1 00:00:00,133 --> 00:00:08,566 This is Conservation and Science podcast, where we take a deep dive into topics of ecology, conservation and human wildlife interactions. 2 00:00:08,633 --> 00:00:13,700 And this is the recap of all the episodes from 2024. 3 00:00:13,700 --> 00:00:14,866 Enjoy! 4 00:00:14,866 --> 00:00:15,966 Quite a big number. 5 00:00:15,966 --> 00:00:21,600 Wolves will be called this year, but this is where the agreement comes together. 6 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:28,500 Of course, the Nature Conservancy, conservationists and yeah, the wolf lover me is not. 7 00:00:29,066 --> 00:00:36,133 I'm not happy about the wolves that are hunted, but but I see that this is the price. 8 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:39,133 Everybody must get something. 9 00:00:39,133 --> 00:00:43,500 Otherwise it goes poaching goes on the ground. 10 00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:46,900 And people get will be very hateful. 11 00:00:46,900 --> 00:00:54,166 And, you know, you have to give everybody something because the hatred really is born in the moment. 12 00:00:54,166 --> 00:00:59,833 You lose your sheep or animals, and you don't know if you're going to get the compensation. 13 00:00:59,833 --> 00:01:03,666 And if it's like Estonia, then you get it in one year. 14 00:01:03,666 --> 00:01:09,133 Let's say you lose your sheep in January. So the payment is next January. 15 00:01:09,133 --> 00:01:11,500 And if you are Latvian then you get nothing. 16 00:01:11,500 --> 00:01:12,933 They have no compensation. 17 00:01:12,933 --> 00:01:17,700 So and we see that that there also the hatred is building up. 18 00:01:17,700 --> 00:01:23,666 And of course sometimes you get the compensation, very generous compensation, but still you have hatred 19 00:01:23,666 --> 00:01:34,466 because it's rooted deep, three layers deep because, you know, you don't want to deal with it and why it's so deep. 20 00:01:34,466 --> 00:01:35,666 It's because, 21 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:39,133 the benefits 22 00:01:39,133 --> 00:01:48,233 of having a apex predator, we all love it, but the cost goes on very little, group of people. 23 00:01:48,233 --> 00:01:53,900 So they, like, feel they pay for our, wolf, love. 24 00:01:53,900 --> 00:01:55,300 And that's true. 25 00:01:55,300 --> 00:02:00,000 So you can't, really achieve what you want to achieve. 26 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,200 Namely, that everybody respects the wolf. 27 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:07,600 No, they will hate the wolf in their heart. 28 00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:18,433 And if you don't allow to hunt the wolf, then it goes into poaching and and then you lose maybe the whole pack. 29 00:02:18,433 --> 00:02:21,133 But if you give you all some of the. 30 00:02:21,133 --> 00:02:21,400 Yeah. 31 00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:27,433 Permissions to, Yeah, hunt some of the wolves, then you perhaps. 32 00:02:27,966 --> 00:02:30,733 Yeah. Keep the pack but lose some of the wolves. 33 00:02:30,733 --> 00:02:34,633 There is some really, really interesting stuff happening in Sweden 34 00:02:34,633 --> 00:02:40,633 at the moment where they've got the dogs to tell them what order the dog is actually tracking. 35 00:02:40,766 --> 00:02:45,366 So they're doing, lynx, wolf and bear. 36 00:02:45,366 --> 00:02:51,533 And whenever the dog is on the track, the dog, they make the dog wait and get the dog 37 00:02:51,533 --> 00:02:57,600 to show them which, order they're actually tracking at that time and say what predator is in the area type thing. 38 00:02:57,733 --> 00:03:04,533 So it is possible for the dog to specifically tell you, oh, darn, that burrow is puffin down. 39 00:03:04,533 --> 00:03:09,633 This burrow is like shearwater, but, we haven't done it. But here it sounds like it might take a crack. 40 00:03:09,633 --> 00:03:13,900 So if you have the dog in the cage, like one bark, two barks like I was it. 41 00:03:13,900 --> 00:03:16,766 No. So we treat it a passive indication. 42 00:03:16,766 --> 00:03:21,166 So for my dogs, I like, a sit down and stare. 43 00:03:21,166 --> 00:03:25,866 So they'll ask, for example, at the burrows. They will sit and stare down the burrow. 44 00:03:25,866 --> 00:03:31,233 And then for the pointer, she naturally points out whatever it is that she's found. 45 00:03:31,233 --> 00:03:35,133 So she just throws a freeze and the nose is pointing at the odor. 46 00:03:36,100 --> 00:03:37,533 Which will be good for the quarter. 47 00:03:37,533 --> 00:03:40,400 Next, I as soon as she hits the the odor of cartoonist. 48 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:46,233 I don't want her to move so that she is a she is a statue as she comes across it. 49 00:03:46,233 --> 00:03:49,966 So it's type of like dog sits, dog lies down or whatever. 50 00:03:49,966 --> 00:03:55,866 And you know, it can it can tell like, wow, this is this is really this is really fascinating. 51 00:03:55,866 --> 00:03:57,300 It was a little cuckoo. 52 00:03:57,300 --> 00:03:58,866 So okay, so other question is like 53 00:03:58,866 --> 00:04:07,000 you mentioned that people in Sweden doing something like that is, is that it's using dogs for conservation, like, discipline. 54 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:17,366 Let's say that this growing in the conservation world or is it like super niche or is it's popular like where where is it? 55 00:04:17,366 --> 00:04:19,933 It's it's definitely growing. 56 00:04:19,933 --> 00:04:23,700 So some countries it's like mainstream. 57 00:04:23,700 --> 00:04:26,566 They've been using dogs almost for centuries. 58 00:04:26,566 --> 00:04:28,133 Like New Zealand for example. 59 00:04:28,133 --> 00:04:32,333 They were using dogs in like 1890 to like find to like. 60 00:04:32,333 --> 00:04:35,233 This is not a new thing for them at all. 61 00:04:35,233 --> 00:04:43,000 And in America they've been using dogs will also even and actually in the UK we were using dogs to help count rice 62 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:46,066 setting and pointing dogs for a long time. 63 00:04:46,066 --> 00:04:47,400 It's just that they weren't, 64 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:53,166 you know, we didn't really class them as conservation detection dogs who weren't trained in that kind of detection element. 65 00:04:53,166 --> 00:04:59,633 But in the past ten years, I think it has grown massively here, and it is continuing to grow. 66 00:04:59,633 --> 00:05:06,666 And the number of projects now that are coming to us and asking are, as a dog, useful has grown absolutely massively. 67 00:05:06,666 --> 00:05:07,200 Yeah. 68 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:13,800 And the title of the paper is Anthropogenic Food Subsidies Hinder the Ecological Role of Wolves. 69 00:05:14,100 --> 00:05:19,500 Insights from conservation of apex predators in human modified landscapes. 70 00:05:19,500 --> 00:05:25,266 And essentially, what that paper describes is that the region of Italy called Abruzzo, 71 00:05:25,266 --> 00:05:31,966 more than half of diet of wolves is livestock, arguably solid livestock, not like the predation. 72 00:05:31,966 --> 00:05:40,400 But the point is that if we think we bringing back wolves, and so for them to keep the wild ungulates herd 73 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:46,400 healthy and regulate the numbers, then this is their intended ecological functions. 74 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:53,566 And if they have this anthropogenic subsidies, then obviously they're not fulfilling that function. 75 00:05:53,866 --> 00:05:57,333 So that is another very important consideration. 76 00:05:57,333 --> 00:06:06,100 Before answering a question whether I'm for reintroductions or against reintroduction, clearly restoration would be a better term. 77 00:06:06,166 --> 00:06:09,200 Some preferred term reestablishment. 78 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:18,266 I read the book by great conservationist Roy Dennis, who was part of a incredible number of, reintroductions, 79 00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:21,166 and he he described them all in the book. 80 00:06:21,166 --> 00:06:24,700 And the title of that book is Restoring the Wild. 81 00:06:24,700 --> 00:06:25,500 You see what I mean? 82 00:06:25,500 --> 00:06:30,900 It's not reintroducing the wild. It's restoring the wild. But. 83 00:06:30,900 --> 00:06:35,666 Well, the reintroduction is, term that is most often used. 84 00:06:35,666 --> 00:06:39,166 So I guess we stuck with it. Yeah, I think that's a fair point. 85 00:06:39,166 --> 00:06:46,866 Predation is often, underestimated, in terms of impact on, on a lot of, in particular ground nesting birds. 86 00:06:47,666 --> 00:06:51,333 And I think that the the point is that with 87 00:06:52,366 --> 00:06:53,700 increasing agricultural 88 00:06:53,700 --> 00:06:59,700 intensification, for example, on, on grasslands, the hay making has largely been replaced by silage. 89 00:06:59,733 --> 00:07:02,966 So the nutrient cycling is much faster. 90 00:07:02,966 --> 00:07:06,433 There is more food, there is more earthworms, there is more rodents. 91 00:07:06,433 --> 00:07:09,566 Think about the vole densities in grasslands. 92 00:07:09,566 --> 00:07:17,066 So there is simply a much bigger carrying capacity for these, small predators than what used to be the case historically. 93 00:07:17,666 --> 00:07:24,366 And all these foxes and stoats and weasels, and it is spread through the countryside, and it's just 94 00:07:24,366 --> 00:07:31,400 the sheer number of predators that seems to be, in some cases, at least, the main driver for declines. 95 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:34,566 And if I may give a few examples, the black got which, 96 00:07:34,566 --> 00:07:41,000 despite all the conservation efforts, you see that predator predation is still one of the main causes of decline. 97 00:07:41,733 --> 00:07:45,066 Our species has disappeared over large parts of Europe. 98 00:07:45,066 --> 00:07:49,500 Curlew in Ireland. It's probably also, predation related. 99 00:07:49,500 --> 00:07:55,566 Some countries might have bigger areas that are either suitable or should be protected, 100 00:07:56,100 --> 00:08:02,100 and therefore they have, you know, a larger burden which we like, even, 101 00:08:02,266 --> 00:08:09,500 you know, considering nature restoration or protection in the, in the category of and it's like, oh man, that's not good. 102 00:08:09,500 --> 00:08:14,733 But that, that is the real problem, right. Like how you how are you going to share, share this, 103 00:08:15,833 --> 00:08:17,000 burden, you know, say. 104 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:17,100 Yeah. 105 00:08:17,100 --> 00:08:22,500 Which, which makes me think maybe we should replace the word burden by something more positive. 106 00:08:22,500 --> 00:08:23,566 You're right. 107 00:08:23,566 --> 00:08:26,266 Yes. Yes, absolutely. 108 00:08:26,266 --> 00:08:29,266 I'll take that idea. 109 00:08:29,266 --> 00:08:30,400 Okay. Thank you, thank you. 110 00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:35,033 I'll take a credit if it's changed. I'll take good credit. I think you deserve it. 111 00:08:35,033 --> 00:08:38,766 All the definitions really mean the same thing. 112 00:08:38,766 --> 00:08:40,600 And that I. 113 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:49,833 You know, I like to pare down to giving nature the space and the time, crucially, to dictate its own, ecological trajectories. 114 00:08:49,833 --> 00:08:56,066 And that means ecological succession, without interfering too much. 115 00:08:57,166 --> 00:09:06,700 And, yes, there is this, this problem of a definition, you know, a globally unifying, generally accepted definition. 116 00:09:06,700 --> 00:09:09,633 And, you know, that's why, 117 00:09:09,633 --> 00:09:14,200 in Cumbria at, University of Cumbria myself and, 118 00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:21,600 you know, a group colleagues were asked by the IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 119 00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:29,100 to try to bottom this out and, come up with a unifying definition, which, you know, exactly what we've done. 120 00:09:29,533 --> 00:09:31,633 We started work in 2017, 121 00:09:32,633 --> 00:09:35,200 big survey of, 122 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:36,433 of, people. 123 00:09:36,433 --> 00:09:46,800 We identified, through a soft snowball exercise as being key informants, early adopters, innovators in the field, 124 00:09:47,100 --> 00:09:57,200 and then, subsequent surveys of, rewilding, organizations to, to to identify a set of guiding principles and definition. 125 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:01,266 And then that's what we've done, you know, so, yeah, we're hoping that's useful. 126 00:10:01,266 --> 00:10:09,533 And it has been picked up by various organizations and individuals as being, you know, as near as dumb, that fall definition. 127 00:10:09,666 --> 00:10:15,633 I think that the part of that was like you said, that even the hunting can mean different things to different people. 128 00:10:15,633 --> 00:10:16,200 Absolutely. 129 00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:24,366 But then the term is around for so long that most people intuitively know what that is. 130 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:26,800 While rewilding is fairly new, right? 131 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:30,466 It's like when it was first like in the 80s, I think that was that. 132 00:10:30,466 --> 00:10:32,800 Yeah, people started talking about in the 80s. 133 00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:38,700 It first appeared in print in 1990 and Newsweek magazine article by Genesis. But, 134 00:10:40,366 --> 00:10:45,500 and since then, you know, it's it's it's been it's, you know, it, 135 00:10:45,500 --> 00:10:51,500 it sort of started, been used mainly in the USA and North, you know, North America, USA, Canada, 136 00:10:51,666 --> 00:10:53,600 it's crossed the Atlantic. 137 00:10:53,600 --> 00:11:01,166 It's become something different on this side of the Atlantic, I would say in a sort of the how, how what was the difference? 138 00:11:01,166 --> 00:11:01,600 I'm curious. 139 00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:04,633 This is very interesting because that never come up right? 140 00:11:04,633 --> 00:11:07,633 Because originally it was like a wilderness recovery. 141 00:11:07,633 --> 00:11:08,700 Exactly. 142 00:11:08,700 --> 00:11:13,233 It's my head is is way less contentious. 143 00:11:13,233 --> 00:11:19,033 If you like, then rewild. And then so what was the change when it crossed the Atlantic? 144 00:11:19,033 --> 00:11:26,066 You know, the, the in North America, the impetus was really about connecting up remaining wilderness areas. 145 00:11:26,633 --> 00:11:38,466 In my, my mid 20s, I got connected with Tom Brown, the tracker out and in his work, and I got to spend time with him in some places. And, 146 00:11:39,433 --> 00:11:43,566 and, you know, he's one of the living treasures that we still have as far 147 00:11:43,566 --> 00:11:49,566 as a direct connection to the living, a patchy beard of the southwest, the United States and, 148 00:11:50,300 --> 00:11:56,300 and their traditional techniques and tactics and lifestyle. 149 00:11:56,800 --> 00:12:02,200 So not only is he tracker and survivalist and able to, you know, 150 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:11,433 teach people these things, but they he also talked about their, philosophy and spiritual habits and the importance of meditation and, 151 00:12:11,533 --> 00:12:13,200 and so 152 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:23,633 from there, that that's what triggered me into being interested in structuring some, meditation into my life, in my lifestyle. 153 00:12:23,866 --> 00:12:28,500 And I just wanted one, like, one thing that I want to say for, 154 00:12:28,500 --> 00:12:33,600 for people who are listening to this, that meditation is not, 155 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:39,066 you know, there's a lot of people who will say, like, oh, some kind of woowoo meditation. What are you doing? 156 00:12:39,066 --> 00:12:48,500 And there is a lot of like a huge body of peer reviewed neuroscience about the benefits of meditation. 157 00:12:48,933 --> 00:12:57,200 There are very similar use studies done at at Princeton, at Berkeley, at all the top universities 158 00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:08,033 who are just it's just undeniably pointing to benefits of meditation, various types of meditations for your mental 159 00:13:08,033 --> 00:13:14,033 health, for the focus, for how your hormonal system works, how your endocrine system works, how. 160 00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:19,866 And, I've been on a lot of grouse moors and non grouse moors. 161 00:13:19,866 --> 00:13:25,966 If you want to see almost like a zoo of wildlife, go to a good managed grouse moor. 162 00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:29,900 You will not only see the grouse, but you will see songbirds. 163 00:13:29,900 --> 00:13:32,300 You will see all these non-game birds 164 00:13:32,300 --> 00:13:39,000 and you'll see all these red listed waders, you know, oystercatchers, curlews, all that stuff and large numbers there. 165 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:45,600 And it makes sense because the habitat's been manipulated or enhanced in order to in a way 166 00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:48,200 that propagates their ability to survive on the land. 167 00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:49,800 And they're not stupid, you know, I mean, 168 00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:55,800 if you got a little quarter or half acre section that's been burned and you got new growth coming up there from the heather, 169 00:13:56,166 --> 00:14:00,600 all of a sudden you're in a scenario where there's food for them and there's an open area there 170 00:14:00,600 --> 00:14:04,533 where they can kind of keep an eye out for predators. But predators guess what? 171 00:14:04,533 --> 00:14:11,266 Wherever you have lots of game animals or lots of food, in this case, walking McDonald's all over the place, you're going to have lots of, 172 00:14:11,533 --> 00:14:17,000 predators, in this case, the avian predators, which are protected by law, just like you're in the United States. 173 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:24,066 You know, you've got the golden eagles and kites and and buzzards and I mean, there's just there's a I mean, you go out on a grouse moor 174 00:14:24,066 --> 00:14:32,266 and you might see half a dozen species, different species, of avian raptors, and you're going to see them in pretty good numbers. 175 00:14:32,500 --> 00:14:36,700 Whereas if you go to other places that don't have that type of management on land. 176 00:14:36,700 --> 00:14:42,333 Yeah, you might see some here and there, but it's it's the difference between going to a proverbial zoo, 177 00:14:43,500 --> 00:14:48,300 and just being out someplace, you know, next to town, somewhere in a, in a 178 00:14:48,300 --> 00:14:55,266 in a cow field, which the other thing is, is a lot of people talk about biodiversity and this, this whole concept of biodiversity loss 179 00:14:55,266 --> 00:15:02,066 and that there's a crises going on in the Highlands because these grouse moors are, are, that are diverse. 180 00:15:02,633 --> 00:15:06,733 They don't have the diversity that some people think they should have. 181 00:15:06,733 --> 00:15:13,800 You go up to one of those, go up there with a gamekeeper and a good ecologist, a good scientist or a biologist 182 00:15:14,100 --> 00:15:19,833 with a pair of binoculars, and they will show you things that you never see, because I don't think humans take the time 183 00:15:19,833 --> 00:15:21,800 to really sit there and watch this stuff. 184 00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:29,400 And, there's a great number of, of, of animals, like I said, up in that area and that area has evolved to be like that. 185 00:15:29,400 --> 00:15:32,100 It's not a product. 186 00:15:32,100 --> 00:15:38,266 You know, on the outside, it looks like we've kind of package it by human hands, by the, the muirburn, which is, 187 00:15:38,500 --> 00:15:41,000 the low intensity burning in small areas. 188 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:48,300 And so you get this patchwork mosaic of, of different growth and, and, and it's and, you know, it's it's different to me. 189 00:15:48,300 --> 00:15:50,400 When I first saw it, I was like, wow, this is kind of cool. Look. 190 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:54,366 And of course, when the in an August when the heather all turns and blooms and purple 191 00:15:54,366 --> 00:15:58,800 and you get all this stuff out there, I don't mean the place is is absolutely off the hook. Gorgeous. 192 00:16:00,266 --> 00:16:05,400 But this land has evolved over thousands and thousands of years. 193 00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:15,300 So again, using science as our main common denominator, if we go back 9000 years ago, Scotland in the Highlands was covered under glacial ice. 194 00:16:15,533 --> 00:16:20,533 There wasn't any trees, there wasn't any heather, there wasn't any deer, there wasn't any humans. 195 00:16:20,533 --> 00:16:26,966 When the seasons started, I was at the sea every weekend, and that lasted for 3 or 4 years. 196 00:16:28,466 --> 00:16:37,333 As soon as the season started, late July early August, running till the late October early November. 197 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:41,000 As soon as the reports showed up that, sharks are around. 198 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,866 Hell, some of those reports were from the boats I was on. 199 00:16:44,866 --> 00:16:51,966 I was out that was doing it, and every shark that we caught was measured, 200 00:16:53,233 --> 00:16:59,200 was, measured the full length till the tip of the tail, fork length to the fork of the tail and girth. 201 00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:01,466 These measurements meant 202 00:17:01,466 --> 00:17:07,900 were meant to facilitate establishing the weight of a shark, because you cannot wave shark on the boats that it's rocking. 203 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:12,100 And the sharks were tagged with a tag number and released. 204 00:17:12,100 --> 00:17:14,900 And this tagging program 205 00:17:14,900 --> 00:17:20,000 is run by, fishery board in Ireland, and it's called charts. 206 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,200 We have a podcast, about this program. 207 00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:29,633 And this is gold standard program for tagging sharks and rays and plasma breeding species. 208 00:17:30,233 --> 00:17:31,600 Okay. It is the fed. 209 00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:36,300 The data is available to scientists. A lot of research was done based on that data. 210 00:17:36,300 --> 00:17:38,466 Great program. 211 00:17:38,466 --> 00:17:42,733 You know I would never claim shark conservation. 212 00:17:42,733 --> 00:17:48,466 I would never say that I'm a shark conservationist or that I'm doing shark conservation work. 213 00:17:48,466 --> 00:17:52,633 I just did, I didn't, I was just doing whatever I was doing. I was shark fishing. 214 00:17:54,933 --> 00:17:58,333 You see the you see the similarities. 215 00:17:58,333 --> 00:18:05,366 No shark was better off by being caught, handled and tagged similarly. 216 00:18:05,833 --> 00:18:11,166 Like no bird is better off, but being caught, handled and ringed. 217 00:18:11,166 --> 00:18:17,033 Maybe the thing over here is that we don't, had that much sort of offshore. 218 00:18:17,033 --> 00:18:20,400 We are not opposite sides. 219 00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:25,600 In general, we have a common of course, we have, 220 00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:28,266 different angles to do things. 221 00:18:28,266 --> 00:18:34,700 And, and of course, we have, different perspectives, to, bird questions. 222 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:45,433 But for example, in water falling, we have a perfect similar way that that we work together can work together for the waterfall. 223 00:18:45,633 --> 00:18:52,033 And since Finland is an important area for bird production, 224 00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:58,333 it is vital that in in a small country with, with many, many, many lakes, 225 00:18:58,333 --> 00:19:04,533 we combine our it's a lot and and work for the waterfall. 226 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:08,566 And what comes to the Sitka project itself. 227 00:19:08,566 --> 00:19:13,633 It's a we are only a small part of a much larger project. 228 00:19:13,633 --> 00:19:17,233 And, of course there are parts in the bigger project. 229 00:19:17,233 --> 00:19:24,800 There are some for the wildlife agency and, parks and forests working on that, on that, state owned land. 230 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:29,466 And so there's a little, little piece for everyone working in the sector. 231 00:19:29,466 --> 00:19:37,466 And also we got it was kind of an we were honored that we we were given this small, small project of ours to run. 232 00:19:37,466 --> 00:19:43,633 And since we're talking about voluntary things to, to work with it, 233 00:19:44,433 --> 00:19:52,100 I suppose it was very natural only to ask for the, for the kind of third sector associations to do that work. 234 00:19:52,233 --> 00:19:59,200 During the study, they had, I colleagues in this project, some of the coauthors had G.P.S. 235 00:19:59,300 --> 00:20:02,300 colors that to lions in its properties. 236 00:20:02,300 --> 00:20:05,500 Is that all of a conservancy in Kenya and, 237 00:20:06,833 --> 00:20:12,233 I think we had six collared animals, each in a different pride. 238 00:20:12,233 --> 00:20:14,800 So that's about 66 lions. 239 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:21,133 And you can tell when lions are either very inactive or if they've killed something 240 00:20:21,133 --> 00:20:25,700 based on the pattern in those GPS locations and how they show up on your computer. 241 00:20:25,700 --> 00:20:32,700 So then people would go out and investigate what we call a, GPS cluster, a cluster of points from the GPS collar 242 00:20:33,166 --> 00:20:36,066 and see what you see, what the lion was doing in that area. 243 00:20:36,066 --> 00:20:43,900 And that's where we discovered what they were feeding on and the type of habitat that they're feeding on in these in the study. 244 00:20:43,900 --> 00:20:48,033 So we noticed that, yeah, they definitely like to kill zebra. 245 00:20:48,033 --> 00:20:53,400 That's their preferred prey. So lie about 60% of the things lions 246 00:20:54,433 --> 00:20:56,866 kill in the system were zebra. 247 00:20:56,866 --> 00:20:59,133 And most zebra were killed by lions. 248 00:20:59,133 --> 00:21:02,500 That's how you die if you're a zebra 90% of the time. 249 00:21:02,500 --> 00:21:06,900 So we got a sense of what lions were eating and then where. 250 00:21:06,900 --> 00:21:07,500 So when? 251 00:21:07,500 --> 00:21:13,466 Whenever they made a kill site, we measured visibility in that area and we discovered that, yeah, we. 252 00:21:13,466 --> 00:21:19,100 Which is pretty common knowledge that lions use cover to, to conceal themselves as they attack and kill prey. 253 00:21:19,100 --> 00:21:20,833 Like most cats. Right. Their ambush. 254 00:21:20,833 --> 00:21:21,900 Absolutely. Yeah. 255 00:21:21,900 --> 00:21:27,900 So then we have this observation that lions like cover to kill things, but covers declining. 256 00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:33,566 So what does that mean? And that's where this long term data come in. 257 00:21:33,566 --> 00:21:40,100 And we've noticed that over time lions are the proportion of zebra in the lions diet has been declining. 258 00:21:40,100 --> 00:21:47,700 And it's being made up by buffalo by buffalo which is a huge animal to attack. 259 00:21:47,700 --> 00:21:48,000 Right. 260 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,566 These are big scary beasts. 261 00:21:50,566 --> 00:21:54,733 And yeah. So lions have made a switch and there's some reason for that. 262 00:21:55,900 --> 00:22:02,600 And we don't see a relationship between cover or visibility and, and buffalo kills. 263 00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:09,366 So whatever makes a buffalo vulnerable to being killed by a lion doesn't depend on what do you cover in the same way that it does for a zebra? 264 00:22:10,066 --> 00:22:13,500 I think the cap is not fit for purpose. 265 00:22:13,500 --> 00:22:18,466 Especially, you know, especially now and especially, 266 00:22:18,466 --> 00:22:26,833 with all the talk of all the future accessions into the EU, like even Ukraine alone would mean an entire rewrite of the cap. 267 00:22:26,833 --> 00:22:32,833 It would be completely unsustainable to just, like, have them in and continue as it was. 268 00:22:33,966 --> 00:22:40,333 So I suppose what I would really like to push for would be a common food policy. 269 00:22:40,333 --> 00:22:44,100 I was interested to read there that the eye they were seeing. 270 00:22:44,100 --> 00:22:45,600 I can't remember the exact wording, 271 00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:51,933 but it's basically what the cap should be for agricultural production and not any sort of social intervention and stuff on the left. 272 00:22:52,533 --> 00:22:57,166 What do you think? I'd. Bicultural production is like? That's a social intervention. It's food for people. 273 00:22:58,466 --> 00:23:00,400 And what I would like to see what I like. 274 00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:06,400 I think agricultural production, first of all, has become so much more efficient than when the cap started. 275 00:23:06,900 --> 00:23:12,900 Like, you can produce vast, vast quantities, of grain with not that much labor. 276 00:23:13,300 --> 00:23:16,866 Like, obviously grain things like vegetables and fruits are different. 277 00:23:16,866 --> 00:23:19,800 But in terms of calories produced, we can now more than ever produce 278 00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:25,800 more calories per human worker than we ever could at any, any time in history. 279 00:23:26,766 --> 00:23:35,266 And I don't think that's a policy that is solely built around decreasing agricultural production 280 00:23:36,766 --> 00:23:39,233 is sufficient in this day and age. 281 00:23:39,233 --> 00:23:44,033 I think anything around environmental impact, because these aren't these aren't separate. 282 00:23:44,033 --> 00:23:46,733 Like, that's often things like, oh, the environment is separate agriculture. 283 00:23:46,733 --> 00:23:49,800 It's the same thing, but they're always just tweaks. 284 00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:54,533 And they famously have not had that much success over the last few decades in terms of 285 00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,566 birds, in terms of insects, in terms of soil, water quality. 286 00:23:59,566 --> 00:24:05,566 Famously, the Cap environmental projects, we're still kind of we're still going the wrong way in a lot of ways. 287 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:12,600 And so I would like to see a kind of policy brought in as well that would so a food policy and that was, 288 00:24:13,833 --> 00:24:18,000 myself and another group from Mayo were part of a group that kind of went a, a workshop. 289 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:23,233 This proposal, must be seven years ago that, 290 00:24:23,233 --> 00:24:29,100 for a common food policy for the EU, which would, which would basically incorporate all of these things, incorporate 291 00:24:29,100 --> 00:24:36,200 not just, the agricultural production sector section of it, but all the way to that, getting on to people's plates. 292 00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:43,666 What we need to do, particularly in the in the more populated part of the world, is very much a landscape approach, 293 00:24:43,666 --> 00:24:50,166 a negotiated approach where you look at, you don't say, we're going to rewild the whole wild, which isn't going to happen. 294 00:24:50,166 --> 00:24:54,433 You really negotiate how, how and where and when. 295 00:24:54,433 --> 00:24:56,766 There's very good reasons for doing that is good reasons. 296 00:24:57,766 --> 00:25:00,066 Not just biodiversity, ecosystem services. 297 00:25:00,066 --> 00:25:01,233 No, things are not. 298 00:25:01,233 --> 00:25:06,866 But if you go in with too heavy a heavier hand, it probably won't work. 299 00:25:06,866 --> 00:25:13,233 And we're sort of seeing this with the Europe, the EU restoration law at the moment where there's been such huge kickback for farmers. 300 00:25:14,233 --> 00:25:15,433 There's lots of reasons for that. 301 00:25:15,433 --> 00:25:20,133 And it's not just about restoration, but if you go into heavily it, it won't work. 302 00:25:20,133 --> 00:25:25,233 So really need, really need long term negotiation. 303 00:25:25,233 --> 00:25:31,333 And in terms of bigger things like tigers and, and human wildlife conflict, there's a lot we can do. 304 00:25:31,366 --> 00:25:34,533 There's a lot we can do in terms of reducing risk and so on. 305 00:25:34,533 --> 00:25:42,500 We can model communication systems, modern ways of, of of fencing, modern ways of alerting people. 306 00:25:42,500 --> 00:25:47,700 But but you're right. It is going to be it is going to be a human cost. 307 00:25:47,700 --> 00:25:49,333 We spend quite a lot of my partner. 308 00:25:49,333 --> 00:25:58,433 So we spent a lot of the last ten years working on Thai conservation, on improving management standards for tiger reserves around the world. 309 00:25:58,933 --> 00:26:02,100 And tiger numbers are going up, but more people will be killed. 310 00:26:03,833 --> 00:26:06,833 And, you know, in the countries where tigers exist, 311 00:26:06,833 --> 00:26:13,133 there's often a fair amount of philosophical acceptance of that, but there's going to be a limit of that as well. 312 00:26:13,133 --> 00:26:20,366 That must be on the occasions, I presume, weighing heavily on on people doing that on various conservation 313 00:26:20,366 --> 00:26:28,800 where it occurs, like, you know, my work, it will be direct or semi direct reason some people will get killed. 314 00:26:28,966 --> 00:26:34,200 Yeah, but it's true of lots of things. It's true of if you build a road, it's true if you build up. 315 00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:40,400 We don't tend not to think about that generally, the way I explain it to students is an invasive species. 316 00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:48,000 Is a species, plant or animal microbe, whatever that's come from one by a geographical realm to another, generally through human transport. 317 00:26:48,266 --> 00:26:54,100 Let's take something like the Chinese mitten crab from China is now in UK. 318 00:26:54,100 --> 00:26:56,000 It's no, in Ireland, it's in Europe. 319 00:26:57,166 --> 00:26:58,800 So it's coming from a very different bay 320 00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:05,700 geographical area with different, environment, different evolutionary pressures, different, other species around it. 321 00:27:06,066 --> 00:27:13,666 And quite often those species then have impact and new locations such as predation, competition, disease, transmission. 322 00:27:13,966 --> 00:27:17,233 And because they're very new to the area in an evolutionary sense, 323 00:27:17,233 --> 00:27:23,100 we can bring novel weapons such as, illegal chemicals and plants like chameleon balsam, for example. 324 00:27:23,100 --> 00:27:30,433 They can be, the native species can be naive to the introduced species, so don't recognize them as compared to the ocean predators. 325 00:27:30,833 --> 00:27:35,900 And therefore there can be a distinct ecological and environmental impact. 326 00:27:35,900 --> 00:27:40,800 The EU tends to think of invasive alien species as encompassing all of that 327 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:45,666 transport coming from a different place, becoming established and having impact. 328 00:27:45,666 --> 00:27:53,866 We tend to separate out the two elements of invasiveness being the ability to arrive and become established in a new location. 329 00:27:55,333 --> 00:27:57,600 Such as many species travel 330 00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:03,866 on boats across the Atlantic, end up in, North American Great Lakes and establishing colonies. 331 00:28:03,866 --> 00:28:06,033 But not all have impact. 332 00:28:06,033 --> 00:28:12,033 Impact can be something that is almost, neutral or indeed positive. 333 00:28:12,066 --> 00:28:14,233 Many species actually add to our environment. 334 00:28:14,233 --> 00:28:23,400 So there are islands and continental areas, but many, many have distinct, impacts such as zebra mussels such as peacock bar, such as 335 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,433 crayfish species that are moved around. 336 00:28:26,433 --> 00:28:32,100 So we invasiveness Olympics aren't necessarily correlated. So you can be very invasive with impact. 337 00:28:32,100 --> 00:28:35,566 You can be very few individuals but have huge impact. 338 00:28:35,566 --> 00:28:41,966 The the story I told this morning to my students was an 1894, a lighthouse was built 339 00:28:41,966 --> 00:28:47,966 on a small island, Colson Stevens, near New Zealand, and the lighthouse keeper brought a cat to the island. 340 00:28:48,300 --> 00:28:51,066 And the cat killed the entire population. 341 00:28:51,066 --> 00:28:55,133 And every last individual of a species of rain that lived on the island. 342 00:28:55,133 --> 00:29:02,500 Another big one that showed up in the responses is talking about poachers 343 00:29:03,133 --> 00:29:09,966 and how you distinguish hunters and poachers, and you might think they may think that this is very easy. 344 00:29:11,100 --> 00:29:12,833 But it is not easy. 345 00:29:12,833 --> 00:29:14,833 Some would say that. Okay, who is a poacher? 346 00:29:14,833 --> 00:29:20,700 Poacher is an unethical person who kills wildlife illegally, right. 347 00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:26,066 And often poachers and hunters are purposefully, kind of conflated. 348 00:29:26,066 --> 00:29:30,800 You sometimes see the article that says, like illegal hunters or illegal hunting. 349 00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:36,366 Well, illegal hunting is poaching by definition. However, it is never that simple. 350 00:29:36,366 --> 00:29:45,866 For example, in South America there are a lot of tribes who are traditionally hunting animals for subsistence or otherwise. 351 00:29:46,733 --> 00:29:53,900 And then government decides that now hunting a specific species is illegal 352 00:29:54,133 --> 00:30:02,766 because a species is endangered, threatened, or something along these lines, except that nobody bothered inform those people. 353 00:30:03,300 --> 00:30:10,633 Nobody bothered to even send someone to their village deep into the forest to tell them that now they can't run these animals, 354 00:30:10,766 --> 00:30:17,233 just inform them, never mind to get their opinion or get them on board, or get them to try to understand. 355 00:30:17,666 --> 00:30:23,833 So they wake up in the morning and they do what they always do, except now they're poachers. 356 00:30:23,833 --> 00:30:29,833 Therefore they making immoral decisions like they not they not making any decisions. 357 00:30:30,133 --> 00:30:35,366 And whether they are poachers or not, it depends on which angle you're going to look at it. 358 00:30:35,366 --> 00:30:45,033 And even in, in the England I think, or in Great Britain, term poacher where like, you know, Robin Hood or people who are exercising 359 00:30:45,033 --> 00:30:56,866 their rights to game animals, to wildlife that were taken away from them by, you know, kings and dukes and, you know, all these, 360 00:30:58,833 --> 00:31:00,666 the loss of dung beetles 361 00:31:00,666 --> 00:31:06,666 trying to feed on wood here, which is from an animal which has been wormed. 362 00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:09,000 It's a problem. 363 00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,333 And you could know, you could throw in pets as well in there. 364 00:31:12,333 --> 00:31:18,533 So, you know, when it comes to the the changes, yes. 365 00:31:18,700 --> 00:31:21,900 Agriculture has played a massive part. 366 00:31:21,900 --> 00:31:28,966 The the loss of hedgerows, increasing field size, the demand for lower cost food economics. 367 00:31:30,966 --> 00:31:36,133 But I'll throw an interesting example on this one. 368 00:31:36,133 --> 00:31:38,666 I'm from was born and raised in Suffolk. 369 00:31:38,666 --> 00:31:43,800 So East Anglia, you know, the, the prairies, of eastern England. 370 00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:49,966 And you know, I've, you know, I walked to school when I was three or 4 or 5 years old. 371 00:31:49,966 --> 00:31:53,266 So, you know, I couldn't remember what the hedgerows were like, 372 00:31:53,266 --> 00:31:59,366 what the verges were like, the flowers, you know, we were we were taught to go out there and identify them and recognize 373 00:32:00,366 --> 00:32:07,100 and looking through the next 50 years and thinking, well, 374 00:32:07,500 --> 00:32:14,666 yes, fields have got bigger with a great deal of that was post 1940, we have more monocultures. 375 00:32:14,666 --> 00:32:17,566 We have more, 376 00:32:17,566 --> 00:32:19,133 use of pesticides. 377 00:32:19,133 --> 00:32:23,300 We well, we probably have less use of pesticides. It's now that we used to. 378 00:32:23,300 --> 00:32:29,300 But one thing that's disappeared from the is the mixed farming systems. 379 00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:32,700 We used to have. 380 00:32:32,700 --> 00:32:36,033 We used to run probably 400 beef cattle. 381 00:32:36,033 --> 00:32:42,033 All of the farms we had, we had my grandfather had about seven different farming units 382 00:32:42,300 --> 00:32:44,500 were surrounded by meadows. 383 00:32:44,500 --> 00:32:48,866 And none of these are reseed had all of them had incredible. 384 00:32:48,866 --> 00:32:51,233 But diversity. 385 00:32:51,233 --> 00:33:01,000 And what's gone is these islands of biodiversity and the grazing animals that went with it. 386 00:33:01,866 --> 00:33:09,833 And I think large parts of the world, we've lost the grazing animals from the landscapes. 387 00:33:10,500 --> 00:33:16,800 And I look at Suffolk now, it's like, crikey, the only meadows I can think of. 388 00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:18,466 I've got horses. 389 00:33:18,466 --> 00:33:23,333 Horses are almost certainly regularly worked, which is not helping. 390 00:33:23,333 --> 00:33:27,300 So we've actually progressed from 391 00:33:28,566 --> 00:33:33,600 expanding the the monoculture of arable and, 392 00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:34,966 old seed rape. 393 00:33:34,966 --> 00:33:36,900 We've 394 00:33:36,900 --> 00:33:43,800 then removed all, systematically removed all of the islands and the ones that left the pony paddocks. 395 00:33:44,566 --> 00:33:50,100 Feed and stream the American Journal, from I think 1894 or something. 396 00:33:50,100 --> 00:33:59,700 And they really in detail describe how, there were so many dead ducks in this pond in the US that you could fill barrels of them 397 00:34:00,033 --> 00:34:06,533 and exactly how they have died and how that is explained as being poisoned from feeding. 398 00:34:06,766 --> 00:34:09,566 So just ingesting, 399 00:34:09,566 --> 00:34:15,400 that shot that they would then take instead of grit from the bottom, to have in there. 400 00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:16,433 And I guess it. 401 00:34:16,433 --> 00:34:21,300 So that's a second one, the primary poisoning of ducks. 402 00:34:21,300 --> 00:34:28,400 And then the fourth one would be, secondary poisoning of predators and scavengers. 403 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:34,533 So this is not them actively feeding on the, bullets or shot, which is what the ducks doing. 404 00:34:34,533 --> 00:34:39,033 But scavengers and predators accidentally basically feeding on this. 405 00:34:39,033 --> 00:34:42,400 So say you shoot the ptarmigan without killing it. 406 00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:48,333 Then he could have a guy fork, then taking it just it's, of course, easy to take a ptarmigan that has been shot 407 00:34:48,333 --> 00:34:52,833 at and maybe crippled slightly, but it's still it flew off, but it's still not flying. 408 00:34:52,833 --> 00:34:59,200 Well, the guy Falcon will of course be more likely to take that as compared to a completely unimpeded, ptarmigan. 409 00:34:59,633 --> 00:35:05,633 And you could also have, effects from leaving gut piles. 410 00:35:05,666 --> 00:35:11,100 There are many cases where this has been studied and showing elevated lead levels in everything 411 00:35:11,100 --> 00:35:17,566 from cougars, Pumas to ravens to white tailed eagles, things like that. 412 00:35:17,766 --> 00:35:24,633 And the more of a scavenger, a species like the white lingual, the more of a problem there might be. 413 00:35:25,166 --> 00:35:35,166 So in Sweden and Finland, we're talking something like 5,020% of the Sea Eagles that die have such an elevated lead level that, 414 00:35:35,633 --> 00:35:41,400 they died from it or would have died from it unless they flew into a power line or something. 415 00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:47,633 And that's something they are more likely to do when they are affected by the that, the, the water legal is doing 416 00:35:47,633 --> 00:35:53,633 fine for a population perspective, but the individuals are, of course, suffering while dying from this. 417 00:35:53,966 --> 00:35:56,366 So it's still an ethical, problem. 418 00:35:56,366 --> 00:35:58,333 But I would argue I that productive. 419 00:35:58,333 --> 00:36:02,966 I'd love to put in a pond there to cost me, you know, a few thousand euros to do a cheap job. 420 00:36:02,966 --> 00:36:03,366 It'd be tough. 421 00:36:03,366 --> 00:36:05,900 I would spend it more if you wanted to fence it properly 422 00:36:05,900 --> 00:36:08,966 and maybe plant a few trees, do a bit of landscaping around it and have it 423 00:36:08,966 --> 00:36:12,200 a nice amenity feature on the farm as well as just a biodiversity feature. 424 00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:13,000 Maybe we don't need that. 425 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:18,833 Maybe we just put in a, you know, dig a hole and let it filled with water, which it will in that area. 426 00:36:20,100 --> 00:36:21,700 But there's a cost involved in that. 427 00:36:21,700 --> 00:36:26,400 Am I supposed to do that? It does. No monetary gain for me from a farming point of view. 428 00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:30,500 Or does the likes of the government help which supports to do that? 429 00:36:30,500 --> 00:36:34,433 If we want biodiversity gain on the farmland and in the countryside? 430 00:36:34,433 --> 00:36:39,766 So I can't see how people that want to improve biodiversity and want to improve nature, 431 00:36:39,766 --> 00:36:44,433 it don't seem to want to engage with farmers and we need to improve and not enjoy affairs well. 432 00:36:44,433 --> 00:36:50,433 And we're very well aware that now that as we move towards nature restoration, as there is a biodiversity climate Fund, 433 00:36:50,500 --> 00:36:56,500 we need to engage properly with that process and with the nature restoration process to make sure that 434 00:36:56,700 --> 00:37:02,433 we look for the right things and we try and get the right things, and we try and get the right supports in place to make those happen. 435 00:37:02,433 --> 00:37:03,366 But alongside 436 00:37:03,366 --> 00:37:09,366 productive farming, rather than instead of productive farming, and some of the messages coming from nature restoration on the beginning 437 00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:15,600 would have said that there will be no more roads built in certain areas, no more houses built in certain areas. 438 00:37:16,166 --> 00:37:20,533 And if you have a farm family, there might be some going to farm. 439 00:37:20,533 --> 00:37:22,900 There might be a daughter going to farm, that might be an older sibling 440 00:37:22,900 --> 00:37:26,133 that wants to build a house on the farm to feel an attachment to the area. 441 00:37:26,133 --> 00:37:30,033 It could be at the edge of the village, but they have ground and they have a site and they might have. 442 00:37:30,033 --> 00:37:31,500 My sister has a house on the farm. 443 00:37:31,500 --> 00:37:33,833 My brother's up the road from the farm, 444 00:37:33,833 --> 00:37:40,566 and we were hearing that that was going to be outlawed, that there wasn't going to be any more development in certain areas. 445 00:37:40,900 --> 00:37:42,833 So obviously alarm bells go off. 446 00:37:42,833 --> 00:37:48,966 You're talking about resetting ground, resetting farmland as well as government ground or board more on the ground or semi-state ground. 447 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,166 So it is a lot of misinformation out there. 448 00:37:53,100 --> 00:37:56,766 There was a lot of people given a false story of what was going to happen. 449 00:37:56,766 --> 00:38:01,700 There was no economic, impact assessment donor for Rhode Island or for farmers. 450 00:38:01,700 --> 00:38:04,900 There was no budget in place for us to make it happen. 451 00:38:04,900 --> 00:38:10,900 So yeah, farmers got very nervous then, because there has been other schemes that haven't worked out for farmers financially where, 452 00:38:11,700 --> 00:38:14,933 ground has been made less productive in some areas. 453 00:38:14,933 --> 00:38:22,200 I think you have to apply to the government to reseed to ground, and it could take two years to get a reply from them. 454 00:38:22,466 --> 00:38:26,533 Obviously they just don't want to do it. I said of just put your file to the back and if you want to make. 455 00:38:26,533 --> 00:38:34,766 I think it was two different measures that if you wanted to do any of those measures on your block of ground in areas of, conservation 456 00:38:35,100 --> 00:38:41,400 that you'd have to apply to be allowed to do any of those measures where I can work in receipt of farm, but received a field here now. 457 00:38:41,766 --> 00:38:47,766 So the control of the ground and the rights and the property rights of the farmer are taken away in certain circumstances. 458 00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:51,200 And we'd, like farmers would in reason would in planning guidelines. 459 00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,433 So and, you know, to be able to decide what they want to do with their own ground 460 00:38:54,433 --> 00:38:58,566 rather than having everything dictated to them from Europe or from government. 461 00:38:58,566 --> 00:39:00,800 Being a little bit of a devil's advocate. 462 00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,800 But ask this question are humans natural humans part of nature? 463 00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:09,566 We couldn't be more part of nature. If it what we are, we are incredibly. 464 00:39:09,566 --> 00:39:12,566 We are part of nature. Nature's part of us. 465 00:39:12,566 --> 00:39:18,600 But for quite literally thousands of years, and there's been writers that go back as beyond Aristotle, 466 00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,766 who talk about how humans separate themselves from nature. 467 00:39:22,766 --> 00:39:24,900 We go to nature. 468 00:39:24,900 --> 00:39:27,766 It is, it is outside. 469 00:39:27,766 --> 00:39:31,033 It's a view we have. It's like a window or a screen that we look at. 470 00:39:31,033 --> 00:39:32,533 We see it's out there. 471 00:39:32,533 --> 00:39:38,533 We're inside in our in our created, holes in our created securities behind the force field. 472 00:39:38,933 --> 00:39:41,766 And, but in reality, we are driven by nature. 473 00:39:41,766 --> 00:39:45,066 We evolved as, as a result of of nature. 474 00:39:45,066 --> 00:39:49,033 Not an that it's a it's a process that had given rise to us. 475 00:39:49,033 --> 00:39:51,600 And we are very much part of nature. 476 00:39:51,600 --> 00:40:00,466 However, one of the biggest problems we have as, as a, as a creature is we don't know that we are a creature. 477 00:40:00,866 --> 00:40:08,866 And it's it has given rise to so much of the problems, including the type of behavior that we, we, we use 478 00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:15,833 that has destroyed a great deal of the other parts of our planet and, and our climate and so on. 479 00:40:16,266 --> 00:40:22,400 And it is that disconnect the, the, the, the removal of of ourselves from nature 480 00:40:22,700 --> 00:40:28,366 that we could put our finger on and say, we know if we could at least fix that, if we could reconnect. 481 00:40:28,366 --> 00:40:34,033 There is a very, very big chance that we could, maybe alter our behavior to be more sustainable. 482 00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:41,000 Not all human, so that there are quite a lot of humans, for example, in from indigenous communities 483 00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:47,666 and different parts of the world up until relatively recently, and in some cases still, that are still quite part of nature, 484 00:40:47,900 --> 00:40:54,566 but still indigenous peoples and ancient peoples also caused a lot of extinctions and problems. 485 00:40:54,766 --> 00:41:01,366 Nothing like the global effects that we might have now, with possibly some major extinctions, and you might like mammoth and so on. 486 00:41:01,633 --> 00:41:07,233 But then we're not 100% sure whether it's climate talks, environment or hunting or so on. 487 00:41:07,233 --> 00:41:15,000 So we we still even even in our in our earliest days and the days we hadn't really developed, a society 488 00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:21,033 as such, you know, we currently know and we still had technology, very rudimentary technology. 489 00:41:21,033 --> 00:41:24,233 We still had technology that impacted nature. So yes, it is. 490 00:41:24,233 --> 00:41:31,133 Unfortunately, we do tend to see ourselves as separate, but we are in fact, we couldn't be more like nature 491 00:41:31,133 --> 00:41:36,900 even if we tried emerging evidence of links in early modern literature right through to about 1700, 492 00:41:36,900 --> 00:41:42,900 which would add a thousand years on to their the present in in Scotland, which is really interesting. 493 00:41:43,166 --> 00:41:48,433 So there's issues that need to be debated and discussed there for sure. 494 00:41:48,433 --> 00:41:55,633 I think what limited ecologic evidence we have in Ireland at the moment would suggest, and I'm thinking of Colin Guilfoyle as work, 495 00:41:55,633 --> 00:42:02,966 that we just don't have the forest cover and the habitat for, for lynx and that probably means for worlds as well. 496 00:42:03,166 --> 00:42:05,900 So right now I think it is extremely challenging. 497 00:42:05,900 --> 00:42:12,266 But the in terms of that crystal ball and it should trajectory of the coming decades is that we're likely 498 00:42:12,266 --> 00:42:20,200 to see systematic change in larger upland areas where partly for climate change reasons and partly for nature restoration, 499 00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:28,800 we will see large scale reforestation and also renewable energy and recreation out competing marginal upland sheep farming. 500 00:42:29,233 --> 00:42:32,533 And what that is doing is creating the habitat. 501 00:42:32,533 --> 00:42:41,266 And as deer populations expand to fill those forested upland areas, the prey base for both lynx and wolves. 502 00:42:41,500 --> 00:42:44,400 So in I'm where it's putting a time frame on it. 503 00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:50,033 But in in 2040, 2050 things may be very different. 504 00:42:50,033 --> 00:42:56,033 Add to that is the growing support for rewilding, particularly amongst urban 505 00:42:56,100 --> 00:43:03,066 and younger individuals who are going to be the voters and the policymakers in 20 years as well. 506 00:43:03,633 --> 00:43:11,000 And the Overton window, the Overton window is what is politically acceptable to given population at a certain time. 507 00:43:11,166 --> 00:43:19,000 And right now I, I would suggest in both eyes the Overton window is here, and above the Overton window is links reintroductions. 508 00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,200 And above that is worth reintroductions. 509 00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:25,300 But the Overton window is going to start moving up in this coming decades. 510 00:43:25,300 --> 00:43:30,300 And it may so happen that links reintroductions fall within that Overton window. 511 00:43:30,300 --> 00:43:35,133 At the same time as habitat and prey have increased in upland areas. 512 00:43:35,133 --> 00:43:39,466 So this is a debate that will be having for many years, many decades. 513 00:43:39,466 --> 00:43:43,900 And lastly, what that gives us is time to really think through. 514 00:43:43,900 --> 00:43:45,133 Could this work? 515 00:43:45,133 --> 00:43:50,866 How do we manage deterrence and force and enterprise and compensation? 516 00:43:50,866 --> 00:43:56,833 How do we solve these issues? What mechanisms do we put in place so that farmers are listened to and the concerns are met? 517 00:43:56,833 --> 00:44:03,466 While acknowledging that you can never please everyone all of the time, the outcome has very negligible risk 518 00:44:03,966 --> 00:44:10,300 to people, to animals, and and the might be certain risk to the other plants. 519 00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:20,166 But with the today's methods and knowhow and expertise and technology, that that risk is really dwindled down to almost zero. 520 00:44:20,166 --> 00:44:25,500 That is why we're seeing in many countries in the world, full GMO plants being grown. 521 00:44:25,500 --> 00:44:32,833 Even the Europe is now being more open to that US, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, wherever. 522 00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:39,900 Taking full GMO plants and planting them, there's almost very negligible regulatory required because they've understood the risk. 523 00:44:40,100 --> 00:44:47,100 What you do have is the public perception based upon about three decades ago, when this technology was really early on 524 00:44:47,100 --> 00:44:54,800 and very in its early stages, and there were risks associated, and it was very hard to have a foolproof product and to swallow it. 525 00:44:54,966 --> 00:44:56,700 There were certain risks that were associated. 526 00:44:56,700 --> 00:45:01,200 There were very small incidents that arose and they're still with us today. 527 00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:06,866 But for in modern times, today and scientifically, there's no risk whatsoever. 528 00:45:06,866 --> 00:45:09,233 Now, what we do is not considered GMO. 529 00:45:09,233 --> 00:45:13,166 We use Crispr technology. We do gene editing. 530 00:45:13,166 --> 00:45:15,600 We are genetically engineering the plants. 531 00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:21,600 But Jim O is the means a plant with a foreign genetic material in it. 532 00:45:21,733 --> 00:45:25,800 What we do using Crispr, we silence existing genes. 533 00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:27,900 We don't introduce foreign genetic material. 534 00:45:27,900 --> 00:45:35,700 So if you look at the plants that we sell and you look for foreign genetic material, whereas with a GMO you will immediately 535 00:45:35,766 --> 00:45:43,400 recognize the GMO plant with ours, you will not tell apart my plant from a conventional plant is a difficult balance. 536 00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:51,700 I would say, you know, livestock farming in the UK and worldwide is under continuous pressure 537 00:45:51,700 --> 00:45:58,566 and so ever scrutiny is and is something that we are trying to really champion on the farm. 538 00:45:58,566 --> 00:46:03,733 As you know, we can produce really good quality food but also conserve nature. 539 00:46:03,733 --> 00:46:09,600 We can keep these biodiverse grasslands and their flora and fauna and everything else associated with it. 540 00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,400 We can find that balance. 541 00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:17,066 And, you know, the farm was a was a traditional mixed farm back in the 30s. 542 00:46:17,066 --> 00:46:21,433 You know, there was a lot of chemicals used in organic nitrogen used. 543 00:46:21,433 --> 00:46:28,800 And now we've sort of made this poster really aligned with Natural England objectives and say, okay, let's let's think about it. 544 00:46:28,833 --> 00:46:29,600 What are we doing? 545 00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:33,833 And yeah, it's now a lot more nature friendly. 546 00:46:33,833 --> 00:46:36,000 Farming is is really orientated around, 547 00:46:37,466 --> 00:46:38,066 the, the 548 00:46:38,066 --> 00:46:44,066 biodiverse grasslands that we've got and producing what we like to call biodiverse beef from it. So, 549 00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:46,433 it's, it's been a real challenge. 550 00:46:46,433 --> 00:46:53,500 And it's still on an evolving journey, but I really start at the end, and I'm very excited to see where the farm is heading. 551 00:46:53,933 --> 00:46:59,633 And has made some really good big steps already in that totally positive direction, for sure. 552 00:46:59,633 --> 00:47:04,300 Paints a picture. How does a farm look like? What is the biodiversity on a farm? 553 00:47:04,300 --> 00:47:10,000 So it's, a 650 acre farm on the southern edge of Salisbury Plain. 554 00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:14,100 So, our neighbors are the Ministry of Defense, 555 00:47:14,100 --> 00:47:15,333 and also Stonehenge. 556 00:47:15,333 --> 00:47:19,966 So it's, really a landscape is full of culture. Really. 557 00:47:19,966 --> 00:47:25,500 You know, it it's really big rolling hills, big open landscapes, not many trees. 558 00:47:25,500 --> 00:47:31,500 We've got small areas of scrub that predominantly these big, wide open areas of, of chalk grassland. 559 00:47:31,566 --> 00:47:40,433 So the total, area of the farm is dominated by, the triple A size, a site of Special Scientific Interest, which is passing it down. 560 00:47:40,866 --> 00:47:44,700 So it's designated back in, 1984. It, 561 00:47:45,633 --> 00:47:48,000 biodiverse diversity in its flora. 562 00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:52,266 So we've got some very rare plant species like the early gentian. 563 00:47:52,266 --> 00:47:57,400 We are home to the burnt orchid, which we are one of the largest strongholds in Oxfordshire, actually, for it. 564 00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,566 So, yeah, we've got all the different make up. 565 00:48:00,566 --> 00:48:05,833 A plant species that only can survive through the grazing using a lot of fiberboard. 566 00:48:05,833 --> 00:48:10,800 So sheep and cattle and the landscape typically was grazed by sheep. 567 00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:17,066 It was very sheep dominate the landscape and those sheep would move on quite regularly like kind of a as they would in the wild. 568 00:48:17,066 --> 00:48:18,300 Moving on. 569 00:48:18,300 --> 00:48:22,600 As of rotation. So but now the landscape is moved towards cattle. 570 00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:23,633 Cattle are more profitable. 571 00:48:23,633 --> 00:48:24,966 There's more money in them. 572 00:48:24,966 --> 00:48:30,533 So, the herd of longhorns is it had always been there. They'd been there since 1939. 573 00:48:30,533 --> 00:48:36,533 We are the very privileged to manage the oldest, herd of longhorns are still registering females every year. 574 00:48:36,566 --> 00:48:40,800 So there's a lot of history in the landscape, a lot of history about the farm and the herd. 575 00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:45,300 So the Longhorns have always worked on the landscape. 576 00:48:45,300 --> 00:48:48,300 And we sort of treat it as one, one big area. 577 00:48:48,300 --> 00:48:51,900 So we're missing out on a lot of information. 578 00:48:51,900 --> 00:48:57,766 And so it's external, you know, we don't put a weight on this flashiness of a research finding. 579 00:48:57,766 --> 00:49:03,766 We want people to be able to publish all of their results, including negative results or pilot studies. 580 00:49:03,933 --> 00:49:07,166 Because that is all really important. 581 00:49:07,166 --> 00:49:10,833 And when we think about, you know, you're when you're doing research, 582 00:49:10,833 --> 00:49:17,400 you're trying to do right, and oftentimes it doesn't work out or you're inventing a new method or something like that. 583 00:49:18,333 --> 00:49:21,566 And that finding might not fit in it to into a like 584 00:49:21,566 --> 00:49:28,500 a traditional journal format, and might not be worth the thousands and thousands of dollars to publish. 585 00:49:28,900 --> 00:49:30,900 And so it's external. 586 00:49:30,900 --> 00:49:36,866 We're really trying to decrease these barriers for sharing all of these important findings. 587 00:49:36,866 --> 00:49:41,100 And it's like, you know, that's that's one angle of it. 588 00:49:41,100 --> 00:49:48,866 Another reason why why so much of this research is not getting published is because, you know, the processes of peer review 589 00:49:49,466 --> 00:49:53,400 haven't been designed to keep up with the pace of science. 590 00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:58,233 And so, you know, I mentioned earlier, it can take years to publish an article. 591 00:49:58,233 --> 00:50:06,066 And so if you have a small finding, it might not be worth it to go through that process, that that burdensome process. 592 00:50:06,933 --> 00:50:15,666 And you know, I so I started SACs Journal, a few years ago because I had one of these experiences, as I had just wrapped up 593 00:50:15,666 --> 00:50:21,666 some some research on, you know, the effects of wildfires on carnivores in the Pacific Northwest. 594 00:50:21,966 --> 00:50:28,266 And I really worked hard to get that research out to, to the people who would be making those land management decisions. 595 00:50:28,733 --> 00:50:32,500 And it took about two years to get that research published. 596 00:50:32,500 --> 00:50:34,766 And, you know, during that process, 597 00:50:34,766 --> 00:50:40,766 there were lots of important decisions that were actually being made without that research, without that up to date information. 598 00:50:41,033 --> 00:50:45,366 And by the time it was published, you know, some people thought it was actually outdated. 599 00:50:45,366 --> 00:50:49,300 And so I, I thought it was just an issue in ecology. 600 00:50:49,300 --> 00:50:50,833 Right. Like that is my background. 601 00:50:50,833 --> 00:50:55,766 I'm an ecologist by training. I've been doing ecology research for, you know, 15 years. 602 00:50:55,766 --> 00:51:01,400 And I started talking to other researchers, and I heard that this was just a pervasive problem, 603 00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:06,366 that people's research was not getting published. It was not making it out there. 604 00:51:06,366 --> 00:51:13,033 And yet, you know, I've been in the science world for a while, and I know that scientists are smart, we're really capable, 605 00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,900 we're really talented. And it's like, there has to be a better way. 606 00:51:16,900 --> 00:51:23,766 And so through that research process, I, you know, we developed this new model of peer review that can be efficient 607 00:51:24,100 --> 00:51:27,066 and streamlined and also very trustworthy. 608 00:51:27,066 --> 00:51:33,166 I think these are good people who are doing it, out of despair and a sense 609 00:51:33,166 --> 00:51:39,166 of what will wake people up, what will make a difference, what will change the action. 610 00:51:39,233 --> 00:51:45,866 Extinction rebellion never set out to be disruptive or violent. 611 00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,566 Factions of it had got a different view. 612 00:51:50,700 --> 00:51:54,066 You know, I was up at the big London, event 613 00:51:54,066 --> 00:52:00,066 when the, tube strike and people, the tube, some people were complaining about it. 614 00:52:00,100 --> 00:52:06,600 So I can understand that you always get a more radical faction, but most people that I meet on marches, 615 00:52:07,300 --> 00:52:15,633 peaceful, loving care people who are at their wit's end as to what will wake people up and what will make a difference. 616 00:52:15,633 --> 00:52:20,633 And I can understand, wouldn't do it myself, but I can understand. 617 00:52:20,633 --> 00:52:27,300 I mean, you've got little old ladies who look like Quakers, you know, going into museums and tapping things. 618 00:52:27,300 --> 00:52:29,800 You know, they're my favorite two, actually. 619 00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:35,466 They would not do that unless they genuinely believed the world is in true peril. 620 00:52:35,466 --> 00:52:42,733 And what were your your feelings when you heard about the, the the lengthy prisons sentences for the activists? 621 00:52:42,733 --> 00:52:44,833 And, horrified? 622 00:52:44,833 --> 00:52:46,933 I'm really horrified. 623 00:52:46,933 --> 00:52:53,200 I think the fact that we're criminalizing in the UK and England in particular, 624 00:52:54,233 --> 00:53:00,233 peaceful protest that the government has made it almost impossible 625 00:53:00,466 --> 00:53:09,433 to give civil disobedience in a manner that is respected and kind of responded to. 626 00:53:09,833 --> 00:53:17,266 We've gone to a place that is criminalizing, I think, good people who have an important message. 627 00:53:17,566 --> 00:53:26,700 Do you think that the the, you know, U.S., through their military personnel or some other ways, are pressurizing 628 00:53:26,933 --> 00:53:38,566 NGOs who are, fighting against the resumption of, of of whaling because surely they are not stoked having those organizations, around. 629 00:53:38,566 --> 00:53:38,966 Right? 630 00:53:38,966 --> 00:53:45,233 Because those NGOs then are going head on against the national interests. 631 00:53:45,466 --> 00:53:46,833 And that's a serious stuff. 632 00:53:46,833 --> 00:53:52,733 Oh, yeah. And in fact, I know someone who's been going to meetings for, decades. 633 00:53:52,733 --> 00:53:56,133 And she told me when she started going, some guy from the State 634 00:53:56,133 --> 00:54:02,166 Department came up and was prodding her in the chest saying, you know, get it, girly, this is about national security. 635 00:54:02,266 --> 00:54:03,500 Well, you know, I. 636 00:54:05,533 --> 00:54:07,766 Yeah. 637 00:54:07,766 --> 00:54:07,966 Yeah. 638 00:54:07,966 --> 00:54:12,500 It's it's it's, you know, it's a bit like another thing I've got to commondreams. 639 00:54:12,500 --> 00:54:15,466 It's a piece about elephants, 640 00:54:15,466 --> 00:54:19,533 because, you know, there was that belief that, 641 00:54:19,533 --> 00:54:25,500 you know, ivory was the white gold of jihad, and, it turned out it wasn't true at all, 642 00:54:25,500 --> 00:54:31,800 but it got the US military and security community interested in this stuff, and and. 643 00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:33,500 Yeah, and then they just engage. 644 00:54:33,500 --> 00:54:38,966 And I found that that was really interesting because, you know, I used to work at Noa and at the time we had, 645 00:54:38,966 --> 00:54:40,066 when I was there, at one point, 646 00:54:40,066 --> 00:54:46,700 we had someone from the State Department who happened to be around there talking about some stuff, and they talking about how when, at the time 647 00:54:46,700 --> 00:54:55,166 was Secretary of State, Clinton came back from a meeting and said, what's this about Ivory being involved in and, supporting terrorism? 648 00:54:55,900 --> 00:54:59,600 And apparently she went to the national security community. 649 00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:07,200 And now, just like that, we don't know where the because the bottom line is, is that if it's not geopolitical, these folks aren't interested. 650 00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:09,900 I mean, animals don't matter to them. 651 00:55:09,900 --> 00:55:13,100 You know, these interactions by countries that matter to them. 652 00:55:13,100 --> 00:55:16,066 And I like Damascus Glass, the NGO community. 653 00:55:16,066 --> 00:55:17,900 So there's always been this pushback. 654 00:55:17,900 --> 00:55:24,300 And and we've seen that play out and the kind of bunch of guys over wailing, it's just the way the media, 655 00:55:25,866 --> 00:55:28,833 used the word almost as, 656 00:55:28,833 --> 00:55:33,300 almost as a tactic to, to, to create a reaction that they want. 657 00:55:33,300 --> 00:55:35,900 Often people use it. I see it on the news a lot. 658 00:55:35,900 --> 00:55:41,900 The word is used and see on all these different TV programs here on the radio, and 659 00:55:42,100 --> 00:55:46,400 you can tell they don't really understand, you know, the context they're using the word in. 660 00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:50,033 So they just use it to label everything. And I mean it's a difficult one. 661 00:55:50,033 --> 00:55:51,100 It's a new word. 662 00:55:51,100 --> 00:55:53,733 It, you know, they say in the introduction to the book, 663 00:55:53,733 --> 00:55:59,366 if there's 14 of us that write in the book, if you put us all in a room together and wouldn't let us out 664 00:55:59,366 --> 00:56:05,633 until we came up with an agreed definition, we'd still be there, because it is one of those words that's very hard to define. 665 00:56:05,633 --> 00:56:10,000 I mean, I say that we're, you know, we're singing from the same hymn sheet, but we're kind of singing different words. 666 00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:16,800 Perhaps even though we're all in harmony together, in our general feeling, it's, you know, they're all 667 00:56:17,833 --> 00:56:22,033 there is an official definition of rewilding, which I find quite interesting, quite ironic, 668 00:56:22,033 --> 00:56:25,933 because at the end of the day, rewilding is about, 669 00:56:25,933 --> 00:56:28,700 humans stepping back and in nature take control. 670 00:56:28,700 --> 00:56:33,933 And yet we still want to keep it within the strict parameters of what that word means. 671 00:56:33,933 --> 00:56:38,666 I don't think there's one overall misconception that's problematic because 672 00:56:38,666 --> 00:56:44,733 everybody in the, you know, everyone in the book writes about their own specific, misconception or myth or misunderstanding. 673 00:56:44,733 --> 00:56:46,666 So, I don't know. 674 00:56:46,666 --> 00:56:53,200 I mean, for me, I guess it's it's that feeling that humans still have to be in control and decide the outcomes of what they're doing. 675 00:56:54,366 --> 00:56:59,633 And we have a we have a very, very strong need to always be in control no matter what it is. 676 00:56:59,633 --> 00:57:05,766 And you do see some great examples of supposed rewilding projects where they actually want the outcome to look like 677 00:57:05,766 --> 00:57:11,866 this, rather than allowing nature to, to, to decide, it will not decide just to let it happen. 678 00:57:12,066 --> 00:57:16,933 You know, there's still oh, actually, we want our woodland. We want to not woodland. Have bluebells and oak trees, 679 00:57:18,133 --> 00:57:21,066 you know, and they try and control it and not. 680 00:57:21,066 --> 00:57:24,866 That isn't really what rewilding should be about. 681 00:57:24,866 --> 00:57:33,000 It should be about giving, natural processes the range to, to do what they do, as I've said, you know, I mean, where my, 682 00:57:34,100 --> 00:57:37,966 my strongest expertise is, is, is on agriculture. 683 00:57:37,966 --> 00:57:44,966 And, maybe I can take that as an example because, I think that, you know, this is where, obviously, 684 00:57:45,466 --> 00:57:51,466 we do see, I mean, it's it's it's a sector, an activity that does impact a lot. 685 00:57:51,466 --> 00:57:56,066 Oh, no, I'm not sure I resources at the moment, in general, in biodiversity, in particular. 686 00:57:56,066 --> 00:57:57,433 Why is it so difficult? 687 00:57:57,433 --> 00:58:06,833 I mean, we have been, farming and let's say consuming also agriculture projects in a certain way for, for decades. 688 00:58:06,833 --> 00:58:17,200 And, while it is clear from science that if we continue as we do, we won't be able to stay within planetary boundaries. 689 00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:20,966 And, eventually, we will hit the wall. 690 00:58:20,966 --> 00:58:24,966 I mean, to put it bluntly and simply, and it's not just, you know, 691 00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:27,533 something that will have 692 00:58:27,533 --> 00:58:35,033 impacts people outside of the, of the sector, but the sector itself, you know, farming will be among the first victims. 693 00:58:35,033 --> 00:58:40,100 I mean, we see that already with climate change and, and, the loss of what nature is, etc.. 694 00:58:40,100 --> 00:58:48,000 So why, despite not just the knowledge that what is happening in front of our very eyes, things are not changing. 695 00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:50,333 And and why? 696 00:58:50,333 --> 00:58:55,166 Because we do have policies in place. And I think this is also important to, to stress. 697 00:58:55,166 --> 00:59:02,400 You know, there are several environmental policy that have been adopted, you know, in the past decades that are out there 698 00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:06,700 on, on water, the Water Directive on Biodiversity and Habitats Directive. 699 00:59:06,700 --> 00:59:10,500 And the problem does not lie with the policies themselves. 700 00:59:10,500 --> 00:59:16,500 It lies with the implementation and the fact that Member States are not implementing them as they should. 701 00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:18,666 So why are we there? 702 00:59:18,666 --> 00:59:21,266 The problem is it is systemic. 703 00:59:21,266 --> 00:59:24,333 This is why it's so difficult to tackle it. 704 00:59:24,333 --> 00:59:28,500 And I take the example of agriculture because it is quite obvious 705 00:59:28,500 --> 00:59:36,200 we're not going to manage to change our agricultural practices if we are not changing the food system as a whole.