Forget red squirrels, let's worry about really endangered species

Published on Tuesday 25 November 2008 20:08

SCOTLAND'S red squirrels are being threatened by the invading grey with its deadly pox. The Forestry Commission is establishing 20 red squirrel refuges. In the south of Scotland a corps of squirrel-protection officers, armed with traps and rifles, will wage war against the greys. Scottish Natural Heritage wants £1.7 million to cull them.

Last month, Roy Dennis, director of the Highland Foundation for Wildlife, proposed that the lynx, a wild cat that was hunted to extinction thousands of years ago, be re-established as soon as possible. They should be returned to Scotland because they were previously part of our natural world.

White-tailed sea eagles have been successfully re-established, with more than 40 breeding pairs centred on Mull and the west coast, and 15 birds were let loose in Fife this year, the start of a four-year programme which will see 20 birds a year introduced.

Hardly a week goes by without a story about the conservation, or re-establishment, of our native species of birds and animals.

Money from the Scottish Government, National Lottery and a range of quangos and charities is directed to these aims. These causes have passionate advocates.

And what's wrong with any of that? We're conserving endangered species, protecting biodiversity, righting the wrongs of our past stewardship of the environment and also encouraging wildlife tourism.

What's wrong is that none of these species – red squirrel, beaver, brown bear, wolf, lynx, white-tailed sea eagle – is an endangered species, or anywhere near it.

Nor are ospreys or red kites. They may be rare, or have disappeared from Scotland, but worldwide populations are healthy.

There are about 700,000 European beavers. Red squirrels are common throughout Eurasia. The world population of white-tailed sea eagles is rising.

Protecting Scotland's existing endangered species, even when there are viable populations elsewhere, is, in general, a worthy and defensible aim, but when the task is so large and with so little likelihood of ultimate success, as with the red squirrel, surely there are better uses for scarce resources.

What is the justification for re-establishing species? A trial is planned next year of up to 20 European beavers, imported from Norway, to Knapdale in Argyll. We're told beavers are of huge ecological importance. Their ability, by damming, to create wetland habitats helps other species, such as otters, water shrews and water voles.

But beavers have been missing from Scotland for 400 years since they were hunted to extinction for their pelts. Why should we wish to recreate a 17th-century ecosystem? Not that it is possible anyway. Knapdale has adapted over these centuries to the disappearance of beavers, and there is no moral justification for valuing, or prioritising, the old ecosystem over the new.

There are, of course, those who object to reintroductions because of the harm that may result, claiming that beavers will damage trees and sea eagles are eating lambs.

If it hadn't now been too warm in Scotland, it wouldn't have been surprising if we'd faced a clamour to reintroduce the woolly mammoth, one of the very few native species we have lost which is now globally extinct.

Whenever the subject of re- establishment comes up, inevitably it will be linked with wildlife tourism. This is a valuable, growing sector of the tourist economy, particularly important for parts of the Highland and Islands.

It has been estimated that Mull benefits by 2 million a year from sea eagle seekers. In 2006, VisitScotland estimated this sector was worth 260 million to the Scottish economy. Even if one can question these figures – many of the people who contributed to this total would have toured in Scotland for other reasons as well as the wildlife – there is no doubt the economic impact is substantial and it is predicted to grow significantly. If this is the motivation for reintroduction, let's be honest about it.

We should remember that tourism is a major contributor to carbon emissions, and the more that Scotland is marketed as a wildlife tourism destination – which VisitScotland is urging – the more flights there will be and the more travel within Scotland.

This means more climate change, potentially the greatest threat of all to wildlife. Wildlife tourism is often promoted as if it is synonymous with green tourism – having a minimal environmental impact – but it is not necessarily so.

At the same time as this "conservation" and re-establishment of non-endangered species is going on, we Scots are contributing by our lifestyles to the threat of extinction for many species, by the degradation and destruction of habitats. According to WWF, Scotland's "ecological footprint" is the 15th worst in the world out of 160 nations, and double the average.

Forests and other natural habitats are being destroyed to satisfy the insatiable demand for the resources necessary to maintain our standard of living. An example is the rainforests of south-east Asia, particularly Indonesia, which are being lost to satisfy the affluent West's demand for palm oil as a substitute for high-saturated fats and also for bio-fuels.

Species threatened by the loss of these reservoirs of biodiversity include the orang-utan and Asian rhinoceros. About a quarter of the world's mammals are reckoned, for various reasons – though almost all of them the result of man's activities – to be threatened.

I think disproportionate attention and resources have been, and are being devoted to the re-establishment and conservation of a relatively small number of non- endangered species in Scotland. There's a bias towards the larger and more loveable species which attract public notice and media attention, but it is difficult to justify these programmes in the light of the real threats to the world's wildlife.

As in all areas of environmental policy, there are benefits, costs and unintended consequences, not all of them quantifiable. These should all be more explicit in the decision-making process, so that the unavoidable trade-offs between desirable goals should be on a more informed basis.

We need more questioning about the reasons and the need for protection and reintroduction, more thought about how it will affect larger concerns, such as climate change and threatened species overall. We should consider much greater funding of conservation programmes in other countries where species are genuinely under threat of extinction and where we are at least partly to blame.