13th October 2024
The biodiversity crisis and the Church
Globally we have been loosing vast amounts of the rich biodiversity which God gave us – both with the extinction of individual species and with the loss of numbers within species. The Natural History Museum has produced the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) which “measures biodiversity change using abundance data on plants, fungi and animals worldwide. The Index shows how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human pressures such as land use change and intensification.” A BII of less than 90% is considered to be detrimental to planetary wellbeing. Sadly large amounts of the globe, including Europe, fall below this level. (1) For the UK the BIK is 53%.
The UK’s State of Nature Report 2023 noted that species studied had declined on average by 19% since 1970; that 16% of species were threatened with extinction – including 43% of birds, 31% of amphibians and reptiles, and 28% of fungi and lichen – and that 151 of the 10,008 species assessed had already become extinct since 1500.(2)
This year’s Big Butterfly Count Big Butterfly Count revealed the lowest numbers on record. (3)
Biodiversity loss in the UK – as well as globally – is real and alarming.
Why is the of concern?
Agricultural production is dependent on healthy soils but this relies on a multitude of organisms that live in the soil. If these become depleted in both number and diversity, the health of the soil suffers – and this is not something that can be repaired by the addition of artificial fertilisers.
Many crops are dependent on pollinators, typically insects. If these decline in number and diversity, yields decline.
Agricultural yields can be adversely affected by flooding. Declining areas of wetlands, of peat moors, of woodlands, and of natural river courses and floodplains, increased the risk and extent of flooding.
Food security is also threatened if we become reliant on only a few commercial species. A virus or a change in climate can wipe out crops. Future losses can be avoided if scientists can access wild plants that have more resilient characteristics. But what if those wild alternatives are no longer there?
Air quality too is affected by the decline in biodiversity. Trees in particular, but other plants too, are important natural absorbers of pollutants both in the air and in the water.
The lack of anyone species can cause a cascading affect where other dependent species also decline. Declining numbers of insects lead to declining numbers of species of birds and bats. Biodiversity decline can accelerate at speed.
Biodiversity loss affects us as spiritual beings. Our lives are diminished as biodiversity is diminished. I have never heard a nightingale sing – that is a loss. I am lucky that as a child I did hear cuckoos, and even now as an adult, I do hear sky larks because they are still resident in Richmond Park. If I did not have green spaces to walk in, my mental health would suffer.
God too suffers from the loss of biodiversity. By their very nature, the flora and fauna of this world praises God in an endless wordless song. As they decline, so does this profound worship.
The nations of the world have been rightly concerned at the rapid loss of biodiversity globally and the impact that was – and increasingly would have – on human life and wellbeing. In 2022 the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) agreed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This set out to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 per cent of the planet and 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030. This is often summarised as the 30:30 target. (4)
The UK government was party to this UN Conference and undertook the commitment to achieving this 30:30 target. However it is a tough target and progress to date has been slow and patchy.
Earlier this year Restore Nature Now organised a march in London in which between 60,000 and 100,000 people took part, representing a wide range for groups including the RSPB, the National Trust, the Wildlife Trusts, the Climate Coalition, WWF-UK, the WWT, the Woodland Trust, the Wildlife and Countryside Link, Rewilding Britain, Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action.
Their demand was for more and greater action by the government. (5)
Last weekend another march took place organised by the group, Wild Card. A scroll was unrolled before the vast edifice of St Paul’s Cathedral, revealing 95 theses as to why as Christians and therefore as a Church, we should care about biodiversity and the well-being of the natural world. Just as Martin Luther’s 95 theses were put forward to stimulate theological debate, so too are these theses. (6)
Hymns were sung and speeches given, highlighting the plight of biodiversity and calling on the Church to show leadership in addressing the crisis. In particular the call was made that the Church Commissioners, as stewards of extensive land holdings (105,000 hectares) , should undertake to rewild 30% by 2030. (7)
Wild Card defines rewilding thus: “To rewild the land and water is to allow untamed life to return to ecosystems and landscapes, such that they are once again sustained by the natural processes that created them in the first place. In restoring these processes, humans are often intimately involved. Be it from rewetting bogs to reintroducing missing species, humans are very much invited to the rewilding party.” (8) Rewilding goes beyond goes simply protecting the biodiversity we still have and seeks to restore the biodiversity of our environment back towards 90% BII needed for a sustainable future.
Of course rewilding church land will have a profound effect on what we harvest – less meat and milk, more diverse horticultural and sylvocultural products; less cereal crops for animal feed, more meadows, fenlands and heaths; less livestock, more wild birds and animals; less mono-species plantations, more mixed broadleaf woodlands; less factory farming, more blue and green spaces for spiritual and mental re-creation, and more green jobs. There will be tough decisions to make and we all need to be part of the discussion: what changes in the lifestyles we live are we prepared to make. As Christians we are called throughout our life time to repent and believe, we are called embrace ‘metanoia’ – to see things differently, to change direction, to transform our relationships.
(1) https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/services/data/biodiversity-intactness-index.html
(2) https://stateofnature.org.uk/
(3) https://butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blog/uk-butterfly-emergency-declared
(5) https://www.restorenaturenow.com/aims
(6) https://wildcard.land/campaigns/rewild-the-church/95-wild-theses
The Green Tau 