Biodiversity – the big disaster. The Anthropocene.

Posted on by Opher

The tragedy of our destruction of biodiversity has been like a slow-motion car-crash that I have been observing throughout my life.

The destruction is ongoing, continuous and horrendous.

I have witnessed it in the UK and as I’ve travelled the world I have seen the evidence everywhere I have one.

In The UK.

The plants and animals I used to see regularly are disappearing fast. As a boy, I used to play in meadows full of wildflowers. I used to collect caterpillars, newts, frogs, toads, slowworms and grass snakes. They were common. Hedgehogs were everywhere. The fields were full of the buzz of insects. Big flocks of swifts and swallows swooped and fed. Streams were full of sticklebacks, dragonfly and caddis.

Those fields are sprayed with pesticide and herbicide. The streams are polluted or culverted. The hedgerows have been grubbed up, trees chopped down and ponds filled.

Where can the wildlife live?

Abroad.

The rainforests – the lungs of the earth – are disappearing at an alarming rate. Flying over the Amazon the sight of the vast areas of cleared forest is alarming. But the same thing is happening in Borneo, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Africa. What was once impenetrable jungle (only fifty years ago) has roads running through it. The loggers and hunters have moved in. The farmers follow. The forest, along with the creatures it supports, is burnt.

I was quite shocked by a statistic that came out of the David Attenborough programme last night concerning the biomass of organisms.

60% Livestock

36% Humans

4% Wildlife.

That is what we have done in the last hundred years.

Our seas are being denuded of fish by huge supertrawlers. Our rivers are likewise overfished. Travelling down the Mekong I was amazed to see that through the whole length there were fishing enterprises taking even the smallest fish to batter into fish paste. What hope is there?

In Vietnam, everything that moves is killed. Even the paddy fields have traps to catch and eat insects. The jungles were silent.

I am appalled by the cruel, inhumane way we treat animals. They are caged in tiny cages, driven mad and killed in the most horrendous ways – being boiled alive, skinned alive or cut open to extract blood or gall bladders. Such insensitivity.

What is wrong with people?

This is not sustainable.

The delicate balance of nature not only supports this wondrous array of life but provides our climate, our food, our oxygen and atmosphere that keeps us alive.

Already we are seeing the huge fires due to global warming, the floods, droughts, heatwaves and changes in air and sea currents.

Nature can bounce back but we have to help it. We have to stop the destruction, reduce our population, stop the waste, put back the forests, the ponds, streams and hedgerows and start to act responsibly (and far less cruelly).

I think we are on the brink.

https://populationmatters.org/campaigns/anthropocene?gclid=CjwKCAjw74b7BRA_EiwAF8yHFEU-83LimHv9sMS8kwfZm2wvo6wFi4wIkrpz3f3bBLz-zj0Dp9YsJBoCzyEQAvD_BwE

 a passionate and always readable book conceived in love, gestated over a lifetime of travel and naturalism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2016

Verified Purchase

Poetry – The Future

Posted on by Opher

The Future

 

This is the future of Earth –

A sterile

Ball in space.

 

This is the reality of what we do

Polluting

The Earth’s face.

 

This is the greed that drives us

Forward

Ever-increasing the pace.

 

These are the creatures we are

Murdering

And it’s a disgrace.

 

Opher – 13.9.2020

Poetry – Precious

Posted on by Opher

Precious

 

Every tree

Precious

Every stream and hedge.

 

We’ve put

Every plant and animal

Living on the edge.

 

For those of us who care

We look towards our leaders

To provide the direction.

 

It’s always up to us

We need to place the right ones

In every election.

 

Every bug

Precious

Every fish and shrub.

 

Every single organism

Is a member of our club.

 

Every tree

Precious

Every stream and hedge.

 

Yet we’ve put

Every plant and animal

Living on the edge.

 

Opher – 13.9.2020

Poetry – Extinction Rebellion I love you

Posted on by Opher

Extinction Rebellion I love you

 

Sitting in the smoke of a burning world

As the deniers continue buying,

The producers go on producing,

And the rest of us give up trying.

One group defiantly stands

Against the absurdity,

Protecting the last tree,

Defiantly.

 

Extinction Rebellion

I love you.

You know there’s nothing left to do.

 

Bring it to a stop

As the last bird warbles

And nature’s for the drop.

We’re selling the world for baubles.

 

Standing on the rim of the Arctic desert

As the oilmen sink their well,

The politicians’ hard sell,

And all we can do is yell.

Only one group takes action

In desperate disbelief

Saving that last leaf

From grief.

 

Extinction Rebellion

I love you.

You know there’s nothing left to do.

 

Bring it to a stop

As the last bird warbles

And nature’s for the drop.

We’re selling the world for baubles.

 

Opher – 11.9.2020

Poetry – Capitalism Kills

Posted on by Opher

Capitalism Kills

 

Capitalism is killing the planet.

We should all rise up and ban it!

A system based on wealth and greed

Is really not what we need.

Clawing up the earth chopping down the trees

Bringing the planet down to its knees.

There has to be a better way than this

For us all to co-exist.

Accumulating stuff and throwing it away

Without a thought for the very next day.

Sixty per cent of everything has already gone.

Something, surely tells us this is wrong.

There has to be a better way

For us to live together and be OK.

We’re killing all the creatures stealing their homes

To fill our front yard with garden gnomes.

 

Opher – 11.9.2020

Humanity has wiped out 60% of Mammals, Birds, Fish and Reptiles since 1970

Posted on by Opher

This is a worse crisis than Coronavirus or Global warming.

It comes as no surprise to me that this is the case. In my lifetime I have witnessed the crashes in population both here in the UK and abroad. As a biologist, and naturalist, I have found this incredibly distressing.

In the UK the creatures that were common in my childhood – the toads, frogs, newts, hedgehogs, slowworms, snakes and lizards – are now rare. The streams are devoid of life. The insects and butterflies are not buzzing around. The skies are not full of flocks of swallows and swifts.

In the Amazon the rainforest burns. In Africa, the chimps, bonobos and gorillas are being hunted to extinction. Everywhere I have travelled – Australia, Africa, South America, China, Phillipines, Borneo, Vietnam – it is the same story – deforestation and the destruction of habitat – a burgeoning human population – overfishing and hunting.

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970. We are systematically destroying our planet.

massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe.

Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”

In the UK it is relentless – every tree cut down, hedgerow ripped up, stream culverted,  ponds filled in, is another nail in the coffin. The mowing of verges, the spraying of fields. It is almost as if we hate nature.

Abroad they are chopping rainforest for agriculture. There are no places left for the gorillas, the orangutan, elephants or tigers. If they dare to ‘encroach’ they are killed.

I am told that people have to eat, to feed their children. The truth is that there are too many children.

Nature is our lifeline. It provides our atmosphere. We are part of a complex web that feeds the soil, pollinates our crops, gives us the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat – yet we are destroying it.

In the process, we are releasing pandemics and herding ourselves into cities and plastic environments.

We are endangering our own survival on the planet!

WE HAVE TO STOP!!!!

Poetry – From Factory to Field

Posted on by Opher

From Factory to Field

 

From factory to field,

Straight to another factory,

Without touching a single hand.

 

Our green fields

An industry,

Sprayed to extinction,

‘Til no creature

Lives upon the land.

 

Opher – 8.9.2020

Poetry – Icecaps and Polar Bears

Posted on by Opher

 

Icecaps and Polar Bears

 

Icecaps and polar bears,

Penguins and seals,

Whales and walruses;

They’re heading for the hills.

 

Seas are rising.

Land is getting hot.

Hurricanes and droughts.

The climate is shot.

 

Burning up the coal

The oil and the gas.

Breeding like rabbits.

Chasing the cash.

 

We haven’t woken up yet

To the time that’s running out.

We need to wake up

To what it’s all about.

 

Out there on Venus

It’s four hundred degrees.

If we don’t act soon

It’ll bring us to our knees.

 

Opher – 23.8.2020

Wildlife on Hornsea Mere – photos

Posted on by Opher

The mere has some great reed banks where a lot of birds nest. The birds coexist with the people who go boating.

It is a beautiful lake. It is the largest lake in Yorkshire and was used by the RAF for seaplanes. It is now a site of special scientific interest.

Here’s a few shots I took of the birds:

To Nurture Nature! Or to die!

Posted on by Opher

You are all most probably sick to death of me going on about the huge damage that was wreaked on the habitats near where I walk. They mowed the wide verges down the entire length of the road and completely destroyed the vestiges of wild habitat. The plants were in full flower and alive with insects. The seeds and insects provide the food for the hedgehogs, voles, owls, kestrels and kites.

I used to go on a walk eager to see what wonderful creatures I was going to find.

Since the destruction of all those acres of habitat, I haven’t seen anything.

The verges are now becoming green as the decimated plants regrow.

But they are devoid of flowers. It is too late now. The flowers have passed their season. There will be no seeds for the animals.

These verges are devoid of most insects. Countless multitudes of insects were destroyed. Those are the food for the birds, hedgehogs and shrews.

The birds and creatures will have another hungry winter.

Further down, on another lane, there were areas of verge which had not been mown.

It is easy to see the rich profusion of life – flowers, seeds, bees, butterflies and other insects

We are being urged to keep little wild patches in our gardens for the insects, for the wildlife, yet, for no apparent reason, acres of wild habitat are mown flat, wiping out whole communities of plants and animals.

If we want to have the beauty of nature around us we have to protect it!

If we do not look after the planet I fear we will have no future!