Originally, this article was prompted by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. She was commenting on a 20,000-home development in Sussex being delayed by “… some snails … a protected species or something, that are microscopic; you can’t even see them…”
The snail in question is one of Britain’s rarest and most endangered freshwater species, the lesser whirlpool ramshorn.
So, what is wrong here?
Let’s break it down. The average size of these diminutive snails is around 5mm, so hardly “microscopic”. And they’re part of our ecosystem.
Let’s put ecosystems into the context of the human body and its constituent parts. It isn’t only ‘vital organs’ that keep humans functioning. Everything is connected, co-ordinated and interdependent. And it isn’t even self-contained — a body cannot function without oxygen, derived from clean(ish) air.
So, even the microscopic parts of your body, for example, oxygen atoms, or blood cells, are crucial in the functioning ecosystem that is your person. I promise you, without these microscopic parts, we would not have a functioning Chancellor.
Unseen does not mean unimportant
Just because things are unseen, with function unknown or misunderstood, doesn’t make them unnecessary. In fact, the vast majority of organisms in the biological sphere are instrumental to the survival of other living things.
The same applies whether your ecosystem is human or the one that sustains all living things on Earth. Just because you can’t see it or know its function, doesn’t mean it isn’t vital. Scientists in all fields are still discovering how matter and life forms interact. We are far from understanding it all.
Trust the experts
You might think, at this point, that if you don’t fully understand how something works, you should avoid meddling with it.
Absolutely. It’s why we have specialists and experts. But not everyone thinks investing in expertise is worthwhile, for various reasons:
- They can’t afford to pay for it.
- The assumed value of the best outcome doesn’t seem to justify the investment.
- There isn’t the willingness to make the changes that the advice may recommend.
- Contrary advice may be preferred, however unqualified it is.
- They don’t trust any advice! A sadly common British trait, it seems.
Influencers
And often in our media age, anyone can post almost anything on any platform at any time, whether factual, fictional or catastrophically misleading. Influencers are now commonplace, indulging our craving for short-term indulgences.
Often, they have greater pull than our longer-term wellbeing, which may require more resolve and effort.
The planet’s health is our health
The nation’s mental and physical health is compromised by addictive indulgent tendencies, over our need for sustained, holistic good health.
And we now know the health of all life on the planet is compromised by our self-indulgent human habits. We have crowded out nature, and destroyed or polluted much of what it needs to live.
Why is this to our detriment?
One of the best examples to answer this is bees. It is known that bees are poisoned by modern pesticides. Ironically, using chemicals to protect our food can kill what helps propagate it.
Bees are pollinators — necessary for the procreation of plants vital to the food chain. Plants either feed us directly, or, if we eat meat, the animals we eat. And it isn’t just pollination that plants need, but clean air and water, as well as sunshine for photosynthesis. Polluted air and water, plus de-stabilising the climate, puts our very food supply at risk.
Thus, our own health is inextricably linked to, and dependent on, the health of the planet’s ecosystem. The planet’s ecosystem could survive without humans, but not the other way around.
Dependent on nature
We can’t live without what nature supplies. And nature cannot keep up with the current trajectory of human population growth, consumption, and habitat loss. Scientists in all fields are urgently warning of this.
This is why governments across the globe have declared a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency, and debate it in annual COP meetings. This year, on 17 and 18 November, the focus is “planetary and community stewardship”, including biodiversity.
So, that was the tough part of the article. I don’t want readers to feel admonished for the way they live. In our permissive age of empowerment and freedom of choice, it seldom works as a form of persuasion!
Hopefully, I’ve done half the job — if you are still reading this — of convincing you that change is vital, but how do we do it?
In Part 2, I’ll outline some ways of nurturing nature while living alongside it.
