Irish Examiner view: We can reverse loss of biodiversity 

Danger posed to many native species is driven by factors such as habitat loss and mineral enrichment rather than climate change

Human activities need to change for the betterment of the environment.

We learned some grim news about Ireland’s native plants in recent days, with the findings of a new survey stating baldly that half of Ireland’s native plant species are in decline and native grassland plants are those suffering the most.

This news has serious implications for biodiversity and the environment as a whole, and the immediate conclusion any reader would draw is that this is yet another result of climate change, another marker of the existential threat faced by a warming planet.

Not so, according to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

That organisation, which invested years of work in the
survey, says the danger posed to so many of our native species is driven by factors such as habitat loss, mineral enrichment, and altered grazing pressure, rather than climate change.

While not exactly encouraging, this at least offers a clear path to countering the decline by addressing some of its discrete, identifiable causes. 

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Mineral enrichment, for instance, is shorthand for activities such as over-fertilising, nitrogen deposition, and the use of herbicides. Habitat loss and changes to grazing are also readily identifiable activities which can be addressed directly with immediate action.

The key difference here is that, while everyone can chip in with their own contribution to offset climate change, it remains a diffuse adversary, showing its hand in incremental changes which are difficult to detect with the naked eye.

Here, though, we have human activities which need to change for the betterment of the environment. There is no guarantee those changes will occur, but those are actions we can take if the will is there to do so.