know, worse situation than we that we currently are in now. So if we look, for example, at data from birds and mammals, which are among the best studied organisms, so we have very good information on which species have gone extinct and the conservation actions that have currently that actually worked, then it's been estimated that without conservation, extinction rates over the last few decades would have been three to four times higher than they actually have been. That's through actions like, for example, controlling invasive species, breeding of populations, protecting and restoring. Habitats that were being lost.
Mark Maslin 20:01
So earlier, when I listen to Alex, I think, Wow, it's so big the problem, and we're not dealing with it. I mean, how does that make you feel?
Elliot Newton 20:12
Well it's incredibly concerning, isn't it, really, and it's really interesting to hear Alex talk about the counterfactuals. And you know what? You know what we've done, you know, has worked in some degree, but obviously we're not doing enough. You look at the UK, for example, you look at the state of nature report, the UK is ranked 180/9 on the planet when it comes to our biodiversity and tactics. So for a relatively rich country, we have some of the worst biodiversity of any country on the planet in the time of a global mass extinction, which I think is, you know, absolutely terrifying, really. Because remember, you know, the climate crisis is serious, but so is the ecological crisis and the ecological emergencies two sides of the same coin. But what I think, you know, conservation practice has worked in some ways, but I think conservation clearly hasn't worked, has it, really, because it wouldn't be in the situation that we're in. And that's why I think rewilding can actually try and bring hope, which is, you know, sort of move away from the doom and gloom of, you know, ecological collapse, overall, it is terrifying, but I think rewilding gives us some hope at least.
Simon Chin-Yee 21:11
Can I ask, actually, just on that, and maybe, Alex, you want to respond to this as well, because what occurs to me when you're saying this, that we pay attention, maybe not enough, but we pay attention to climate change politics at that global level much more than we're paying attention to the biodiversity politics, right? So is there a way in that larger level that you can get people more involved in in caring about the biodiversity so that we, the politicians, can actually do something about it?
Elliot Newton 21:38
Yeah very good, very good question. Well, I I'm a big believer in every human on this planet has an innate sort of attachment to nature, but something that is very quickly lost. You know, it was report now or not too long ago, saying your average child in the UK spends less time outdoors than a prison inmate. So in generally speaking, people are not engaging with nature enough getting people to care about and acknowledge the wildlife that's around the former relationship, and that might then engender the political and social will that we really do need that currently is definitely lacking.
Alex Pigott, 22:11
Well, I have a sort of a more positive story that I think kind of can provide that sense of sort of conservation optimism, and actually why we should be hopeful, because given the right conditions, nature can bounce back. So I want to take us, maybe from beavers in Ealing, as lovely as they are, to some tropical atolls in the in the ocean. And actually, the story that I want to talk about is rats on islands. And what do rats have to do with the resilience of coral reefs to climate change? I hear you ask. Well, I'll tell you. So over the last few 100 years, rats have been and other mammals have been transported to islands around the world. And no mammals used to occur on these islands. So when they arrived there, there was the sort of cornucopia of resources, lots of sea birds nesting on the cliffs, laying their eggs on the ground, and those eggs and the chicks were very susceptible to being predated on by the rats, and as a result, these sea bird colonies collapsed. There's been a lot of concerted effort over the last few years to remove those invasive rats from those islands, and what we've seen is that within a decade, those sea bird colonies are really rebounding. The abundance of lots of species are increasing, which is great. If the story finished there, that would be good news, enough, but actually, there's more. It turns out that sea birds actually provide this really critical link between different ecosystems. So they feed out at sea, and then they return to the land, where they then, through their droppings, provide lots of nutrient rich matter, and on islands where the rats have been removed, what we've found is that actually the coral reefs surrounding those islands are much more productive. So the abundance and biomass of the fish that are living on the coral reef has increased by 50% so that's great for local communities where those fish are a source of protein, but it's also important for the resilience of those reefs, because we know that those fish coming back to kind of what's the cogs of the machine that those species are providing, those fish are eating the algae that are growing on the corals. And so when you do get these bleaching events, which we're seeing increasingly frequently as a result of climate change, those corals are actually able to bounce back much more quickly because they're not being overrun by these algae. So actually, you can see how, just as when we start removing those cogs from the system, it can start to collapse. Actually, when you start to add things back in, those positive feedback loops can run in the opposite direction. You can really get this enhancement of nature, this enhancement of ecosystem functioning, which is then also helping us in terms of adapting to climate change.
Mark Maslin 24:44
So sticking with the bird theme. Elliot, if I can come back to you, can you give us a bit of an insight to the new stalks project and why stalks are important within cities?
Elliot Newton 24:56
Yeah, really interesting topic. And actually probably quite. Controversial topic as well. So White storks an amazing species, I think, as a species, they embody ecological recovery in terms of ecosystem function. They're not like a beaver. They do not have the same Keystone role in terms of in terms of the ability to manipulate and bring whole scale change to a landscape. So what we're doing, we've just got some funding from rewilding Britain, an amazing organization that does rewilding across the UK, and we're about to start something called the London white stock working group. But how can we make London more friendly to white stocks? If you go to places like in Portugal or Germany, you'll see white stocks nesting on chimneys and houses. They are a species that is well adapted to living in urban settings. So what we want to investigate over the next few years is really, Can White stocks thrive in London? Can they be a symbol that encourages people to reimagine about how much nature we should be living alongside our urban landscapes? And we hope it very exciting discussion that might, you know, result in us having more white storks over in London, and then that might bring a whole cascade of other ecological actions. It might bring political will. It might bring more people, more school children, involved in nature. So that's that's our plan, and we're looking forward to getting cracking.
Mark Maslin 26:05
I love the fact that you build partnerships. It isn't you try to do something. You build these partnerships, and I know that you've always got funding from the Mayor of London to actually do some of these projects. How important do you think it is to get the public support and local government and national government to support your projects. Well,
Elliot Newton 26:24
it's incredibly important. And I think, you know, beavers, I think again, as this charismatic species that get headlines, that get political attention, that really can help elevate conservation action and get more people involved. So for example, on October the 11th last year, when we were releasing our family of five beavers into Ealing, it wasn't just us on our own doing that there was a whole plethora of the world's media and BBC Sky News the surrounding cameras clicking away. But we also had Sadiq Khan there himself, and he was actually opening one of the beaver boxes. He himself has been a very strong advocate of beavers within London, which I think is fantastic to have a mayor that said we must rewild our city. That to me being completely apolitical, but to me, somebody who wants to rewild our city, get more nature into our city, must only be a good thing.
Simon Chin-Yee 27:10
We keep learning about beavers today, but I'm actually it's all well and good to talk about these mega fauna, or these charismatic fauna that are bringing attention and they're important, don't get me wrong, but if I could bring us back to other ecosystems, perhaps not in London, but that we don't see very much. They are under the water or like the coral atolls that you were talking about earlier, Alex, is there a way of balancing the needs of human of humans us? Is there a way that we can balance that need with also the protection and the understanding of protecting these ecosystems,
Alex Pigott 27:43
yeah. So I think, I think sometimes we tend to view human society and nature as well, firstly, separate things, right? Which I think is this sort of false dichotomy. You know, humans are part of nature, and as a result of that, actually, there's a lot of room for these sort of synergistic, mutually beneficial solutions. There are some really tough trade offs that we do have to deal with. I'll come maybe to that in a second, but I think there are many cases where actually what's good for nature is also good for humans and vice versa. There are some hard decisions, though, that I think we have to make, for example, 50% of the planet's surface, or 50% of the land surface, I should say, is dedicated to agricultural production, so producing food for us, and 75% around that of that agricultural land is used to produce Meat and Livestock, and that's actually an incredibly inefficient way of producing food. So for every 100 kilograms of plant protein that goes into making a cow, it actually only produces around three or five kilograms of meat protein. Actually, there's a really fundamental trade off here between the land that we're using for agriculture and the land that's left for nature, and in that case, there's some hard political decisions that have to be made, and also personal decisions, such as cutting down on the amount of meat that we're eating. But I think, you know, it's not always helpful just to trade to frame these questions as a trade off. And I think focusing on these cases where we have these sort of mutually beneficial effects on both human society and nature are really a positive way of thinking about these problems. And
Mark Maslin 29:26
I also think that we really need to focus, sometimes slightly selfishly, on humans and saying, Well, hang on, if we eat less meat, we're going to be healthier. If we have more green spaces and we have more rewilding, we're going to have less mental health issues. There are so many positives that come out of nature and biodiversity, which we seem to lose because of like, it's drowned out by the consumerism and the need to actually have more and more stuff. And so I'm really. Really sold on this, win, win, win, which is win for nature, win for humanity, win for human health. So I think, Hey, I think we've solved it, guys,
Simon Chin-Yee 30:10
that's what podcasts do. Mark, if I could ask both of you this question, actually, I'm about to leave for Kali, for COP 16. Next that starts next week as someone Elliot, who works on the ground, is there something that you can see at that, that huge global level that you are you're looking at to see what, what can help answer your question, and to Alex at the same question to you, because you work on that large scale, what are you looking to come out of COP 16? Let's start with Elliot.
Elliot Newton 30:38
I know it's a slightly different cop, but I was at Glasgow a few years ago, and when they were full of hope, you know, this was the time that we were going to, you know, those this was the point in human history where we've got to acknowledge the problem and really try and turn things around. I think leaving it I spent a week there, maybe weaken a bit. I think I've never got more depressed in my entire life. Generally, I know there were positives. But you know, the people I was talking to, the politicians from around the world, I still didn't hear what we need to be doing. Going back to the Montreal cop that was very pleased by the 30 by 30 challenge. I think that is a fantastic target that we should be aspiring to. So that is a positive thing, but that's the 30 by 30 challenge. So 3530 target. Sorry, so by 2030, 30% of the planet will be in nature conservation or something, or to that extent. That's a global target that has been issued. Anything that can bring us towards that 900 billion pounds of funding that we really need. That's what I would love to see. Get the funding. And then I think if we do just if we unleash that amount of capital to really do this, I think that will really start to see a change. But what I'd love to see is true political leadership and really saying, this is a real challenge. I want to hear it on the news, not every now again, but every day.
Simon Chin-Yee 31:46
And Alex,what about you? What are we going to spend that 900 billion on? That?
Alex Pigott:
I'm sure we're going to get this, this particular cop. So I think I mean very much the same as As Elliot. I want to see that global biodiversity financing gap being closed, so getting up from 130 up towards 900 billion. I want to see more kind of concrete plans for actually how countries are going to actually implement this ambitious goal of protecting 30% of the land or ocean surface and put that in under nature protection.
Mark Maslin 32:18
Can I thank both you Elliot and you Alex, because for me, one of the things that gives me great hope is the number of people like you around the world who are fighting to protect our biodiversity. There are people in every country making sure that we try to conserve and re wild what we've destroyed. It comes down to people like you making a difference. Thank you.
32:47
Thank you so much having us on.
32:49
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Mark Maslin 32:56
So by the magic of radio, we can now cross into the future, and we're going to hear from Simon, who has made it to Colombia, and his thoughts on cop 16.
Simon Chin-Yee 33:10
Hello, UCL generation one. Listeners, we are calling into from COP here in Cali, in Colombia. I am with Dr Izzy Bishop. She's one of our own, one of our UCL researchers, academics. She's at the Center for biodiversity and Environment Research research here at UCL. So I am very excited to be here in this rather noisy ground here we can hear Izzy. I don't know if the listeners can these little you said that they were frogs. Frogs. They're really difficult to spot, but I saw one just sitting on the ground the other day. They're for their size. They're about an inch long, and they're so loud, I'm just in love with them, even though I can't see them myself at the moment. All right, Izzy, let's get back. Let's get down to brass tacks. Here. Cop, this I hear, is your very first biodiversity cop as it is mine. It is my first. And I want to know without thinking vivid and Izzy has not been prepped for this. What impression do you have from this cop here in Cali? It's completely mad. Is that fair?
Izzy Bishop: That's a fair assumption. Having been going to the climate cops myself, this is actually a toned down madness, if you could even believe, wow, a circus, an absolute circus. I think probably because I'm coming into this as a biologist, as opposed to having had any, I've not had any kind of previous experience with policy, the whole concept of nation states trying to negotiate while in the background, there's all of these NGOs and businesses trying to get their one word in front of their favorite nation state to get them. To try and say that one word that they want them to say. It all feels totally manic. I think the first few days, I was a bit overwhelmed, but then I kind of got into it and started following the negotiations, and I I feel a little bit more at home now, but certainly the first, the first day, was I was totally lost.
Simon Chin-Yee 35:19
Yeah, well, it doesn't seem that you were totally lost. I see because I you put in a submission to the member states at some point, right? So what was that about?
Izzy Bishop 35:27
I did. I joined. So the reason I wanted to come to COP is because I work in freshwater ecology. There's a huge amount of information being gathered in by fresh water scientists about pollution and climate change and the impact that that has on biodiversity, but none of it is transferring over to biodiversity policy. So one of my reasons for coming to cop was just to learn about why that might be and where the gaps are. So I've published recently a policy brief that outlines some of the monitoring work that's happening in fresh water, particularly driven by citizen scientists, and I know that that is not being transferred over to the Convention on Biological Diversity. So one of my reasons for coming was to try and figure out how that crossover can be made. And on Tuesday, I was invited to join this fresh water stakeholders group, who just happened to be writing a statement about raising the profile of fresh water generally. And there was a very specific opportunity to put something in about synergies between Sustainable Development Goal monitoring, which is what I work on, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. So I put that in partly, just to learn how the whole process works. 630 in the morning on Wednesday, I had a call from the South African minister, which was very, very weird and unexpected, who really, really supported this statement, it did end up getting mentioned, although a slightly watered down version of it, although it wasn't watered down, it didn't include the specifics about water, but it did include the fact that communities are already doing a lot of relevant monitoring. So for a first go at COP, that's I was quite pleased with myself.
Simon Chin-Yee 37:21
Very impressive, I have to say. So. So tell us a bit about yourself, your research that you're doing, and then if you could link it to the convention,
Izzy Bishop 37:28
my research is really trying to answer the question, what impact is pollution having on freshwater biodiversity? And in order to do that, we need a lot of data at very high spatial and temporal resolution, which is very difficult to get. I work a lot with citizen scientists, partly as a means to get that data, but also because they hold a lot of local knowledge about water that is really, really valuable. They can they know when a pollution event has happened. They can just see it and report it. So to date, all of that has been being fed into the Sustainable Development Goals, into specifically SDG indicators, six, point 3.2, which is very catchy.
Simon Chin-Yee 38:19
You're speaking my language. But what is that?
Izzy Bishop 38:22
So it's a within the Sustainable Development Goals framework. It's the way that nation states monitor their progress towards target six, which is about water quality and availability of decent water. So my feeling is that that same water is not just being used by humans, but it's also being used by pretty much every living thing on earth, including these frogs around us, including these frogs, and it's also starting to rain. Aptly, they're happy.
Simon Chin-Yee 38:55
We're not so happy, and neither is my equipment here. Oh dear.
Izzy Bishop 38:59
All of this information is already being used to monitor progress towards SDG six at COP 16. There's been a huge amount of talk about how on earth nation states are going to monitor progress towards the Kunming Montreal targets.
Simon Chin-Yee 39:16
That's the convention that they agreed upon last year, or two years ago now in Montreal.
Izzy Bishop 39:21
Yeah, exactly so set of goals and targets that they need to figure out whether they're going to achieve or not. So they need ways to monitor it. And my feeling is that everything of the water that humans are using for SDG six is the same water that pretty much every living thing on earth is using fresh water. Biodiversity is declining faster than in any other ecosystem, so why not use the same information to try and monitor our progress towards improving the fresh water?
Simon Chin-Yee 39:55
In fact,okay, very good, excellent. I mean, considering this is your first cop and you're working. Specifically on this, it looks like you're going to be coming to many more of these conventions. I really hope so. Your first circus, but it won't be your last. Is that fair to say?
Izzy Bishop 40:07
I like a circus.
Simon Chin-Yee 40:11
Last question there for the listeners on what you would think would be two things, actually, your biggest takeaways from this cop, either professionally or just a thought process behind the cockpit cell. And second, what would they what would you want them to know? Someone who's never been to one of these biodiversity conventions before, what would what should they know about it?
Izzy Bishop 40:33
Okay, my biggest takeaway is probably, to be honest, quite boring, because this is quite professional, but I was really shocked about how little freshwater ecosystems are acknowledged in any of the negotiations that's happening, or any of the language in the Convention on Biological Diversity at all. To be honest, given how much we know about the state of fresh waters, I found that quite depressing, but also a huge opportunity. And it's probably while I'm back, the thing that I would like people to know is, I think I found it quite challenging as a scientist, but also hugely rewarding. What I mean by that? I think, as scientists, we like to think that we're quite important, and sometimes we do, sometimes, sometimes we do, and we're not at all well. I mean, we are in our way, but certainly the way that these policies are developed, we are by no means the loudest voice in the room, and what I think of as objective and rational is not necessarily what's driving the decision making process. There's lots of other thought processes coming into this. So I think it's really, really valuable for a scientist to try and understand that and to understand what all of the different perspectives are, not just to how your research might be received, but also what the barriers are to making progress using the work that I'm doing.
Simon Chin-Yee 42:17
That's the problem with these cops in general, is that the politics and the economics are actually the drivers of policy, not necessarily the science. But take heart, at least the CBD is supposed to be developed around, probably supposedly developed around the science. The science behind biodiversity is supposed to be the driver, at least one of the drivers, of political change. But I totally take your point and how depressing that this can be when you see people that aren't actually involved in the science actually making the decisions on the table.
Izzy Bishop 42:48
Yeah, but can we end on something positive? Let's do that. So the thing that, another thing that I've learned, is that the location of COP matters being in the second most biodiverse country on Earth, with which is also massively ethnically diverse as well. Kind of puts it in the forefront of your mind about why this is so important, and for me, why it's important for me to be here. And I think I'm leaving actually feeling quite inspired about the role that we as researchers can have in what is a really, really important situation and trying to reverse the decline of biodiversity.
Simon Chin-Yee 43:32
Fantastic. And I think that's a good place to leave it, as we are getting wet now and again. As I said, great for the frogs, not so good for the equipment, but Izzy, I've, it's great to have you here. I'm really pleased that you're here at COP as well. And we'll, I guess we'll be, there'll be many, many more to come.
Izzy Bishop 43:50
I really hope so. And thank you so much for having me
Simon Chin-Yee 43:53
brilliant, right. Good to have you on UCL generation one.
Mark Maslin 44:02
That's it for this episode of generation one from UCL, turning climate science and ideas into action. But stay tuned for the rest of the series, or listen on catch up to all our episodes on your favorite platform. If you'd like to ask a question or suggest a guest that you would like to hear on Generation One, you can email us on podcasts@ucl.ac.uk. Otherwise for more information about UCL's work in the climate space and what our staff, students and researchers are doing to make a more sustainable future, head to the UCL generation one website. Or follow us on all social media #UCLGenerationOne.