Mother country doing … what, precisely?
By the Green Hornet
As one of the few remaining Overseas Territories (new-speak for colonies) which are mostly fly-speck islands scattered around the planet, we have to ask what Mother England has done for the ecology of our own particular fly-specks.
A collection of scientists and environmentalists met last month in Jersey (the Channel Islands) to take a look at how much serious money the UK is putting into the future ecology of its Overseas Territories (OTs). The answer they found: not much.
Delegates heard, as reported in the New Scientist, that “giant mice are eating their way through one of the world’s most important seabird colonies. An international airport is to be built on the only known home for 20 endangered insect species. Cats are harassing the Caribbean’s endangered iguanas. And it’s all happening on British territory.”
The article does not mince words.
“The UK may have a good reputation for protecting endangered species within its own shores, but it is abjectly failing to do the same on its surviving fragments of empire in the Caribbean and the South Atlantic,” it continues. This message was delivered at Biodiversity That Matters, a meeting of environmentalists and scientists working in the UK’s 14 OTs. Delegates blamed government indifference for a frightening catalogue of invading species and unmet international obligations in these territories.
Almost no money spent in OTs
“The UK has more threatened wildlife on these islands than the whole of Europe put together. Yet while the government spends £500 million a year protecting biodiversity in Britain, it spends only about £1 million a year on its overseas territories,” says Mike Pienkowski of the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum, which organised the meeting.
“We need orders of magnitude more money to protect these places.”
He went on to say that just five countries have presided over the extinction of more bird species.
According to the New Scientist, UK government scientists say the country’s OTs will fail to meet a pledge made at the World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002 to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
“‘The OTs are of huge importance globally in terms of biodiversity. Enhanced support for nature conservation is essential if the UK is to meet its World Summit commitment,’ says Marcus Yeo of the UK government’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee.”
Additional funding seems unlikely, however, says Eric Blencowe of the environment department DEFRA, which funds most conservation work, and he warned that budgetary cuts are more likely.
“‘The prospect of significant funding increase is unlikely in the near future,” he told delegates.
The story says that the latest major threat is to Gough Island in the South Atlantic.
“Made a World Heritage Site in 1995, it is probably the world’s most important seabird colony, according to Geoff Hilton of the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). But as Andrea Angel of the University of Cape Town in South Africa found, invading house mice have evolved to unprecedented size and are now eating thousands of chicks, including those of the endangered Tristan albatross and Atlantic petrel.”
Dr Hilton predicted a massive population crash among the island’s birds unless the mice are exterminated, yet there is no money for such a programme, and the next scientific visit is not planned until September 2007.
Helping the problems along, the British government has decided to build a 2-km airstrip on the tiny Atlantic island of St Helena, population 4,000. The aim is to stimulate tourism and prevent emigration, but the runway will obliterate much of the habitat for 20 insects and spiders found nowhere else, plus one of island’s three homes for the last 220 St Helena plovers, the only surviving species of six land birds that used to live there.
Does this sound like the proposed Little Cayman airport and the Booby colony nesting threat, or what?
More island tragedies
The article reports that the conference heard about a lost oil rig that beached on Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic in June, bringing in shellfish that now threaten local ecosystems, as well as about rats running amok on South Georgia and Montserrat.
As I said in a recent column, there are plans in the British Virgin Islands for a golf course across five rare salt ponds previously earmarked to become a national park. We even got a brief mention: the article points out that feral cats are eating our endangered iguanas in Cayman … and those in Turks and Caicos, too.
The article reports: “Even the handful of success stories highlights the ad hoc nature of the UK’s care of overseas territories. Extermination of cats on Ascension Island is allowing seabirds to return to abandoned nesting colonies, but it only came about because a birdwatching civil servant spotted spare cash in the Foreign Office’s budget.”
I have been unable to ascertain whether any of our own scientists (government or NGO) attended the conference. It certainly has not been covered in the local press. If somebody did go, would they kindly report back to us what happened and what was said?
I’d rather read it locally than in the New Scientist, which doesn’t exactly have a large Cayman readership.
A pittance
A few thousand pounds have been pumped into the Darwin Initiative in Cayman, which is focused primarily on figuring out what we have left after our recent depletions and exterminations. Just how good is our biodiversity?
I guess the Darwin Initiative will tell us – of course, most of us with a memory and eyes to see what surrounds us already know what we have lost and what’s left.
But it is truly appalling what a miserly amount of money Mother England is putting into this country to help protect our already threatened and endangered plants and animals. Our number one priority should be the acquisition of undeveloped land in areas such as the Central Mangrove, eastern Grand Cayman, the Brac’s Bluff and large portions of inland and coastal Little Cayman. Why not figure out the value of such lands and start an ongoing dialogue with the UK to initiate funding of their purchase?
At the same time, a large portion of Crown land that is as yet undeveloped should be given to the National Trust so that it can be kept in perpetuity for our grandchildren to enjoy, and to enable our unique flora and fauna to survive.
This December, the National Trust’s Blue Iguana Recovery Programme (BIRP) plans to release more than 100 baby blues in the eastern Salinas Reserve, but there are no guarantees that there is enough open, undeveloped, feral dog- and cat-free land for the species to avoid extinction. It is, after all, the most threatened species of iguana in the world.
I find it interesting that in Cuba – a country much maligned by its gargantuan neighbour – the Cuban parrot, an endangered bird species of which our own Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac parrots are subspecies, has found a safe haven in that country. This follows ongoing preservation efforts by environmental and governmental institutions on the island, reports the Cuban News Agency.
More than 300 species of the Cuban parrot live under protection in the Peninsula of Guanahacabibes, a World Biosphere Reserve located in the westernmost region of the country. Before the Cuban Revolution in 1959, indiscriminate logging reduced the populations of parrots, which nest in holes opened by woodpeckers.
Since that time the Cuban government has developed a series of initiatives aimed at protecting this endangered bird, including regional environmental education. “The colourful 13-inch parrot has also been a victim of human predation mainly due to its tame nature and beauty. They delight breeders with their whistle and can imitate human words. They transmit anger and fear by flapping wings repeatedly and screech,” says the news agency.
We have at least managed to preserve some parts of Cayman to help our parrots’ future survival –the Mastic Trail area and the Brac Parrot Preserve on the Bluff. However, much more habitat needs to be protected if the species is not going to move higher up the endangered species list. What better way than for our “Mother” to kick in a few extra bucks to protect some of her less fortunate but wilder children?
If you wish to contact the Green Hornet directly, you can e-mail me at: caymanhornet@yahoo.com. All messages will be treated confidentially.
