An aye-aye: along with other lemurs, its habitat is threatened by increasing deforestation in Madagascar
Endangered species Tony Juniper
In 1991, writer Douglas Adams and zoologist Mark Carwardine published their book Last Chance to See. It charted their journey across the world in search of animals on the brink of extinction, from the aye-aye of Madagascar to the kakapo parrot of New Zealand.
Twenty years on, some of them have hung on and some have increased in number. One, the Yangtze River dolphin, is probably extinct. Like others at the threshold of oblivion, its plight worsened as economic growth caused pollution and habitat damage.
It seems contradictory, therefore, to see the conservation message articulated in terms of economics. It is argued that if people see a financial value in rhinos, komodo dragons, macaws and so on, they will make efforts to keep the species alive.
The most obvious profit to be made is through “eco-tourism,” a booming business, with TV programmes fuelling demand for wildlife experiences. It has in some cases been helpful, for example spurring greater efforts to look after east Africa’s mountain gorillas. For some animals, especially those that are more widespread, such as tigers, there have been local benefits but this has been insufficient to stem a decline towards extinction. In the case of tigers, the continuing loss and fragmentation of habitat, and the poaching of animals for use in spurious traditional medicines, continues to drive these creatures towards the abyss.
Irrespective of the circumstances of individual species, seeking to conserve wildlife through tourism will rarely on its own be sufficient. The value of nature is more profound than the price we are willing to pay to see it. A new branch of economics has emerged on how to value ecosystems and wildlife, and not only in relation to tourism. This is welcome, but it is our personal and spiritual relationship with nature which will determine its future. If we feel connected to the natural world, we are more likely to conserve it.
I am writing this on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, on a visit to see wildlife and spend time in the wilderness. While bringing some tourist dollars, it is what I and others will take away from this amazing place that is so much more important.
Tony Juniper is a writer, environmentalist and campaigner
The Maldive Islands President Mohamed Nasheed
The window in the office of the president of the Republic of Maldives affords a beautiful view: shimmering azure waters, sprinkled with palm-fringed desert islands and dazzling coral white beaches. Ibn Battuta, a 14th century explorer, described the Maldives as “one of the wonders of the world”; many present-day tourists concur.
Maldivian resorts are a cross between paradise and paradise. From palatial overwater villas to underwater spas and restaurants: there are few places like it on Earth. Settlers from India, Arabia and Africa, along with the occasional shipwrecked European, have blended to create a unique people, language and culture.
But behind this handsome vision lurks an ugly reality: if humans continue to pump billions of tonnes of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, sea levels will rise and much of the country will likely be under water within several decades.
The Republic of the Maldives is among the world’s lowest-lying nations. The average height of our 1,200 islands is 1.5 metres above the sea. For us, there is no greater long-term threat than climate change. More potent than the threat from terrorism, piracy, or even foreign invasion, it threatens to wipe our nation off the face of the planet.
The effects of a changing climate can already be felt. The Maldives are one of world’s best places to dive and snorkel, with thousands of coral reefs teeming with rays, turtles and fish. In 1998, an unusually strong El Niño caused ocean temperatures to spike, killing 98 per cent of the corals in Malé atoll in a matter of weeks. Our reefs have since recovered but coral reefs across the world remain threatened as climate change heats and acidifies the oceans.
In view of the looming threat, the government and private companies have initiated defensive measures. Large population centres, such as the capital island, Malé, are protected by sea walls, embankments and revetments. To help protect the coral reefs, many resorts have taken to growing young corals in a lab before transplanting them onto the reef. These sorts of measures will help protect the Maldives in the medium term, but nothing will save the country if sea levels rise catastrophically.
To help tackle the root cause of the climate problem, we have declared our intention of becoming carbon neutral by 2020. For us, shifting to renewable energy makes environmental sense and also improves energy security and prosperity.
The economy is dependent on oil, and recent price spikes are costing each Maldivian over 60 US cents a day in higher electricity and fuel costs. The likely upward trajectory of oil prices means that shifting to renewables is a prerequisite for our economic development. Government planners predict that we can attain 80 per cent penetration of renewable energy while keeping electricity costs stable. If this transformation is possible in the Maldives, it is possible in hundreds of thousands of other islands and communities around the world not connected to large-scale electricity grids.
As we start to appreciate the threat of climate change, we are also beginning to appreciate the benefits of low carbon growth. A growing number of countries, including developing nations such as Ethiopia, Samoa and Rwanda, are working on plans to move away from fossil fuels. By doing so, we hope that catastrophe can be averted and the Maldives will continue to dazzle tourists for many years to come.
Historic sites David Keys
All over the world, humanity’s historical and archaeological heritage is under threat from the onslaught of both natural and man-made pressures. Climate change, population rise and related trends, as well as purely natural processes, are degrading and destroying millions of archaeological and historical sites worldwide. Most disappear virtually unnoticed. Some like Venice, battling against the scourge of flooding, face a bleak long-term future when climate-change-induced sea level rise begins.
For some archaeological sites, Gilf Kebir in the Egyptian Sahara for instance, the chances of survival are actually being reduced by tourism. Despite its remote location, visits by tourists are gradually destroying the Egyptian site’s beautiful prehistoric rock-paintings that have successfully survived the past 50 centuries.
Even world-renowned archaeological sites such as Pompeii—which one might expect to be well protected—suffer from the elements. Over recent years heavy rain has damaged walls at that iconic site and caused one important building to collapse.
But it is some of the planet’s less famous archaeological treasures that are under more serious threat.
In a sense, two examples symbolise the thousands of other threatened monuments around the world. Off the coast of Suffolk, almost an entire town has, over the centuries, tumbled into the sea. In medieval times, Dunwich was one of England’s most important ports. With a peak population of 5,000, it had numerous churches as well as chapels, monasteries, hospices and a jail.
But massive storm surges from the 14th century onwards gradually swept the town, house by house, into the sea. Even those buildings high enough to evade flooding, fell into the waves when the storms eroded the cliffs south of the town’s harbour.
Today, albeit in a ruinous state, just two buildings survive out of the hundreds: Greyfriars Priory and the chapel of the town’s leper hospital. But their days are numbered too—for the North Sea is steadily eating up the land—and the last vestiges of Dunwich will likely start tumbling off the cliffs into the surf in the next 30 to 100 years.
A second symbol of human culture’s often ultimately futile battle against the elements is the vast abandoned South American city of Chan Chan—the largest adobe (earth-built) metropolis in the world.
Covering 20 square kilometres, it had a population of 30,000 at its peak. It was the capital of the Chimu empire until it was conquered by the Incas in around 1470.
Today, it is the largest abandoned city in South America—under pressure from looters, earthquakes, and above all, by increasingly violent bouts of torrential rain caused by the climatic phenomenon known as El Niño. Like thousands of other smaller adobe sites in northern Peru, Chan Chan is particularly vulnerable to increasingly aggressive El Niño events—a trend which some attribute to climate change.
For future generations, the chances of seeing the last remnants of Dunwich or the full glory of Chan Chan will steadily fall. David Keys is archaeology correspondent of the Independent
Endangered species Tony Juniper
In 1991, writer Douglas Adams and zoologist Mark Carwardine published their book Last Chance to See. It charted their journey across the world in search of animals on the brink of extinction, from the aye-aye of Madagascar to the kakapo parrot of New Zealand.
Twenty years on, some of them have hung on and some have increased in number. One, the Yangtze River dolphin, is probably extinct. Like others at the threshold of oblivion, its plight worsened as economic growth caused pollution and habitat damage.
It seems contradictory, therefore, to see the conservation message articulated in terms of economics. It is argued that if people see a financial value in rhinos, komodo dragons, macaws and so on, they will make efforts to keep the species alive.
The most obvious profit to be made is through “eco-tourism,” a booming business, with TV programmes fuelling demand for wildlife experiences. It has in some cases been helpful, for example spurring greater efforts to look after east Africa’s mountain gorillas. For some animals, especially those that are more widespread, such as tigers, there have been local benefits but this has been insufficient to stem a decline towards extinction. In the case of tigers, the continuing loss and fragmentation of habitat, and the poaching of animals for use in spurious traditional medicines, continues to drive these creatures towards the abyss.
Irrespective of the circumstances of individual species, seeking to conserve wildlife through tourism will rarely on its own be sufficient. The value of nature is more profound than the price we are willing to pay to see it. A new branch of economics has emerged on how to value ecosystems and wildlife, and not only in relation to tourism. This is welcome, but it is our personal and spiritual relationship with nature which will determine its future. If we feel connected to the natural world, we are more likely to conserve it.
I am writing this on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, on a visit to see wildlife and spend time in the wilderness. While bringing some tourist dollars, it is what I and others will take away from this amazing place that is so much more important.
Tony Juniper is a writer, environmentalist and campaigner
The Maldive Islands President Mohamed Nasheed
The window in the office of the president of the Republic of Maldives affords a beautiful view: shimmering azure waters, sprinkled with palm-fringed desert islands and dazzling coral white beaches. Ibn Battuta, a 14th century explorer, described the Maldives as “one of the wonders of the world”; many present-day tourists concur.
Maldivian resorts are a cross between paradise and paradise. From palatial overwater villas to underwater spas and restaurants: there are few places like it on Earth. Settlers from India, Arabia and Africa, along with the occasional shipwrecked European, have blended to create a unique people, language and culture.
But behind this handsome vision lurks an ugly reality: if humans continue to pump billions of tonnes of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, sea levels will rise and much of the country will likely be under water within several decades.
The Republic of the Maldives is among the world’s lowest-lying nations. The average height of our 1,200 islands is 1.5 metres above the sea. For us, there is no greater long-term threat than climate change. More potent than the threat from terrorism, piracy, or even foreign invasion, it threatens to wipe our nation off the face of the planet.
The effects of a changing climate can already be felt. The Maldives are one of world’s best places to dive and snorkel, with thousands of coral reefs teeming with rays, turtles and fish. In 1998, an unusually strong El Niño caused ocean temperatures to spike, killing 98 per cent of the corals in Malé atoll in a matter of weeks. Our reefs have since recovered but coral reefs across the world remain threatened as climate change heats and acidifies the oceans.
In view of the looming threat, the government and private companies have initiated defensive measures. Large population centres, such as the capital island, Malé, are protected by sea walls, embankments and revetments. To help protect the coral reefs, many resorts have taken to growing young corals in a lab before transplanting them onto the reef. These sorts of measures will help protect the Maldives in the medium term, but nothing will save the country if sea levels rise catastrophically.
To help tackle the root cause of the climate problem, we have declared our intention of becoming carbon neutral by 2020. For us, shifting to renewable energy makes environmental sense and also improves energy security and prosperity.
The economy is dependent on oil, and recent price spikes are costing each Maldivian over 60 US cents a day in higher electricity and fuel costs. The likely upward trajectory of oil prices means that shifting to renewables is a prerequisite for our economic development. Government planners predict that we can attain 80 per cent penetration of renewable energy while keeping electricity costs stable. If this transformation is possible in the Maldives, it is possible in hundreds of thousands of other islands and communities around the world not connected to large-scale electricity grids.
As we start to appreciate the threat of climate change, we are also beginning to appreciate the benefits of low carbon growth. A growing number of countries, including developing nations such as Ethiopia, Samoa and Rwanda, are working on plans to move away from fossil fuels. By doing so, we hope that catastrophe can be averted and the Maldives will continue to dazzle tourists for many years to come.
Historic sites David Keys
All over the world, humanity’s historical and archaeological heritage is under threat from the onslaught of both natural and man-made pressures. Climate change, population rise and related trends, as well as purely natural processes, are degrading and destroying millions of archaeological and historical sites worldwide. Most disappear virtually unnoticed. Some like Venice, battling against the scourge of flooding, face a bleak long-term future when climate-change-induced sea level rise begins.
For some archaeological sites, Gilf Kebir in the Egyptian Sahara for instance, the chances of survival are actually being reduced by tourism. Despite its remote location, visits by tourists are gradually destroying the Egyptian site’s beautiful prehistoric rock-paintings that have successfully survived the past 50 centuries.
Even world-renowned archaeological sites such as Pompeii—which one might expect to be well protected—suffer from the elements. Over recent years heavy rain has damaged walls at that iconic site and caused one important building to collapse.
But it is some of the planet’s less famous archaeological treasures that are under more serious threat.
In a sense, two examples symbolise the thousands of other threatened monuments around the world. Off the coast of Suffolk, almost an entire town has, over the centuries, tumbled into the sea. In medieval times, Dunwich was one of England’s most important ports. With a peak population of 5,000, it had numerous churches as well as chapels, monasteries, hospices and a jail.
But massive storm surges from the 14th century onwards gradually swept the town, house by house, into the sea. Even those buildings high enough to evade flooding, fell into the waves when the storms eroded the cliffs south of the town’s harbour.
Today, albeit in a ruinous state, just two buildings survive out of the hundreds: Greyfriars Priory and the chapel of the town’s leper hospital. But their days are numbered too—for the North Sea is steadily eating up the land—and the last vestiges of Dunwich will likely start tumbling off the cliffs into the surf in the next 30 to 100 years.
A second symbol of human culture’s often ultimately futile battle against the elements is the vast abandoned South American city of Chan Chan—the largest adobe (earth-built) metropolis in the world.
Covering 20 square kilometres, it had a population of 30,000 at its peak. It was the capital of the Chimu empire until it was conquered by the Incas in around 1470.
Today, it is the largest abandoned city in South America—under pressure from looters, earthquakes, and above all, by increasingly violent bouts of torrential rain caused by the climatic phenomenon known as El Niño. Like thousands of other smaller adobe sites in northern Peru, Chan Chan is particularly vulnerable to increasingly aggressive El Niño events—a trend which some attribute to climate change.
For future generations, the chances of seeing the last remnants of Dunwich or the full glory of Chan Chan will steadily fall. David Keys is archaeology correspondent of the Independent
