Reflections on the web of life

Damien Enright on the threats we pose to biodiversity.

LAST week, the small glade across the stream was still and silent, dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves of the beeches that overhang it, the only movement or sound that of bees visiting the flowers beneath them, or birds flitting to and fro.

This week, on a grey day, in a wild wind, those stately trees have become wild, demented things, branches lifting and falling like flamenco dancers’ dresses and the delicate new leaves trembling like feathers.

Leaves litter the yard — sycamore, ash, beech, alder. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer time hath all too short a lease…” How right was Shakespeare, and how wise, although May wasn’t summer, even in his time. However, anyone who can describe the beauty of the May buds with such tenderness is, surely, beyond reproach.

It is to be hoped that the mid-May week was not, in fact, summer 2008 in Ireland. The green thoughts in a green shade that we enjoyed beneath the beeches last week have now turned to soggy thoughts in a grey penumbra. But, it will change; the only constant is change, and nowhere is this more evident than in Irish weather.

“Glory be to God for dappled things — “ said the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, “For skies as couple-colour as a brinded cow, For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim…” He praised, in a visionary voice, the beauty and saving-grace of biodiversity, of “Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow and plough…”, of “…all trades, their gear and tackle and trim…”

This is UN World Biodiversity Week. According to a Heritage Council survey, our ignorance of biodiversity is frightening; 51% of 1,000 Irish adults sampled say they’ve never heard of it; 26% of those who’ve heard of it haven’t a clue what it means. Most disturbing is that the majority of Europeans think ‘biodiversity loss’ is a global phenomena and nothing to do with them. Ignorance of this magnitude will send us all to hell on a handcart. We must fast wake up to the fact that biodiversity loss begins at home.

Scientists tell us that diversity of life forms is the most fundamental part of our national infrastructure and the most essential ‘service provider’ for mankind’s continued voyage on Spaceship Earth. It is also economically essential; we could not replicate its input with all the manpower of China. The labour of earthworms in the soil is thought to have an economic value of €1 billion annually, while the labour of bees in pollination is worth €53m to Irish agriculture.

What we must fear, and hasten to reverse, is the loss of diversity in agriculture and in wild plants, the loss of knowledge about the land and its traditional use, its plants and their nutritive, culinary and medicinal properties. We must halt the devastation of the seas and the loss of bird life and hedgerows as retreats and nurseries for fauna. In the crop lands, there are serious dangers in monoculture and in EU policy regarding seed distribution. There is a real danger of large seed companies controlling seed supply and a threat to land and soil from inappropriate crops.

We are part of biodiversity ourselves. Our actions affect all the other organisms with which we share the planet. Michael Starrett, chief executive of the Heritage Council, says, “We are part of the web of life that is a delicate balance of living organisms interdependent on each other. We inherited a wonderful natural heritage that is the result of thousands of years of co-existence and it far exceeds the value of anything we could build or create. Our lifestyle is severely damaging our biodiversity and we need to take urgent steps to stop causing damage or face very serious consequences.”

Small is beautiful, once again. The garden: we can begin there. The best thing is to do nothing and, when it comes to gardens, I’m good at that.

Under the beeches, in an area of 10 by 20 yards, I can count 14 varieties of wild flower in bloom, all self-seeded. Wild watercress, lesser diving beetles and whirly-gigs inhabit the stream and pond. Small tortoiseshell butterflies have laid eggs on the stinging nettles and wrapped the tips of the leaves like small purses. There is life everywhere, self-sustaining. Leave room for nature. It will seed and feed itself.