Juanita Browne: Don’t look anywhere… if you don't want to see Ireland's biodiversity emergency

The National Biodiversity Conference offers the opportunity for public consultation on the next National Biodiversity Action Plan, which will be so vital to conservation in Ireland over the next five years

Don't Look Up! Written before the Covid-19 pandemic, the film does a good job of looking at the difficulties we face in tackling the climate crisis. Picture: Niko Tavernise/Netflix

I thought the recent film Don’t Look Up! was great. While it received many bad reviews from film critics (which seemed to be mainly based on repetitive jokes and too transparent satire), I thought it did a good job of holding up a mirror to modern media and public engagement with global issues.

Critics found the jokes too obvious — the Trump-like president, the celebrity-obsessed culture, the reluctance of TV hosts to take on serious topics, the wacky tech billionaire, and the public’s distrust of science. Reviewers felt it was too hyperrealistic, but I’d argue that the writer Adam McKay's satire worked well when our culture today is so extreme.

Just like Di Caprio and Lawrence’s characters in' Don't Look Up!', ecologists have been telling us for decades that we are losing species at a rate to warrant this period being called the 6th Mass Extinction. Picture: Niko Tavernise/Netflix

The film opens with two scientists (played by Leonardo Di Caprio and Jennifer Lawrence) discovering that a 'planet-destroyer' comet hurtling towards Earth will strike within six months. The plot follows these scientists as they try to convince first the president and then the media and the public that this is a serious threat to humanity. 

They find it next to impossible to get their message through the celebrity scandal-obsessed culture of social media or TV news, but remain hopeful that once the comet is close enough to become visible in the sky, people will finally listen. But at this point people start using the slogan ‘Don’t Look Up!’ and there is also a tech billionaire's effort to monetise the comet by mining for mineral resources.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

Written before the Covid-19 pandemic, the film does a good job of looking at the difficulties we face in tackling the climate crisis. But I think the film could also be used as a comment on the Biodiversity Emergency. 

In May 2019, Ireland became just the second country in the world to declare a biodiversity emergency. Just like Di Caprio and Lawrence’s characters in the film, ecologists have been telling us for decades that we are losing species at a rate to warrant this period being called the 6th Mass Extinction — and while a meteor may have seen off the dinosaurs, this mass extinction is down to humans.

The global statistics make harrowing read: one in every four mammals and one in every eight bird species are threatened with extinction. The current rate of extinction is about 1,000 times higher than would be the case in the absence of humans. In Ireland alone, approximately one-quarter of all our wild species are threatened with extinction.

I don’t blame us humans though for hiding our heads in the sand. Aren’t we all just trying to live our best lives, and don’t we individually have enough of our own problems without having to worry about the future of the planet?

Signs of biodiversity crisis

It’s easy to overlook the signs of biodiversity loss, or perhaps we don’t even recognise the signs in our landscapes and depleted fauna. Instead of ‘Don’t look up’, a good slogan might be ‘Don’t look anywhere’, because almost everywhere across this island shows the signs of man’s influence on the land. 

While we were getting on with improving the land and increasing production, we managed to squeeze nature into small dwindling pockets; we burned hillsides; felled forests; overgrazed mountains; and polluted our rivers. Many once-bountiful habitats have become silent and empty. 

Our grandparents heard skylarks singing above every field. Curlew and Lapwing were common enough to engender place names, folklore and country tales. Our pollinators have suffered massive declines and our bogs have been decimated. 

But in a time of pandemics or war, it can seem the wrong time to shout too loudly about the loss of a butterfly or bee.

National Biodiversity Conference

We need our politicians to take biodiversity conservation seriously. Biodiversity supports human life — including food, clean water and air, crop pollination, wood fuel and timber, healthy soils and even climate. In order to secure these ecosystem services into the future, we must place biodiversity protection and rehabilitation higher on the political agenda.

The National Biodiversity Conference takes place on June 8-9 and offers an opportunity for public consultation on the next National Biodiversity Plan 2022-2026. This will be a gathering of stakeholders, NGOs, scientists and individuals interested in the future of biodiversity on this island. Topics covered include the marine, forestry and agriculture sectors and it’s heartening to see speakers from the Department of Agriculture, our top scientists, as well as three Government ministers.

The last National Biodiversity Conference was held in 2019, and also included some excellent speakers on a range of biodiversity topics. However, after the conference closed, it was really disappointing to see an interview on the evening news with the then-Government minister with responsibility for our natural heritage who advised that viewers put up birdhouses and birdbaths to help our biodiversity. 

It is trivialisations like this that make me relate to the characters in Don’t Look Up! We don’t need more birdhouses! We need farmers to be compensated through results-based schemes that protect the environment, for ecological conservation to be properly funded and legal protection to be enforced. 

Let’s hope for an ambitious plan that will really create positive change for Ireland’s biodiversity.

• Juanita Browne has written a number of wildlife books, including My First Book of Irish Animals and The Great Big Book of Irish Wildlife.