The tropical Andes of Ecuador are at the top of the world list of biodiversity hotspots in terms of vertebrate species, endemic vertebrates and plants. Ecuador has more orchid and hummingbird species than Brazil, which is 32 times larger, and more diversity than the entire USA.

In the last year, the Ecuadorean government has quietly granted mining concessions to over 1.7 million hectares – 4.25 million acres – of forest reserves and indigenous territories. These were awarded to transnational corporations in closed-door deals without public knowledge or consent.

This is in direct violation of Ecuadorean law and international treaties, and will decimate headwater ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots of global significance. 

Mining concessions

However, Ecuadorean groups think there is little chance of stopping the concessions using the law unless there is a groundswell of opposition from Ecuadorean society and strong expressions of international concern.

The vice president of Ecuador, who acted as coordinating director for the office of ‘Strategic Sectors’, which promoted and negotiated these concessions, was jailed for six years  for corruption. However, this has not stopped the huge giveaway of pristine land to mining companies.

From the cloud forests in the Andes to the indigenous territories in the headwaters of the Amazon, the Ecuadorean government has covertly granted these mining concessions to multinational mining companies from China, Australia, Canada, and Chile, amongst others.

The first country in the world to get the rights of nature or Pachamama written into its constitution is now ignoring that commitment.

They’ve been here before. In the 80’s and 90’s Chevron-Texaco leaked 18 billion gallons of crude oil there in the biggest rainforest petroleum spill in history. This poisoned the water of tens of thousands of people and has done irreparable damage to ecosystems.

Ecuador’s rainforests

Now 14 percent of the country has been concessioned to mining interests. This includes a million hectares of indigenous land, half of all the territories of the Shuar in the Amazon and three-quarters of the territory of the Awa in the Andes.

As founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre, (RIC) I’ve had a long history of involvement with Ecuador’s rainforests.

Back in the late 80’s our volunteers initiated numerous projects in the country and one of these, the creation of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve was helped with a substantial grant from the Australian Government aid agency, AusAID.

Los Cedros lies within the Tropical Andes Hotspot, in the country’s northwest and consists of nearly 7000 hectares of premontane and lower montane wet tropical and cloud forest teeming with rare, endangered and endemic species and is a crucial southern buffer zone for the quarter-million hectare Cotocachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. Little wonder that scientists from around the world rallied to its defence.

In 2016 a press release from a Canadian mininy company alerted us to the fact that they had somehow acquired a mining concession over Los Cedros. 

Fighting back

We hired a couple of Ecuadorean researchers and it slowly dawned on us that Los Cedros was only one of 41 “Bosques Protectores” (protected forests) which had been secretly concessioned. For example, nearly all of the 311,500 hectare Bosque Protector “Kutuku-Shaimi”, where 5000 Shuar families live, has been concessioned. 

In November 2017, RIC published a report by Bitty Roy, Professor of Ecology from Oregon State University and her co-workers,  mapping the full extent of the horror that is being planned.

Although many of these concessions are for exploration, the mining industry anticipates an eightfold growth in investment to $8 billion by 2021 due to a “revised regulatory framework” much to the jubilation of the mining companies. Granting mineral concessions in reserves means that these reserves aren’t actually protected any longer as, if profitable deposits are found, the reserves will be mined and destroyed.

In Ecuador,  civil society is mobilising and has asked their recently elected government to prohibit industrial mining “in water sources and water recharge areas, in the national system of protected areas, in special areas for conservation, in protected forests and fragile ecosystems”.

The indigenous peoples have been fighting against mining inside Ecuador for over a decade.  Governments have persecuted more than 200 indigenous activists using the countries anti-terrorism laws to hand out stiff prison sentences to indigenous people who openly speak out against the destruction of their territories.

New government 

Fortunately, the new government has signalled an openness to hear indigenous and civil society’s concerns, not expressed by the previous administration.

In December 2017, a large delegation of indigenous people marched on Quito and President Moreno promised no new oil and mining concessions, and on 31 January 2018, Ecuador’s mining minister resigned a few days after indigenous and environmental groups demanded he step down during a demonstration. 

On 31st January, The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador , CONAIE, announced their support for the platform shared by the rest of civil society involved in the anti-mining work. 

Then on 15 February CONAIE called on the government to “declare Ecuador free of industrial metal-mining” , a somewhat more radical demand than that of the rest of civil society.

But we will need a huge international outcry to rescind the existing concessions: many billions of dollars of mining company profits versus some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth and the hundreds of local communities and indigenous peoples who depend on them.

Foreign investment 

From 2006, under the Correa-Glas administration, Ecuador contracted record levels of external debt for highway and hydroelectric dam infrastructure to subsidise mining. 

Foreign investments were guaranteed by a corporate friendly international arbitration system, facilitated by the World Bank which had earlier set the stage for the current calamity by funding mineralogical surveys of national parks and other protected areas and advising the administration on dismantling of laws and regulations protecting the environment.

After 2008, when Ecuador defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of its national debt, it borrowed $15 billion from China, to be paid back in the form of oil and mineral exports. 

These deals have been fraught with corruption. Underselling, bribery and the laundering of money via offshore accounts are routine practice in the Ecuadorean business class, and the Chinese companies who now hold concessions over vast tracts of Ecuadorean land are no cleaner. 

Before leaving office Correa-Glas removed much of the regulation  that had been holding the mining industry in check. And the corruption goes much deeper than mere bribes.

Civil society

The lure of mining is a deadly mirage. The impacts of large-scale open pit mining within rainforest watersheds include mass deforestation, erosion, the  contamination of water sources by toxins such as lead and arsenic,  and desertification. A lush rainforest transforms into an arid wasteland incapable of sustaining either ecosystems or human beings.

Without a huge outcry both within Ecuador and around the world, the biological gems and pristine rivers and streams will be destroyed.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Civil society needs an open conversation with the state. Ecuador has enormous potential to develop its economy based on renewable energy and its rich biodiversity can support a large ecotourism industry. 

In 2010 Costa Rica banned open-pit mining,  and today has socioeconomic indicators better than Ecuador’s. Costa Rica also provides a ‘ Payment for Ecosystem Services’ to landholders, and through this scheme has actually increased its rainforest area (from 20% to just over 50%).

Ecology vs economy

Ecuador’s society and government must explore how an economy based on the sustainable use of pristine water sources, the country’s incomparable forests, and other natural resources is superior to an economy based on short term extraction leaving behind a despoiled and impoverished landscape. 

Studies by Earth Economics in the Intag region of Ecuador (where some of the new mining concessions are located) show that ecosystem services and sustainable development would offer a better economic let alone ecological and social solution.

This Author

John Seed is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. He has been campaigning to save the world’s rainforests since the 1970s. A longer version of this article can be found at:   www.rainforestinfo.org.au/forests/ecuador/article.htm 

The tropical Andes of Ecuador are at the top of the world list of biodiversity hotspots in terms of vertebrate species, endemic vertebrates and plants. Ecuador has more orchid and hummingbird species than Brazil, which is 32 times larger, and more diversity than the entire USA.

In the last year, the Ecuadorean government has quietly granted mining concessions to over 1.7 million hectares – 4.25 million acres – of forest reserves and indigenous territories. These were awarded to transnational corporations in closed-door deals without public knowledge or consent.

This is in direct violation of Ecuadorean law and international treaties, and will decimate headwater ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots of global significance. 

Mining concessions

However, Ecuadorean groups think there is little chance of stopping the concessions using the law unless there is a groundswell of opposition from Ecuadorean society and strong expressions of international concern.

The vice president of Ecuador, who acted as coordinating director for the office of ‘Strategic Sectors’, which promoted and negotiated these concessions, was jailed for six years  for corruption. However, this has not stopped the huge giveaway of pristine land to mining companies.

From the cloud forests in the Andes to the indigenous territories in the headwaters of the Amazon, the Ecuadorean government has covertly granted these mining concessions to multinational mining companies from China, Australia, Canada, and Chile, amongst others.

The first country in the world to get the rights of nature or Pachamama written into its constitution is now ignoring that commitment.

They’ve been here before. In the 80’s and 90’s Chevron-Texaco leaked 18 billion gallons of crude oil there in the biggest rainforest petroleum spill in history. This poisoned the water of tens of thousands of people and has done irreparable damage to ecosystems.

Ecuador’s rainforests

Now 14 percent of the country has been concessioned to mining interests. This includes a million hectares of indigenous land, half of all the territories of the Shuar in the Amazon and three-quarters of the territory of the Awa in the Andes.

As founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre, (RIC) I’ve had a long history of involvement with Ecuador’s rainforests.

Back in the late 80’s our volunteers initiated numerous projects in the country and one of these, the creation of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve was helped with a substantial grant from the Australian Government aid agency, AusAID.

Los Cedros lies within the Tropical Andes Hotspot, in the country’s northwest and consists of nearly 7000 hectares of premontane and lower montane wet tropical and cloud forest teeming with rare, endangered and endemic species and is a crucial southern buffer zone for the quarter-million hectare Cotocachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. Little wonder that scientists from around the world rallied to its defence.

In 2016 a press release from a Canadian mininy company alerted us to the fact that they had somehow acquired a mining concession over Los Cedros. 

Fighting back

We hired a couple of Ecuadorean researchers and it slowly dawned on us that Los Cedros was only one of 41 “Bosques Protectores” (protected forests) which had been secretly concessioned. For example, nearly all of the 311,500 hectare Bosque Protector “Kutuku-Shaimi”, where 5000 Shuar families live, has been concessioned. 

In November 2017, RIC published a report by Bitty Roy, Professor of Ecology from Oregon State University and her co-workers,  mapping the full extent of the horror that is being planned.

Although many of these concessions are for exploration, the mining industry anticipates an eightfold growth in investment to $8 billion by 2021 due to a “revised regulatory framework” much to the jubilation of the mining companies. Granting mineral concessions in reserves means that these reserves aren’t actually protected any longer as, if profitable deposits are found, the reserves will be mined and destroyed.

In Ecuador,  civil society is mobilising and has asked their recently elected government to prohibit industrial mining “in water sources and water recharge areas, in the national system of protected areas, in special areas for conservation, in protected forests and fragile ecosystems”.

The indigenous peoples have been fighting against mining inside Ecuador for over a decade.  Governments have persecuted more than 200 indigenous activists using the countries anti-terrorism laws to hand out stiff prison sentences to indigenous people who openly speak out against the destruction of their territories.

New government 

Fortunately, the new government has signalled an openness to hear indigenous and civil society’s concerns, not expressed by the previous administration.

In December 2017, a large delegation of indigenous people marched on Quito and President Moreno promised no new oil and mining concessions, and on 31 January 2018, Ecuador’s mining minister resigned a few days after indigenous and environmental groups demanded he step down during a demonstration. 

On 31st January, The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador , CONAIE, announced their support for the platform shared by the rest of civil society involved in the anti-mining work. 

Then on 15 February CONAIE called on the government to “declare Ecuador free of industrial metal-mining” , a somewhat more radical demand than that of the rest of civil society.

But we will need a huge international outcry to rescind the existing concessions: many billions of dollars of mining company profits versus some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth and the hundreds of local communities and indigenous peoples who depend on them.

Foreign investment 

From 2006, under the Correa-Glas administration, Ecuador contracted record levels of external debt for highway and hydroelectric dam infrastructure to subsidise mining. 

Foreign investments were guaranteed by a corporate friendly international arbitration system, facilitated by the World Bank which had earlier set the stage for the current calamity by funding mineralogical surveys of national parks and other protected areas and advising the administration on dismantling of laws and regulations protecting the environment.

After 2008, when Ecuador defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of its national debt, it borrowed $15 billion from China, to be paid back in the form of oil and mineral exports. 

These deals have been fraught with corruption. Underselling, bribery and the laundering of money via offshore accounts are routine practice in the Ecuadorean business class, and the Chinese companies who now hold concessions over vast tracts of Ecuadorean land are no cleaner. 

Before leaving office Correa-Glas removed much of the regulation  that had been holding the mining industry in check. And the corruption goes much deeper than mere bribes.

Civil society

The lure of mining is a deadly mirage. The impacts of large-scale open pit mining within rainforest watersheds include mass deforestation, erosion, the  contamination of water sources by toxins such as lead and arsenic,  and desertification. A lush rainforest transforms into an arid wasteland incapable of sustaining either ecosystems or human beings.

Without a huge outcry both within Ecuador and around the world, the biological gems and pristine rivers and streams will be destroyed.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Civil society needs an open conversation with the state. Ecuador has enormous potential to develop its economy based on renewable energy and its rich biodiversity can support a large ecotourism industry. 

In 2010 Costa Rica banned open-pit mining,  and today has socioeconomic indicators better than Ecuador’s. Costa Rica also provides a ‘ Payment for Ecosystem Services’ to landholders, and through this scheme has actually increased its rainforest area (from 20% to just over 50%).

Ecology vs economy

Ecuador’s society and government must explore how an economy based on the sustainable use of pristine water sources, the country’s incomparable forests, and other natural resources is superior to an economy based on short term extraction leaving behind a despoiled and impoverished landscape. 

Studies by Earth Economics in the Intag region of Ecuador (where some of the new mining concessions are located) show that ecosystem services and sustainable development would offer a better economic let alone ecological and social solution.

This Author

John Seed is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. He has been campaigning to save the world’s rainforests since the 1970s. A longer version of this article can be found at:   www.rainforestinfo.org.au/forests/ecuador/article.htm 

The tropical Andes of Ecuador are at the top of the world list of biodiversity hotspots in terms of vertebrate species, endemic vertebrates and plants. Ecuador has more orchid and hummingbird species than Brazil, which is 32 times larger, and more diversity than the entire USA.

In the last year, the Ecuadorean government has quietly granted mining concessions to over 1.7 million hectares – 4.25 million acres – of forest reserves and indigenous territories. These were awarded to transnational corporations in closed-door deals without public knowledge or consent.

This is in direct violation of Ecuadorean law and international treaties, and will decimate headwater ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots of global significance. 

Mining concessions

However, Ecuadorean groups think there is little chance of stopping the concessions using the law unless there is a groundswell of opposition from Ecuadorean society and strong expressions of international concern.

The vice president of Ecuador, who acted as coordinating director for the office of ‘Strategic Sectors’, which promoted and negotiated these concessions, was jailed for six years  for corruption. However, this has not stopped the huge giveaway of pristine land to mining companies.

From the cloud forests in the Andes to the indigenous territories in the headwaters of the Amazon, the Ecuadorean government has covertly granted these mining concessions to multinational mining companies from China, Australia, Canada, and Chile, amongst others.

The first country in the world to get the rights of nature or Pachamama written into its constitution is now ignoring that commitment.

They’ve been here before. In the 80’s and 90’s Chevron-Texaco leaked 18 billion gallons of crude oil there in the biggest rainforest petroleum spill in history. This poisoned the water of tens of thousands of people and has done irreparable damage to ecosystems.

Ecuador’s rainforests

Now 14 percent of the country has been concessioned to mining interests. This includes a million hectares of indigenous land, half of all the territories of the Shuar in the Amazon and three-quarters of the territory of the Awa in the Andes.

As founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre, (RIC) I’ve had a long history of involvement with Ecuador’s rainforests.

Back in the late 80’s our volunteers initiated numerous projects in the country and one of these, the creation of the Los Cedros Biological Reserve was helped with a substantial grant from the Australian Government aid agency, AusAID.

Los Cedros lies within the Tropical Andes Hotspot, in the country’s northwest and consists of nearly 7000 hectares of premontane and lower montane wet tropical and cloud forest teeming with rare, endangered and endemic species and is a crucial southern buffer zone for the quarter-million hectare Cotocachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. Little wonder that scientists from around the world rallied to its defence.

In 2016 a press release from a Canadian mininy company alerted us to the fact that they had somehow acquired a mining concession over Los Cedros. 

Fighting back

We hired a couple of Ecuadorean researchers and it slowly dawned on us that Los Cedros was only one of 41 “Bosques Protectores” (protected forests) which had been secretly concessioned. For example, nearly all of the 311,500 hectare Bosque Protector “Kutuku-Shaimi”, where 5000 Shuar families live, has been concessioned. 

In November 2017, RIC published a report by Bitty Roy, Professor of Ecology from Oregon State University and her co-workers,  mapping the full extent of the horror that is being planned.

Although many of these concessions are for exploration, the mining industry anticipates an eightfold growth in investment to $8 billion by 2021 due to a “revised regulatory framework” much to the jubilation of the mining companies. Granting mineral concessions in reserves means that these reserves aren’t actually protected any longer as, if profitable deposits are found, the reserves will be mined and destroyed.

In Ecuador,  civil society is mobilising and has asked their recently elected government to prohibit industrial mining “in water sources and water recharge areas, in the national system of protected areas, in special areas for conservation, in protected forests and fragile ecosystems”.

The indigenous peoples have been fighting against mining inside Ecuador for over a decade.  Governments have persecuted more than 200 indigenous activists using the countries anti-terrorism laws to hand out stiff prison sentences to indigenous people who openly speak out against the destruction of their territories.

New government 

Fortunately, the new government has signalled an openness to hear indigenous and civil society’s concerns, not expressed by the previous administration.

In December 2017, a large delegation of indigenous people marched on Quito and President Moreno promised no new oil and mining concessions, and on 31 January 2018, Ecuador’s mining minister resigned a few days after indigenous and environmental groups demanded he step down during a demonstration. 

On 31st January, The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador , CONAIE, announced their support for the platform shared by the rest of civil society involved in the anti-mining work. 

Then on 15 February CONAIE called on the government to “declare Ecuador free of industrial metal-mining” , a somewhat more radical demand than that of the rest of civil society.

But we will need a huge international outcry to rescind the existing concessions: many billions of dollars of mining company profits versus some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth and the hundreds of local communities and indigenous peoples who depend on them.

Foreign investment 

From 2006, under the Correa-Glas administration, Ecuador contracted record levels of external debt for highway and hydroelectric dam infrastructure to subsidise mining. 

Foreign investments were guaranteed by a corporate friendly international arbitration system, facilitated by the World Bank which had earlier set the stage for the current calamity by funding mineralogical surveys of national parks and other protected areas and advising the administration on dismantling of laws and regulations protecting the environment.

After 2008, when Ecuador defaulted on $3.2 billion worth of its national debt, it borrowed $15 billion from China, to be paid back in the form of oil and mineral exports. 

These deals have been fraught with corruption. Underselling, bribery and the laundering of money via offshore accounts are routine practice in the Ecuadorean business class, and the Chinese companies who now hold concessions over vast tracts of Ecuadorean land are no cleaner. 

Before leaving office Correa-Glas removed much of the regulation  that had been holding the mining industry in check. And the corruption goes much deeper than mere bribes.

Civil society

The lure of mining is a deadly mirage. The impacts of large-scale open pit mining within rainforest watersheds include mass deforestation, erosion, the  contamination of water sources by toxins such as lead and arsenic,  and desertification. A lush rainforest transforms into an arid wasteland incapable of sustaining either ecosystems or human beings.

Without a huge outcry both within Ecuador and around the world, the biological gems and pristine rivers and streams will be destroyed.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Civil society needs an open conversation with the state. Ecuador has enormous potential to develop its economy based on renewable energy and its rich biodiversity can support a large ecotourism industry. 

In 2010 Costa Rica banned open-pit mining,  and today has socioeconomic indicators better than Ecuador’s. Costa Rica also provides a ‘ Payment for Ecosystem Services’ to landholders, and through this scheme has actually increased its rainforest area (from 20% to just over 50%).

Ecology vs economy

Ecuador’s society and government must explore how an economy based on the sustainable use of pristine water sources, the country’s incomparable forests, and other natural resources is superior to an economy based on short term extraction leaving behind a despoiled and impoverished landscape. 

Studies by Earth Economics in the Intag region of Ecuador (where some of the new mining concessions are located) show that ecosystem services and sustainable development would offer a better economic let alone ecological and social solution.

This Author

John Seed is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. He has been campaigning to save the world’s rainforests since the 1970s. A longer version of this article can be found at:   www.rainforestinfo.org.au/forests/ecuador/article.htm 

Scientists have identified infectious diseases as a key driver of bee population decline and have shown for the first time the extent to which the diseases are shared with other pollinator groups, in research published this week.

Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, Oxford University and Cornell University have shown that viruses that are harmful to honeybees are also present in hoverfly pollinators.

The study suggests that hoverflies are exposed to the same diseases, and may move the infections around when they feed from the same flowers as the honeybees.

Spreading disease

Hoverflies are very mobile – unlike honeybees – and can undertake large-scale annual migrations. Thus the study suggests hoverflies have the potential to spread diseases throughout landscapes, or even across entire continents.

Global declines of insect pollinators jeopardise the delivery of pollination services in both agricultural and natural ecosystems.

Dr Emily Bailes, post doctoral research assistant at Royal Holloway, who led the research, said: “We have seen a decline in bees in the UK for several years, but this study shows for the first time that hoverflies may be moving these diseases much further than bees normally would.

“This is because of their annual migrations across Europe. This could expose local bee populations to new strains of the diseases and make them more likely to become infected, much like different flu strains in humans. We therefore need to think of ways to limit this transfer between species.

Pollinating insects

“What we don’t know yet is whether the hoverflies are just moving the diseases around, or if [the diseases] are also causing harm to the hoverflies. This is important to find out because hoverflies are also extremely valuable pollinators, and several species are known to be in decline.”

During the study, honeybees and four of the most common species of hoverfly were collected from grassland and woodland near Oxford. The samples were screened for the six most common honeybee viruses, of which three were detected in both honeybees and hoverflies.

Professor Owen Lewis, from Oxford University and senior author of the paper, added: “Most people think of honeybees as the main pollinators of our crops and wildflowers.

“However, wild insects such as hoverflies are hugely important too. The new results suggest that the fates of these pollinating insects may be tightly linked, if diseases such as viruses can spread between them.”

This Author
Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist.  This story is based on a news release from Royal Holloway, University of London.

In the early nineties, in the last throes of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, the government published its landmark white paper on the environment, This Common Inheritance.

The document was hailed as a major breakthrough at the time, ratcheting the environment up the political agenda and setting out what was then a big vision for a new National Forest in the Midlands.

Fast forward just more than 25 years, and the current government is publishing a new environment plan to much fanfare, this time heralding a new Northern Forest.

A Green Future

The new plan, A Green Future, charts the next 25 years for the environment and has been warmly received by most commentators.

Getting these plans right is not always easy: too many instant actions and you are accused of lacking vision, adopt a long-term view and the doubters decry it is all fine words with no delivery.

What is striking about this plan is that once you delve beyond the headlines around plastics, it does signal what I think is a fundamental shift in approach.

Firstly, it genuinely feels like a cross-government plan and not one just firmly parked in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Moreover, it recognises the multifaceted benefits of our natural environment, acknowledging that our economic prosperity is inextricably tied to the condition of ‘natural capital’. 

And finally, it is ambitious – inspiring even – in its scope, moving beyond simply settling for environmental protection and pledging to enhance our environment within a generation.

Plain sailing

Okay, you can argue that this will require firm legislative backing and clearer funding mechanisms to make it happen, but these can always follow once the Brexit landscape has settled.

The plan also makes welcome reading for tree lovers, finally recognising the multifunctional benefits provided by woodlands, with an estimated value of £270 billion.

It is great to see environmental regeneration positioned in this way, contributing to job creation, health and wellbeing and quality of life, recognising the value that can be achieved with both public funds and private investment. 

However, our policy landscape is littered with grand initiatives that never found their time.

Indeed, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the National Forest itself. ‘The Notional Forest’ was a favourite label from those detractors, smirking even as the young saplings began marching across the landscape.

Retaining focus

But now look what has been achieved with 8.5 million trees planted and forest cover increasing from six percent to more than 20 percent across the 200 square mile area of the Midlands.

Together with increases in property values, a burgeoning visitor economy and a renewed sense of community pride, this is a success story that successive governments can be proud of.

What the National Forest has taught us is the importance of a strong vision and leadership, shared commitment from farmers, planners, and communities to make things happen, and the alignment of local funding mechanisms and policies as enablers. Without just one of these, everything will fall down.

At some 20 times the size of the National Forest, the challenge for the Northern Forest will be on retaining focus and coherence, and making a visible difference on the ground over such a large and diverse area. 

The Northern Forest is a bold statement of intent. The next 25 years will be the real test of success, and while this is a blip in the life of a forest we know it is a long time in politics.

This Author

John Everitt is chief executive of the National Forest Company, which is responsible for coordinating the creation and management of the 200 square mile National Forest spanning parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire.

Higher road density leads to lower grizzly bear density, scientists from the University of Alberta have confirmed. This is a critical problem for a species still rebounding from a long period of human persecution.

The research examined dataset of grizzly bear activity in British Columbia based on “non-invasive DNA” taken from hair collection. 

Clayton Lamb, who is currently completing his PhD at the University of Alberta, said: “The problem with grizzly bears and roads is a North American-wide issue. This is the first study that strongly links roads to decreased grizzly bear density.”

Not only do bears die near roads, bears also avoid these areas, making many habitats with roads through them less effective. By closing roads, we can reduce the negative impact in a lot of ways. We can’t turn roads back into forest tomorrow, so the best thing we can do right now is to close them. The effects are immediate.”

Bear populations 

Lamb and his colleagues studied a threatened population of grizzlies in the Monashee Mountains, just east of the Okanagan, the leading edge of bear recovery efforts in British Columbia.

Lamb described the population as low but recovering, with a few bears slowly recolonising the Okanagan where they used to roam but are currently locally extinct, or extirpated. His comments came after the December 2017 closure of the grizzly bear hunt in British Columbia.

Lamb said: “Grizzly bears are recovering in a lot of areas, but habitat loss and human-bear conflict remain huge problems that can compromise recovery.”

“It is more important than ever that the public recognise the continuing threats to bear populations. Current road densities in British Columbia represent a problem for bear conservation.

“We are losing wilderness in the province, and there are fewer grizzly bears where road densities are high. We’re taking it another step further and advising that closing roads will do a lot to improve bear populations.”

Land management

Lamb said the findings can be applied to other habitats throughout North America.

Along with a new scientific paper, Lamb and his fellow conservation scientists produced a land management guide focused on maintaining the spatial integrity of the landscape to bolster grizzly bear density.

Lamb, who was born in British Columbia, said wildlife conservation was in his veins. “I grew up in the outdoors. I developed an increasing appreciation for wild places and conserving them. I realised that science was an outlet to protect these places and the species that inhabit them.”

On the back of Lamb’s work, road closures are already being planned for the Monashee Mountain area.

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from the University of Alberta. The study was recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Higher road density leads to lower grizzly bear density, scientists from the University of Alberta have confirmed. This is a critical problem for a species still rebounding from a long period of human persecution.

The research examined dataset of grizzly bear activity in British Columbia based on “non-invasive DNA” taken from hair collection. 

Clayton Lamb, who is currently completing his PhD at the University of Alberta, said: “The problem with grizzly bears and roads is a North American-wide issue. This is the first study that strongly links roads to decreased grizzly bear density.”

Not only do bears die near roads, bears also avoid these areas, making many habitats with roads through them less effective. By closing roads, we can reduce the negative impact in a lot of ways. We can’t turn roads back into forest tomorrow, so the best thing we can do right now is to close them. The effects are immediate.”

Bear populations 

Lamb and his colleagues studied a threatened population of grizzlies in the Monashee Mountains, just east of the Okanagan, the leading edge of bear recovery efforts in British Columbia.

Lamb described the population as low but recovering, with a few bears slowly recolonising the Okanagan where they used to roam but are currently locally extinct, or extirpated. His comments came after the December 2017 closure of the grizzly bear hunt in British Columbia.

Lamb said: “Grizzly bears are recovering in a lot of areas, but habitat loss and human-bear conflict remain huge problems that can compromise recovery.”

“It is more important than ever that the public recognise the continuing threats to bear populations. Current road densities in British Columbia represent a problem for bear conservation.

“We are losing wilderness in the province, and there are fewer grizzly bears where road densities are high. We’re taking it another step further and advising that closing roads will do a lot to improve bear populations.”

Land management

Lamb said the findings can be applied to other habitats throughout North America.

Along with a new scientific paper, Lamb and his fellow conservation scientists produced a land management guide focused on maintaining the spatial integrity of the landscape to bolster grizzly bear density.

Lamb, who was born in British Columbia, said wildlife conservation was in his veins. “I grew up in the outdoors. I developed an increasing appreciation for wild places and conserving them. I realised that science was an outlet to protect these places and the species that inhabit them.”

On the back of Lamb’s work, road closures are already being planned for the Monashee Mountain area.

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from the University of Alberta. The study was recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.