We are baked into a biodiversity catastrophe. Observers who have lived over 40 years and those with access to long-term data might grasp how bad the natural world’s crisis has become. In Ireland, we moved from holding massive areas of intact wetlands containing large populations of breeding wading birds, to ugly, brown peat deserts many now with towering wind turbines, from vast flower-rich grasslands with their Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Curlews and Corncrakes to empty factory floor astro-turf-coloured rye-grass monocultures maintained by climate-warming chemical inputs.
The baselines plummet ever downwards. And how do we react? Mostly not at all or with minimal tokenism. A little scheme here and there. Or worse. Kildare farmer Dermot Doran puts a pond in his farm that draws Kingfishers, Herons, Moorhens and Egrets. He did it because he loves nature. He spends €6000 in the process. Then his farm payment is cut. He is punished for doing the right thing—dumb and Dumber.
Bad practice abounds. Hedgerows are one of our crucial habitats. In a country with few native woods, our hedgerows assume great significance for nature. Most of our butterflies and large numbers of our moths breed in hedges or on the extended field margins and hedge banks. Bats and birds use hedges as their feeding zones and travel routes. Hedgehogs, frogs, Foxes and Badgers feed, rest, breed and hide in them. A species-rich hedge and adjoining grassland is a treasure. These habitats are biodiversity hotspots, give shelter and warmth, mark boundaries, retain livestock and add character to our countryside. Yet look at the miserable example below. Many are badly managed; cut severely like the one in the photograph or left unmanaged so they develop gaps.
Photo J. Harding
Even nastier is the practice of removing sections of rural hedging to erect post and rail fencing usually followed by ‘garden shrubs’ like Escallonia (South America), Griselinia (New Zealand), Leylandii (derived from two species of cypress from North America ), Cherry Laurel (native to south-east Europe towards Iran) or some other bland blight on the landscape. These plants are not native support only a few native insects and don’t provide nectar, pollen and fruit like Common Hawthorn, Dog Rose, Field Rose, Honeysuckle, Blackthorn, Guelder Rose, and Bramble do.
Photo J. Harding
A little less nasty is Common Beech. Beech isn’t native either and beech-only hedges look wrong in our countryside. The non-native hedging plants are typically the rubrics of suburbia now appearing in rural areas courtesy of one-off houses. They remove native species hedgerows and replace them with ‘plastic.’ These plants could be plastic as far as their value for biodiversity extends. No native butterfly breeds on any of these non-native plants.
Photo J. Harding
Not happy with shiny laurel and Griselinia, many add sycamores, Himalayan Birch and ornamental conifers. A tree is a tree, right? We need more trees, don’t we? We need more of the right trees. Grow, according to the trees naturally present in your area, Mountain Ash, Irish Whitebeam, Common Whitebeam, Bird Cherry, Wild Cherry, Alder Buckthorn, Purging Buckthorn, Common Hawthorn, Grey Willow, Downy Birch, Common Hazel, Sessile Oak, Pedunculate Oak.
According to UK research, 1,178 invertebrate species use our native oaks (Sessile Oak, Pedunculate Oak) and 257 of them rely solely on these trees.[1] This does not include birds, bats, lichens, fungi and mosses using our native oaks. Taking every dependent and associated species, oaks support 2,300 species excluding bacteria and other microorganisms. [2]
To offer a little Lepidoptera context, only two of our large moth species use non-native Sycamore (the Small Yellow Wave and the Buff-tip, which also uses native trees). However, 71 of Ireland’s larger moths use oak.
It is simply a magical tree, long-lived, steeped in our culture, and needed by nature more than ever.
Another crime against nature is our addiction to chemical weapons. We poison wildlife. At the Orchard Garden Centre in Celbridge, I found shelves full of chemicals to kill wildlife. One of the products, Weedfree Plus promises to kill Dandelion, clover, speedwell, buttercups, and Creeping Thistle, among others. Dandelion, Red Clover and White Clover, Creeping and Field Buttercup and Creeping Thistle are among the best native flora for pollinators. The public is encouraged to let these flowers flourish by pollinator schemes while garden centres encourage us to poison them. Charming.
The safety instructions on Weedfree Plus advise users to ‘Avoid all unnecessary contact with this product’. Excellent advice.
There is an obsession with slug and snail killers. What are Song Thrushes, frogs and Hedgehogs supposed to eat?
Elsewhere in the garden centre, there is a range of bird food products ranging from dried mealworm to seed and nuts, fat balls, and bird feeders supported by a video on repeat showing Goldfinches frenzying over a feeder.
If we grow native flora in our gardens, we would not need supplemental feeding for birds. Dandelion and Creeping Thistle provide lots of natural food for Goldfinches.
One plant in the garden centre caught my eye; Cephalanthus occidentalis marketed as Cephalanthus Magical Moonlight and described as a ‘Butterfly Magnet’. The species is native to North America. It attracts butterflies there and is likely to attract Irish butterflies. Native herbs are targeted for eradication while non-natives sell for €19.95.
We need native plants to feed species native to our ecosystems. The best native shrub for feeding adult pollinators is probably Bramble. Nineteen of our larger moths’ larvae feed on the leaves. The fruit is eaten by birds and by several butterflies and moths, including the Small Copper and Speckled Wood butterflies.
We have destroyed most of our wetlands and farmland. We need to repair the damage, late as it is, but the right approach must be implemented across all habitats.
The home and garden are good places to begin.
Photo J. Harding.
[1] https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/22b3d41e-7c35-4c51-9e55-0f47bb845202
[2] https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/oak-tree-wildlife/