If you were looking for New Year's resolutions to reduce your ecological footprint and yet live a fairly normal life would you know what to do? I'm not sure - I'm confused.
It's not all about climate change, there's water use, pesticide use, fertiliser use and simply the area of land needed to supply my needs to be taken into account.
I'm looking for some simple rules of thumb (do you know the origin of that term?) that I can use when spending money and making choices.
For travel, it's fairly simple; travel less, use public transport and avoid flying if possible.
For heating, it's fairly simple: insulate the house and turn the thermostat down.
For eating, it's really, really complicated. Is UK food better than imported? And how do you tell the difference anyway? Is organic better than non-organic? Should you eat less meat? And if not should you choose pork over lamb or chicken over beef?
I can't say I've worked it out at all but I have resolved to munch less meat - not no meat, just less meat. In 2009 I had 4 meat-free days a week through the year. I'll be doing the same in 2010 - or at least resolving to do so.
Have you made green New Year's resolutions?
How about starting by signing up to the RSPB's Letter to the Future?
Many congratulations to the RSPB's Chief Executive on being awarded a knighthood in the New Year's Honours list.
Richly deserved, boss!
Here pictured a few weeks ago at the beginning of The Wave.
Fantastic news!
The proposal to reintroduce (ie put back) white-tailed eagles into East Anglia is stirring up controversy amongst land owners in Suffolk.
The Country Landowners Association says it has concerns about the impacts of these predatory birds on livestock, game shoots and wildlife.
There is no doubt that these magnicent birds of prey are predators - that wickedly powerful beak and those strong talons are not the equipment needed by any vegetarian bird. Eagles eat flesh, often when it is still warm, bloody and freshly killed (or still dying). What do they eat? To get an idea we should look at what their diets in other parts of the world where they are much commoner - places like eastern Europe for example.
White-tailed eagles eat a very large range of species - carrion, plenty of fish, birds and small mammals (here, here, and here, are links to European accounts of the birds and their diets). It's difficult to find evidence that they cause problems to livestock in any parts of the word where they occur - in fact they seem a bit lazy in their habits! Fish and birds seem to make up most of their diet in most areas - mammals mentioned are often small mammals or rodents. So what are the numerous and easy prey available for these magnificent birds in coastal Suffolk? Rabbits, fish in the estuaries, lots of ducks and no doubt the odd pheasant too. It couldn't be, could it, that the main worry of many CLA members is whether their pheasant shoots may suffer some losses from eagles? Wouldn't it be a bit odd if the reintroduction of a native species were put on hold because of worries about its impacts on non-native gamebirds reared to be shot for sport? Having said that, the impacts would be tiny I think.
If anything, I would have thought that fish farms should worry most about these birds but studies in Estonia suggest that losses of fish to eagles (and osprey) are negligible - in fact any landowner who had white-tailed eagles regularly fishing at a water body they own would be mad not to cash in to the spectacle and make their money from tourists wanting to see the birds! The Loch Garten ospreys are worth an estimated annual £1.5m to the local economy and they are only present in the summer months and we can't lay on reliable views of them catching fish!
And what about the impacts on other wildlife? I have some concerns about them deciding to switch to a diet of avocets, stone curlews and bitterns but then these are the issues that Natural England will have to assess when deciding whether to issue a licence for the reintroduction. In those parts of the world where white-tailed eagles are common they aren't seen as pests or dangers to native wildlife and that should be a reassuring guide to what they might get up to in East Anglia. All these matters are being looked at now as part of the consultation and planning process.
The American bald eagle is a close relative of the white-tailed eagle - and of course an iconic US species. I can't find much evidence of conflicts ( but see here and here) between bald eagles and either wildlife (bald eagles seem to be a bit mean to ospreys sometimes) or economic interests - but I'd be interested to hear of them if there are such instances. I do remember some years ago lunching in a restaurant with staff from National Audubon Society in New England and seeing bald eagles in the sky above the town - and thinking how great it would be if one could sit outside a pub in East Anglia with a pint of decent beer, a nice meal and watch eagles overhead. In fact, many people would seek out those pubs, cafes, B&Bs, hotels and holiday cottages which could give them views of eagles withing a couple of hours drive of London throughout the year.
And that may be one of the reasons why the Suffolk Coasts and Heath AONB partnership voted in favour of the reintroduction scheme earlier this month. Taking a broader perspective of such a charismatic bird this group saw the overall value, both economic and spiritual, of returning eagles to places where they will thrive. And obscured by the brouhaha stirred up by some landowners is the fact that an as yet unpublished survey of the public apparently shows overshelming support for the restoration of this bird back to coastal Suffolk.
My previous blog was about bird flu - and there is a link! Fears of mass mortality due to bird flu appear to have been misfounded (but maybe it's too early to say) and led to all sorts of anti-wildlife pronouncements suggesting that wild birds should be culled. Isn't it odd that we often act as though nature is our enemy? If we hadn't exterminated white-tailed eagles from England a few centuries ago it is difficult to imagine that the CLA would be campaigning to cull them now - even if they were to eat a few pheasants. And do CLA members go to Poland and wring their hands at the damage that white-tailed eagles are doing to the local economy there? Of course not - opposition to eagles in Suffolk is based largely on fear of the unknown, concerns about whether game shoots might be affected, perhaps worries over whether releasing radio-tagged eagles might uncover illegal poisons being used and, I fear, a deep-seated suspicion and fear of the natural world.
Am I completely happy with the idea? About 90% happy! The 90% is because restoration of lost species and lost habitats is such a key part of nature conservation that this seems a very logical and positive thing to do, it's a wonderful bird which has been missing for too long and elsewhere in its range is loved and admired rather than demonised. Why the 10% doubt? Well, there are, I recognise, some real uncertainties about what might happen. I'm a bit ashamed of the 10% - do those deep-seated fears of wildlife run through my veins too?
But, cards on the table, taking everything into account, am I in favour of reintroducing white-tailed eagles to East Anglia? Yes!
We don't hear much about bird flu - possibly better called poultry flu - these days. A few years ago the media were full of it and how it might threaten the poultry industry here in the UK and elsewhere and the grave dangers of the disease jumping the species barrier and becoming a human pandemic. Well it hasn't happened yet. Let's hope it never does.
Nowadays we are more concerned about so-called swine flu which has led to thousands of human deaths across the world this year alone.
But bird flu, avian influenza, highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, has dropped out of the news and out of most of our thinking.
H5N1 first arrived - as far as we know - in the UK in April 2006 on the Fife coast at Cellardyke. The virus was detected in an already-dead swan. I couldn't identify a virus but the authorities were embarrassed that they couldn't identify a swan - it was first said to be a mute swan but later a whooper swan. A mess-up that has for me always epitomised the lack of attention paid to the details of the involvement of wild birds in the spread of this disease.
The next outbreak was in eastern England, in Suffolk, at a farm at Upper Holton in February 2007. The official epidemiological review of the case found that import of turkey meat to this site from Hungary (where there had been a recent outbreak) was the most likely source of infection - although news of the meat imports was slow to emerge from the company involved or Defra whilst speculation about the role of wild birds in disease transmission was rife.
The next autumn brought another East Anglian outbreak, this time near Diss, in November 2007. Despite the fact that no H5N1 was found in wild birds in the vicinity the final epidemiology report leant towards wild birds being the source of the outbreak because there was an ornamental lake with wild birds nearby!
The next and last UK H5N1 outbreak was in wild birds in Dorset at the Abbotsbury swannery in January 2008. Only wild birds were affected this time and the virus was detected in a number of mute swans and a Canada goose. This site holds large numbers of semi-domesticated but wild and free-flying mute swans as well as the usual mix of gulls and migrant ducks that might be found in many places in the UK. One would have to say that the Abbotsbury swannery is unique in the UK and although the swans are wild, in that they can come and go as they like, it is closer to a free-range swan zoo than any other site in the UK. If you were a mute swan trying to catch or hand on a disease to another mute swan then this might be your location of choice. Having said that, the virus was only picked up and detected because of routine monitoring that had been put in place because of fears over the H5N1 virus. There was no mass death of swans - similar numbers died as usual but the routine testing detected the virus in some of them. So, if we hadn't been looking very hard for the virus no-one would have noticed anything unusual.
After this 'outbreak' it seemed quite likely that the H5N1 virus was floating around in wild bird populations and might be brought to the UK by migratory waterfowl such as ducks, geese, swans and gulls each winter - perhaps particularly winters with cold weather affecting much of Europe where larger than usual numbers of such birds were pushed towards the Uk to escape Arctic conditions on continental Europe.
And it is the recent cold weather, there is still a little ice and snow outside my house today, that made me remember bird flu. The UK has been officially free of H5N1 since November 2008 although monitoring continues. That means that through all of the 2008/09 winter, and so far through this one too, there have been no H5N1 cases in the UK. That is despite the annual movement in and out of the country of millions of wild birds each winter. It's tempting to think that bird flu has fizzled out or was a flash in the pan.
I'd say it is far too early to be sure that we don't need to worry too much about bird flu but this prompted me to look at the number of human deaths across the world from H5N1. I don't know how these data are compiled so can't speak at all authoritatively on them but it is striking that the number of human deaths across the world now stands at 263 and that they appeared to peak in 2006. Indonesia has suffered, and perhaps admitted, more deaths than any other country; the number of cases in China seems surpisingly low; Egypt appears to be the 2009 hotspot; the one human case and death in Nigeria seems way out of step with all the others; there are no European human deaths.
So far, so good one might say, taking a global perspective. There are somewhere between one and two human deaths, from all causes, per second across the world - about 125,000 a day. So the killing rate of bird flu is pretty low in the big scheme of things. Any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind, but 263 reported human deaths, so far, is a long way, so far, from the high-profile predictions of a human bird flu pandemic killing millions or billions of people. Let's be thankful for that - and remain vigilant.
There are three thoughts that I take from all this.
First, we seem, as a species, incredibly keen to predict our own demise from novel diseases and there is a terrible danger of crying wolf. SARS, bird flu and now swine flu have all killed people, and killed people across many countries of the world, but their collective killing power is tiny (so far) compared with the less than novel causes of death including road traffic accidents, heart disease and almost any cause of death you could name.
Second, we seem, as a species, incredibly keen to pin the blame on 'wildlife' every time a disease affects our livestock. Briefly in the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak in the UK there were calls to cull crows and other birds - nonsense in terms of an effective strategy and we learned soon afterwards that widespread livestock transport was an issue that we had to look at much more carefully. With bird flu there was amazing reluctance to admit publicly that partly-processed turkey meat was being regularly transported from a country with a recent bird flu outbreak (Hungary) to the very site where bird flu had broken out in Suffolk. A more realistic approach will be to recognise that diseases that affect domestic livestock are likely to be shared with wildlife - and that the diseases have the potential to pass from one to the other in either direction. Mitigating risk will need to look at livestock and wildlife together - and the movements of both. And we may be able to do much more about livestock housing conditions than we can about the movements about wild species.
Third, I just have a feeling that the worries, probably well-meaning and possibly well-founded, expressed about the seriousness of the impact of H5N1 on human mortality, not yet realised (and let us hope they never will be), have done some harm to the standing of science as a whole. When scientists warn of danger and the worst fears do not come to pass then the public, I suspect, downgrades the next threat. Perhaps a bigger dose of bird flu would have allowed us to respond better to the climate change threat? Maybe that's fanciful.
This blog will continue to appear over the Christmas break - so do dip in now and again!
Since I started blogging in May I have posted over 200 blogs on subjects as diverse as anting, climate change, how butterflies spend the winter, having a cup of tea with Gordon Brown, being a bit veggie, the Game Fair, squirrels, bitterns, nature reserves, marine Acts, people being nasty to birds of prey, farmland bird declines and much much more.
I write about what interests me, and where I think I have a bit of an insight to offer, in the hope that it interests you.
And I know that it interests one reader at least - Sooty. Sooty appears (who knows!) to be a retired dairy farmer from the Peak District, now living in Wiltshire who sometimes holidays on Mull and has never been on a plane. And he, for we must believe that it is a he, has posted c130 comments on my blog. Seems like he writes almost as much as I!
But Sooty is not alone. There are about (I cannot be sure) 700 daily links to this blog and I keep meeting people who comment to me on what they have read. The readership includes government ministers, journalists, civil servants, RSPB staff, friends, RSPB members and staff from other statutory conservation and environment bodies.
As well as Sooty, 60 of you have left comments on this blog. Do keep it up - I enjoy reading the comments (most of them) and I am sure others do too. If you are reading this, then you must like the blog a bit - tell me how it could be better for you and I'll see what I can do. And tell others about it too - the writing doesn't get harder if more people read it!
A Happy Christmas to all our readers, including Sooty.