In spite of all the good work of conservation organisations and thousands of individuals around the world we are still losing species. What seems to be missing is that there is a lack of a broad consent across the world that this draining away of species to extinction should stop. At this stage we need a world event for nature to galvanize people into truly becoming concerned for the continuation of species.

What is suggested here, and this is elaborated upon in greater detail in the book Planet Dancing, is that we come together to organize such an event. What I have in mind is that we put in place a structure to collect coinage from children from around the world to create the first Children of the World Nature Reserve. We would establish such a reserve in a part of the world particularly rich in wildlife: probably in the tropics or in the semi-tropics.

Children from many countries who contributed a little of their savings to the project would know, when they go to bed at night, that they had helped to establish a safe place for animals and birds and insects.

But the establishment of one more nature reserve is not the point at all.

The nourishing of awareness of nature in millions of children should be the goal. Through web-sites and newsletters the children would be kept up to date of things happening in their reserve.  It could be the discovery of a new species of butterfly or news of the first recorded nesting of spoonbills in the reserve: that sort of thing. Of equal importance they would be given some understanding of what is required in the management of such areas. In time these children, on growing to adults, would carry with them this informed appreciation of nature and an understanding of what is needed if species are to survive. Such heightened awareness would feed into their business and political judgments where there is an issue of conservation on the line.  By such a process millions of children around the world would gain a conservation ethic that can only be to the benefit of wildlife.

Clearly the organizing of such a world event would be considerable. But that is not a reason to brush such an idea aside. Across the world we have thousands of conservation organisations and thousands of conservation-minded citizens who are concerned that something needs to be done if we are not to continue to lose species. Children are the key: they are much more given to change than adults. We no longer have the luxury of sleep-walking  past the problem.

At this stage we need nothing less than a major event to draw world attention to this continuing problem of extinctions. I encourage conservation organisations and conservation-minded people to join with me on this blog in debate on how we might best organize for the creation of the first Children of the World Nature Reserve.

I saw this as a heading in a Florida newspaper 30 years ago – and how the same sentiment must resonate with a lot of people today!

Over the last two years I have heard many stories of economic hardship: one elderly lady told me she cried for a week when she lost her savings in bank shares. Our heart-felt best wishes must go out to her and to the many others caught up in this extraordinary down-turn of events.

In third world countries poverty and conservation are locked in a deadly struggle. But it is a novel experience for more developed countries. For many caught up in this grim reality holding steady until circumstances change is the only option.

Visiting national parks and wild areas will not pay the bills. But in walking or hiking through such places people can discover and unexpected and sympathetic friend in nature. Such places can ease a person’s frame of mind by helping them to unravel some of their jumbled thinking that may be pressing down on them. It can allow them to see their situation as a lighter load than they might at first have thought. Wilderness areas can help clean the mind of clawing details of no importance. Hiking in such areas can give a person space to better evaluate what is truly important in their life. What seems insurmountable in a busy city can be rationalized and reduced in an ancient forest or on a mountain track, the rocks beneath your feet millions of years old. In such surroundings people can find that they can snap out of their self-absorption: they can accept life whatever their circumstance and get on with living.

If you are one of the many who now find themselves in an unsettling economic circumstance then by allowing nature in such places to meet you in your distress – you can discover that there is benefit in that.

I hope that what I have expressed here is of help to some.

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A Mori Pole in the Economist uncovered something of interest. In 2007 (which was pre-recession time) 19% of people in Britain saw pollution as of concern. However, now in recessionary times, this has dropped to 4%.

Damage to the environment is, it would appear, not a consideration for those who have lost their job or who find themselves in reduced economic circumstances.

This should not be a surprise. A person’s basic needs of food and shelter takes priority over art and culture – and yes nature conservation. This is a given and needs to be acknowledged: in particular during a deep recession.

People finding themselves in sharply reduced circumstances have not become hostile to the idea of conservation. It is just that their focus is now elsewhere and will remain there until the recession in time melts away.

There is a lovely African saying. It varies in the telling but it goes something like this:

Each morning in Africa a zebra wakes up and while brushing his teeth he thinks to himself – today I must run faster than the fastest lion if I am to survive.

Each morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up and while putting on his shoes he says to himself – today I must run faster than the fastest lion if I am to survive.

Each morning in Africa a lion wakes up and says to himself – today I must run faster than the slowest zebra or the slowest gazelle if I am to eat. 

There is such wonderful wisdom packed into this story. If Charles Darwin had been aware of this story would he have needed to travel on the HMS Beagle at all?

A short article in the New Scientist of August of last year has stayed to trouble me ever since.

The practical side of conservation can, on occasion, carry with it soul-wrenching decisions.

This article reveals that around the mid 1980s only 18 Black-footed Ferrets remained in the wild in the USA. If they were not to become extinct drastic action was needed. Towards this end the entire wild population was taken into captivity with the admirable intent of building up the numbers in a protected environment before releasing them back into the wild. And it worked. By 2010 somewhere around 750 of these animals were back in the wild. Who could not but praise such good work?

The ferrets while in captivity were fed both dead golden hamsters and dead prairie dogs. But the real heart-felt decision for the scientists followed from a necessary train of thought. It was not intended that the new-born ferrets would remain forever in captivity. In time they would be released into the wild and therefore would need to acquire hunting skills if they were to survive. And how was this critical element of the captive-breeding-release programe to be accomplished?

Live hamsters and live prairie dogs were placed into a large pen where the young ferrets would learn the skills needed to hunt down and kill their food. There can be no doubt that fear and stress would have been experienced by the prey animals.

There is a great moral dilemma in this. It is here for the scientists who had to make such a heart-felt decision so that young ferrets would survive in the wild. But let us be clear here. It is equally a moral dilemma for those of us who are keen that species don’t pass to extinction. Let us not blame the good scientists who had to make that awful decision that a particular species would not become extinct.  Remember this – habitat loss, brought about by us, was one of the primary reasons why these ferrets were reduced to such endangered numbers in the first place.

Food for thought in this – any comments?

I lived in Canada for a number of years. While there I had a fine turtle as a pet – until one night a raccoon broke into the turtle’s enclosure . No more turtle.

I note that a raccoon was recently discovered in Ireland: presumably an escape from a garden. Raccoons are omnivorous and opportunists and will take what wildlife they can find and have no hesitancy in upending refuse bins and scattering all about them for food items. I learned that the hard way while staying in a cabin in a forest in Ontario. The Forest and Wildlife Service in Ireland, with responsibility for the protection of native species, would be mindful to take seriously this news of a raccoon on the run.  Raccoons would be quite capable of colonizing this country.

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It is an illusion to think that the protection of nature is the responsibility of great global organisations working on our behalf.

Protection starts with small decisions made by each of us: decisions when taken together become telling.

It starts not with education or academic qualifications but in our awareness of the magnificence of what is to be found around us.

Day following day nature demonstrates her value to us in her beauty and mystery and in her endless varieties of life. She presents herself in the silence of fog on Spring mornings; in the choirs of great rivers; in the symmetry of sunflowers; in the dance of trees at storm-time.

By such wonderful gestures she is infinitely more effective than any words of mine could ever offer on her behalf.

But one thing that is not in her gift – she cannot prevent what we do.That is for us. And that starts by seeing her as the friend who gave life to all of us. We need to welcome her as we would a favourite aunt and allow her to be part of all our discussions.

The next time we go walking in the countryside we might tip our hats to her and not pass her by unseen.

In such simple things we will discover our steps back to our place in the comfort of it all.

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It is good to see today that trees have been brought into Westminster Abbey on the occasion of the wedding of Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.

It may not have been intended to be so but it is nice to consider, through the presence of these trees, that nature was allowed to be a guest at the wedding. Trees are the most appropriate ambassadors of forests and wild nature. No matter how beautiful a display flowers don’t register such a strength.

The idea of the presence of large trees as representative of nature at similar joyful occasions might be considered by others planning such events in the future.

Governments too could be pressed to follow such an idea. They could be pressed to bring a large tree into their houses of assembly when they meet to discuss matters of state. The tree would remind all present that we are of nature and not set apart from it – and that decisions made by them can have ramifications in the natural world. World leaders who express their concerns for nature might wish to explore this idea. Such a representative from nature in their midst would help focus minds in policy matters that affect the environment.

Your comments would be appreciated.

I live close to the sea. A half mile up the beach there is a small stream that eternally fights with the incoming waves. Some time ago, down on my knees looking carefully into this stream I saw my first hairworm. Within ten minutes I had a dozen of these worms in a large glass jar. I brought them home with the intention of putting them into a tank. The evening was late so I thought to leave the worms in the glass jar until morning before transferring them to the more spacious tank.

Hairworms, of which there are many species around the world are, as their name implies, no thicker than a hair. Some are short, no longer than a few centimetres in length. Others can grow up to a meter long. (My hairworms were about 15 centimetres in length.) Prodigious numbers of eggs are laid in strings in water. When the larva hatch out they are so small that they commonly get ingested by insects. They develop inside the host and break out through the body wall when adults and enter water once more to mate and produce more of their kind. All of this is straight forward enough and well known but what I do not understand is what I observed in the glass jar the following morning.

All of the worms were hanging vertically and close together like a loosely braided rope. Not only that but they were spinning extremely fast. I know that hairworms when mating do so in a very tight ball. But this was no ball. I wondered was this spinning an attempt to increase the oxygen level in the water? I left them in the glass jar for 12 hours to see if anything further would happen. For that full 12 hours these worms continued to spin at the same furious rate – never once slowing down. How they could sustain that energy output is a mystery to me. And of greater importance – what was the reason for this behaviour?

Can anyone offer me clarification on what these worms were doing please?

I have a 50 foot polythene tunnel in which I grow vegetables and flowers. I do not have the tunnel to myself. A pair of wrens nest in an entanglement of cactus over 20 years old – a-no go area at baby time!

It is not the wrens but jumping spiders that mostly hold my attention while at work in the tunnel. They are there each morning – and I like to think to welcome me in to one more day. Extraordinary agile these black and white spiders can move with surprising speed or stalk their prey with care not surpassed in a cat. They do not spin webs but hunt on the move. Carefully judging distance with two particularly enormous eyes they spring onto the back of their prey whether an insect or another spider. Six smaller eyes give them 360 degrees of vision so it is impossible to approach they  from any direction without they being aware. Believe me I have tried!

An incident that occurred two days ago spurred my respect for these spiders – big time. One had climbed the slippery curved wall of the polythene tunnel and jumping onto a fly killed it on the spot. The fly was as big as the spider. Fine – so far.  What held my interest was how was the spider, now upside down on the skin of the tunnel, to carry his pray down the slippery slope? For several minutes the spider did not move. Then to my astonishment it flung itself from the tunnel wall and dropped like a cat onto an aluminium pole far below him, part of the structure of the tunnel. He was still carrying the fly. For safety reasons zebra spiders will glue a silk thread before jumping. But to achieve what he had done he had to judge carefully the position of the structural pole far below him and do so while he was clinging upside down. He then had to do a somersault in the air to land feet first with the prey still intact in his mouth. Given the tiny size of the spider, that jump would have been about the equivalent of a 1,000 feet drop if it was of human scale! That he could even see that distance down and then accurately judge where to land certainly shot my admiration for these tiny guys way up. Over the several years that I have been watching these spiders I have never before seen such a cat-like display of skill as this.

To be enthralled we don’t need to see a million wildebeest on the move or a 100,000 starlings in an aerial dance. Little guys too can make us stand back a step and wonder about it all. All are precious for what they can bring to our lives.