Conservation hope lies in people
Why local communities hold the key to making conservation stick
Dear friends,
How worried are you about nature loss? I’m guessing, since you are reading this, that you are at least a little concerned. I am.
What worries you most? For me, what really gets that existential panic going is how preventable it could be if we chose to make it so.
Nature is vast, diverse and powerful. It’s easy to believe these qualities mean it could never fully succumb to human destruction.
On the other hand, nature’s immensity makes the extent to which humans have managed to decimate it even more horrifying.
Wrapped up in this is a strange paradox of the power of human beings. We are fully convinced of the power we hold, since we can see its devastating effects, but at the same time, we feel powerless to stop ourselves.
It’s this paradox that makes me feel simultaneously hopeful and hopeless when I hear about conservation projects, even those that are enjoying huge successes.
The ones that centre around researchers working away by themselves, cut off from the rest of us, are the ones that leave me feeling a bit flat—the kind in which scientists are trying to make corals more tolerant to climate change-induced bleaching, for example. Very cool, but it doesn’t fill me with hope. It doesn’t make me want to grab my coat and go and help them.
It’s the projects grounded in community that leave me feeling uplifted.
A whole village in Iceland, for example, has made it their business to save thousands of pufflings each year—they’ve helped 24,000 so far! This makes me want to get involved. Amanda Royal wrote about this amazing project back in August:
With this in mind, I’d like to share with you a conservation project that is close to my heart.
I’ve been tangentially attached to this project for the last seven years, since it is run by ex-colleagues at the University of Cambridge (now my friends), alongside charity partners the RSPB, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. I think it’s marvellous and hopeful precisely because of its commitment to local people. (These ex-colleagues are now my friends regardless of what I think of their conservation work, so I do not have to be saying this.)
Firstly, I love its title: ‘Banking on Butterflies’. It’s clever, witty and makes you want to understand all its layers.
It is not called something horrendously off-putting like ‘Facilitating a range of microclimates to act as refugia for Lepidoptera during climate change-induced extreme weather events’. They would be correct to call it this. But I’m glad they haven’t.
Let me explain what they’re doing before I tell you why I love it so much.
‘Banking on Butterflies’ is an experiment to work out how to help butterflies cope with climate change.
In nature reserves across the southeast of England, they are building ‘butterfly banks’—essentially giant capital ‘E’s made out of mounds of earth. These look pretty ghastly at first, but they are rapidly colonised by vegetation, quickly growing luscious and less unsightly.
These mounds of earth provide a variety of microhabitats, courtesy of slopes that slant in all different directions. This means that, on days of extreme high temperatures, which are becoming all the more common due to climate change, insects and other invertebrates always have access to shade, making it more likely they will survive the day.
The reason for the focus on butterflies, as opposed to other invertebrates, is that my friends are butterfly whisperers.
They deftly catch butterflies to measure their body temperature with a tiny probe. This helps them understand how these tiny creatures buffer environmental temperatures to keep their own body temperature in the optimal range.
And the results they have so far show that these butterfly banks are remarkably successful. Plus, they are relatively cheap to install and maintain.
As cool as this is ecologically, there are several reasons why I love this from a social point of view.
Firstly, this is science that everyone can understand. It’s intuitive and, frankly, a gift to public engagement—there are so many easy conversation starters:
“Have you ever noticed how much cooler it is on a really hot day under the shade of trees rather than out in the open?”
“Have you ever noticed, when it gets really hot, all the insects are less active?”
“Have you noticed how many more days over 30°C we get in spring and summer now?”
To all of these, the majority of people answer ‘Yes’. It only takes a few more questions, a bit more back and forth, before they fully get what these butterfly banks are providing for invertebrates and what the researchers are testing.
Secondly, the researchers and conservation charities involved in this work don’t see these spaces as just nature reserves. They are, but they are important for people as well as wildlife. These are places where people go to walk their dogs, take their children or friends, go for their daily wander. People feel connected to these places.
But these butterfly banks really do look like an eyesore when they are first built.
How would you feel if, with no warning or explanation, the gentle view of rolling hills you enjoy first thing every morning was suddenly ruined by a great big mound of earth? Probably confused and likely a bit angry.
This is what happens when conservation interventions are dumped on people without keeping them in the loop. You might say it doesn’t matter what people think if it’s what biodiversity needs, which is true.
But we can be more long-sighted than this. We have to be.
Yes, nature reserves like these exist to protect biodiversity. But they also exist because people like to have access to nature. That’s why there are footpaths through so many of them. In fact, this is a crucial part of why people become members of organisations like the RPSB, the Wildlife Trusts or the National Trust. So in the long run, keeping people onside and involved is non-negotiable.
The ‘Banking on Butterflies’ team have put up signs in front of the banks, explaining clearly what is happening and why.
Happily, this practice of signposting what’s happening at a nature reserve is becoming more and more common. But what’s really cool about this project is that they are hoping to apply for funding that lets them test the effect of this signage. Does having this information actually affect how people feel about the intervention or the place? Does it help them learn about conservation? I would love to know.
In the meantime, these scientists regularly run public engagement events, and their passion, joy and excitement for the work is infectious. They are eternally patient and very skilled at explaining and answering questions.
This might sound trivial in comparison to actually doing the science. But it’s not.
Being able to communicate conservation science in such a way that others are brought on board is not just the icing on the cake. It’s a vital ingredient if we want conservation to become mainstream, to be understood in a nuanced way beyond nature circles. And this goal is a necessity if we want to start voting for, funding and valuing conservation science at anything like the scale that’s needed.
I do wish more scientists valued public engagement to this extent. Sure, if you’re doing blue-sky research into the mechanics behind how grasshoppers hop, it’s not so important. But if the value of the research lies in its application, then engaging people isn’t optional.
Most people are really worried about the environment. Most people want to help. But there are so few solutions out there, so few ways of making us feel like we can be a part of positive change.
I wrote about how people responded to this project at a public engagement event I ran myself. You can read about this beautiful day that topped me up with hope for humanity here:
This project represents a solution that is understandable and attainable—a magical combination. Just imagine if all public green spaces had a butterfly bank. A safer world for insects is possible.
Happily, Butterfly Conservation have produced this handy factsheet on how to construct a butterfly bank. They don’t have to be giant. You can build a small one in your garden—it all helps.
I’d love to hear of more environmental projects that place local communities centrally. Have you been part of or come across any?
If you learned something new through this story, would you consider ugrading to paid or buying me a coffee? It allows me to keep writing.
The butterfly banks are such an interesting idea! And I'm glad that there is signage to explain to passersby what's going on. I volunteer with the Ice Age National Scenic Trail (Wisconsin, USA) and one of our neverending tasks is removing invasive plants along the trail corridor. But hikers can get a little testy when they see plants and trees being removed! Buckthorn (which I'm sure is lovely in your neck of the woods where it came from, but crowds out native wildflowers and prairie plants here) is especially a problem and we often have hikers stop (sometimes with their hackles up!) when we're going that work. However, the conversations we have explaining what we're doing (and why!) almost always end up being really positive and they are able to look at and understand the landscape in a new way because information was shared with them, rather than them feeling like something they don't understand is happening to a place they love.
Great story, and I loved how well you translated the science so non-scientists can relate to these important conservation projects (especially because, as you write, so many of them are often eye sores in their early years!). I agree on the importance of bringing the science to everyday people, but I hesitate to put all the onus on the scientists. They're really good at the science, it's difficult to then also be good at non-technical writing. Some are very good at both, but not that many, it's a different skillset.
That's where science writers like you and I come in - it's our job to bring all the cool stuff that scientists do to the public.
And honestly, I totally love that.