Thoughts from influential nature conservationists…
RICK MINTER
Career Highlights
I have been a long-term editor of ECOS, a policy wonk with government agencies, and a freelance consultant. I have specialised in capacity building – helping people work together to achieve projects. Examples include multi-purpose wooded environments like the National Forest, for which I led the concept development work, to small-scale and less controversial renewable energy schemes, where the benefits were local. I was fortunate to work for a confident and well resourced national agency, and at a time before nature bodies had their budgets and their ambitions squashed by government pressures and changing ideologies.
In contrast to experiencing a large organisation working at full tilt, I have helped BANC and ECOS try to make useful contributions to nature conservation ideas in Britain, but all the while struggling with a lack of capacity. Alas, too many of us in the conservation world have this restricted state in which to operate.
In recent years I’ve stepped into a parallel universe. Through a regular podcast I try to consider large carnivores, actually here in Britain now, that keep our deer skittish. Many people don’t seem to have noticed.
How do you define nature conservation?
I think nature conservation should look forwards, to the wildlife potential of a place. Too often we are guided by a location’s optimum habitat that was known about and sadly lost or eroded, in the recent past. The current momentum in restoration ecology and rewilding is heartening. Rewilding is at last galvanising more practical action after years of agonising over definitions in its discovery phase.
Sometimes however, perhaps we could look with a different vision and not be concerned about ‘re’ anything and just look ahead.
For me, nature conservation is about nature’s potential in any one place, with us helping if we can. Of course we should be guided by what was present previously and what’s been lost and could return with help, but we can overplay the ‘re’ prefixes on the actions we take. But if the tag of rewilding excites people and spurs landowners and other people to do more wildlife-friendly care of the land, then labels are a means to an end, and I wouldn’t want to be too precious with them.
My nature conservation definition would be…
“Nature’s potential: helping improve elements of nature which are important locally and nationally, and which matter ecologically, functionally and culturally”.
Like it or not, nature conservation is inevitably human-centric, as we ourselves define the criteria on ‘what matters’ in any situation.
I don’t understand what “biodiversity” means other than biological diversity, and diversity isn’t always the priority when caring for a particular place. I find the use of biodiversity to be largely inconsistent, confused, and mostly too vague. It is an abstract and formula-word.
When we manage or steward a place, I think we should consider which criteria and purpose have priority, such as rarity, representativeness, or creating a new feature like a pond etc. Often it might not be diversity that is the lead concern. I hope biodiversity fades away as a label and people find more precise alternatives.
What’s the good news about wildlife and nature at present?
I take heart from new types of owners of land and new small-scale landowners pioneering new projects. Examples are wildlife-friendly care of the land associated with glamping enterprises, as well as Forest Schools and similar ventures, and community buy-out schemes. These projects help nature and are meaningful to people’s lives. They can involve people visiting and learning from all backgrounds, gaining skills and confidence in the outdoors and in tending the land or experiencing nature.
Beyond the obvious of habitat loss and species decline, what’s your greatest concern in UK nature conservation at present?
I despair at nature conservation being under-resourced and being the poor relation. While public funds are on the wane, there is a current move to harness private finance to help manage land for more of nature’s services, like carbon management and flood buffering. But those resources are likely to be applied in big set-piece transactions. They are unlikely to be spread around the many deserving community projects which help wildlife locally and improve people’s immediate quality of life.
Being on the back foot in wildlife projects is doubly frustrating when we live in times which call for nature to be integrated into our lives more and blended into infrastructure projects. Where resources do get allocated from the development process, too often this results in token mitigation, despite the impressive talent amongst ecological consultants and a policy pretence to achieve the slippery concept of ‘net gain’ for wildlife.
If you had a limited budget on nature conservation in Britain, what would you prioritise and why?
It is unlikely to happen, but I would like all local authorities to have in-house wildlife capacity. Not just ecological advisory staff, but countryside management project officers, with an enabling culture who work as local facilitators for community projects. So despite my call for ‘future nature’, I am also old school, and look to more of these basic but crucial roles which were more apparent earlier in my career. If ecological advice within councils was grafted into decision making from the start, that would be more efficient, and give a chance for genuine sustainable development to happen.
And because they have direct and lasting benefits, I would like to see more citizen science projects – they are not that costly. Helping people survey the local environment or monitor certain species, has lasting benefits and can inspire people to learn more and want to influence things for the better.
How do you feel about your input to the subject – what if anything has it achieved and would you do it differently if starting again today?
I don’t feel I’ve influenced much at all. ECOS in its heyday promoted multi-disciplinary thinking in nature conservation, but much activity remains fixed in institutional camps. When producing something subtle like ECOS it’s difficult to know the reach of it. If people borrow some of the ideas and take them forward, that’s a result of sorts.
And amongst a glorious failure, in one consultancy study for Defra I recommended that the term SSSI be dropped for something simpler and with more public resonance. Site of Special Scientific Interest is a clumsy mouthful, and elitist in tone. After a series of focus groups on various aspects of SSSIs, I had a case for challenging the name that we take for granted but means so little to real people out there. I felt there was slim chance of a change to an accepted piece of the conservation furniture. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at the positive early reception. Some Defra and Natural England staff recognised there was a case for a change. Eventually as the work got wider circulation and feedback, the grenade fizzled out. Tradition held sway.
Social media came in during my career, and I dislike much of the distractions it creates and the baggage it brings. But I think influencers outside ‘the system’ can be a powerful force, along with the use of new media and social media. Maybe in a new life I’d have started earlier outside the system, and sussed how to exploit social media to the fore.
Anything else you’d like to say..?
I’ll be greedy and make two points:
First, on general awareness and communication, we should be aware of our own exaggerated claims. We can all be subject to confirmation bias, and from pressure groups to activists and government departments, we select data that suits our case. In my roles as an editor and as a facilitator, I’ve become alert to people’s special pleading. I would urge all of us, me included, to recognise our bias, listen to other views and get outside of our echo chambers, even just starting with the newspapers we read.
Second, I think we should heed the randomness of nature. Nature does not have a pure and simple baseline. It’s a messy mix of species and habitat blends that we create in our trail of human endeavour. Native and non-native is a too simplistic outlook. Functionality and the health of ecosystems matters most, whatever the cocktail ingredients. The randomness of nature is what we’re left with, to co-exist with, to celebrate and to learn from. Our humility is more important than any desire to control and dominate.