Biodiversity – The Elephant in the Room

At least the elephant is so large and well known that special effort will be made to keep this species – if only in zoos and places in the world where it is used as a working animal. For many other species there is no future. Experts warn that the planet is now in the grip of its sixth mass extinction phase - the first that is man-made.

The 193 members of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity are gathering in Japan today aiming to tackle how to curb the world's rapid loss of animal and plant species and the habitats they live in. This is a more important debate than climate change but does not gather the level of support it deserves. I will be watching closely over the next 12 days for any sign of real progress. I am sure that there will be progress in recording which species are at risk. There will be renewed effort into trying to find and indentify species that are so far unknown to us but may be extinct before we have had the chance to catalogue them. Whether we do more than watch more closely, as the mass extinction proceeds will be the test of progress towards stopping it.

Meanwhile, an issue that filled airtime last week, reported on the BBC, is research into the colour of wind turbines. Apparently, insects are attracted more or less to different colours. White or grey is commonly used to help the turbine meld into the sky and be less intrusive for human view; but these colours have the opposite effect on insects. Insects are attracted to it; and birds are attracted to the tasty meal of a nice plump insect. A white revolving turbine blade covered in insects and a flock of hungry birds; the consequences from a bird lover’s perspective are not good.

There is a solution. The research found that insects are attracted least to the colour purple. We could therefore paint all wind turbines purple. A purple revolving turbine blade (shown in pictures to accompany a planning application) and a group of local residents; the consequences for wind turbine applications are not good. If we put this problem to a UN convention we could end up with a compromise: white and purple stripes. That would both attract the insects (and therefore the birds) as well as raising the ire of local residents.

I hope that the UN conference on global biodiversity has rather more success than such gatherings normally achieve. The world needs to be woken up from distracting arguments over the colour of wind turbines to the discussion of real-world solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.