Species Conservation in Managed Habitats

The Myth of a Pristine Nature

Werner Kunz

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9783527338450
• eBook ISBN: 9783527688852
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Zoology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Written by an author with longstanding experience in the ecology of insects and birds and with a stellar academic record in molecular life sciences, this is a welcome challenge to the widely held beliefs in conventional environmental policies. Werner Kunz convincingly explains why maintaining high biodiversity in Europe depends heavily on the existence of open space and sparse ground vegetation that is neither used for intensive modern agriculture, nor eliminated by reforestation. He questions the commonly propagated opinion that nature conservation is equivalent to species protection - and shows that technical habitat design can rescue endangered species.
A must-have for environmental agencies, policy makers, ecologists and all who are witnessing the current loss of species in Central Europe.

Chapter 1
Introduction: Rare Species and Near-Natural Habitats in Central Europe

The progress in the environmental protection measures of recent decades has hardly stopped the decline of many endangered species.

The highly lauded, showpiece successes in saving some flagship species, such as the white-tailed eagles, cranes, black storks and peregrine falcons actually create a misleading picture about the real recent threat to species in general.

The preservation of many wildlife sanctuaries is not being threatened by man, but by nature itself.

Many red-listed species inhabit extreme habitats, which in Central Europe mostly bear no resemblance to pristine and unspoiled nature.

The loss of species in Central Europe is due to very different causes than the loss of species in the rainforest areas of the world. Consequently, the species protective measures being taken for Central Europe must be different from species protection in the tropics.

It is an illusion to believe that past agricultural practices could once again be revived for the purpose of species conservation. Organic farming methods would be of little help.

In certain cases, nature conservation associations must enforce species protection, even if it goes against their own nature conservation ideals.

1.1 Preliminary Remarks

This book deals with Central European species decline, mainly shown by the examples of selected bird and butterfly species. In the last few decades, Central Europe has lost more than half of its birds and a much larger number of butterflies (Thomas et al., 2004). The book gets to grips with a phenomenon, namely that although the media-effective activities of the conservation organisations did change the public's ecological awareness in the 1970s and 1980s, the disappearance of many species is apparently progressing inexorably, even despite the visible results in environmental protection that have been achieved by many political measures.

However, the progress in the environmental protection measures of recent decades has hardly stopped the decline of many endangered species. The disappearance of many species is continuing unabated, and it is unfortunately the majority of the red-listed species that are benefiting less than expected from the upward trend in environmental protection. The widespread belief that a clean environment almost automatically benefits species is being put to the test. Environmental conservation (and even nature conservation) is not the same as species protection.

Butterflies are less well known and not as popular as birds, so they are less effective tools in the promotion of nature and environmental conservation goals. This is why the nature conservation associations devote less attention to them. Who knows the different species of fritillaries, and regrets their dramatic disappearance in recent decades? Upon hearing the term species protection, most people associate it with the decline of many species of birds; but the focus on bird protection efforts and their partial success gives us a false impression of the real and recent threat to species in general. The highly lauded, showpiece successes in saving some flagship species, such as the white-tailed eagles, cranes, black storks and peregrine falcons actually create a misleading picture.

When birders or insect experts in Central Europe want to see rare (and therefore desirable) species, they often prefer not to go to national forest parks or even to the nature reserves. In many cases, those who are looking for uncommon unusual breeding birds or migrants, or those who would like to see rare butterflies do not go to the near-natural habitats. They travel instead to the man-made open spaces such as sandpits, sewage farms and the areas where open-cast mining excavations have been carried out; because it is here that they will find the rare red-listed species, and not primarily in the areas which approximate pristine nature in Central Europe.

This book is a plea for the protection of species. Many of my conclusions are focussed on the fact that the species which must be saved in Central Europe are those that live in habitats which have little to do with untouched nature. These habitats are primarily endangered by ecological succession; they can only be preserved or optimised by technical interventions, some of which must be carried out thoroughly. This will prevent unspoiled nature (and especially the forest) from being given top priority; but that does not equate with nature conservation in the eyes of many people, so they do not want it; instead they want a primordial nature (and especially the forest). That is understandable, and it is not dealt with negatively in this book. However, this book makes it clear that the desire for nature and the desire for species richness in Central Europe are two different issues, which often cannot be achieved by the same measures. People who desire unspoiled nature and as much forest as possible will have to admit (albeit rather unwillingly) that they do not want species richness.

1.2 A Plea for Open Landscapes

An ecological movement was established in the 1970s and 1980s. Its objective was to tackle the lack of environmental awareness in our industrial society (Engels, 2006). In Germany, the effective media appearance of personalities such as Heinz Sielmann, Bernhard Grzimek, Horst Stern and others founded an ideology of alleged intact ecosystems being destroyed by human intervention. Ecological importance was attached to species and a sense of awareness arose that the extinction of certain species would cause entire ecosystems to collapse. The threat to many species was associated with a hazard to human health and poisoned food. The eco-classic ‘Silent Spring’ by Carson (1962) became a ‘nature bible’ for many. The question of what an ‘ecological balance’ and an ‘intact ecosystem’ actually are (if these two concepts even exist) was not asked by many people, or was repressed, because a non-contentious and valuable conviction lay behind the ideology from the outset. The extinction of several species, however, has nothing to do with natural balance. The value of a species equals the value of a historical monument (Reichholf, 2010). The loss of many species is of an ideational nature; in most cases, no balance is endangered.

Man was seen as the main enemy of many endangered species. Targeted human intervention for habitat regulation was frowned upon, and the popular definition of nature conservation areas was seen in the protection of the remaining ‘residual nature’ from further human intervention. For many nature reserves, however, it emerged that their preservation was not being threatened by man, but by nature itself. Gravel and sand surfaces become overgrown, dry grasslands become covered with bushes and shallow waters silt up. Nature is untamed ecological succession. It turns many currently existing protected areas into bush-covered, overgrown areas, which makes them worthless for many species, and it is exactly such habitats which could be described (with much more justification) as being real nature. Nature itself reduces the value of many currently existing protected areas by turning them into habitats which are no longer refuges for many endangered species. Many wildlife sanctuaries in Central Europe are not virgin nature, they are man-made habitats; and these man-made qualities are exactly the properties of the nature reserves that must be protected – not from human intervention but from nature itself, because nature would reclaim the land by ecological succession if it was not prevented from doing so.

Recent decades have seen many nature reserves (seen as refuges for endangered species) facing considerable competition from areas which earlier would never have been expected to become important for the conservation of threatened species. These are areas that were created for the military, the economy and transport; in other words, the planning and creation of these landscapes did not pursue the goal of setting up a refuge for endangered species. For several decades now, wastelands in towns and industrial sites, major road embankments, gravel pits, sewage plants, open-cast mining sites and military training areas have been the sites on which many rare birds such as the grouse, the grey partridge, the quail, the lapwing, the tree and meadow pipits, the woodlark, the wheatear and the corn bunting can most likely be seen, together with butterflies such as the swallowtail, the pale clouded yellow, the clouded yellow, the wall brown and other rare species (Plates 1, 2, 5 and 6). None of these species owe their preservation to any active species protection measures; their preservation evolved passively as a by-product of man's landscaping, which was intended for completely different purposes. Habitats like this have nothing to do with nature and would not exist in Central Europe if man himself had not created them.

What these areas have in common is that humans keep them free of vegetation for their own purposes; but the fact is that specific plant and animal species benefit from these areas, the purpose of which was certainly not species protection when they were created. Earlier, sparsely vegetated open habitats like this existed almost everywhere; but nowadays they have become scarce as habitats in Central Europe and are limited almost exclusively to industrial, residential, traffic and military areas (Plate 4). While it is correct that the current expansion of industry, housing and traffic pushes nature back more and more, it would be wrong, however, to associate the decline of the species in all cases with these factors and to complain about them. Species do not always need nature.

Many red-listed species inhabit extreme habitats, which mostly bear no resemblance to pristine and unspoiled nature in Central Europe. This seems to be a paradox, because these habitats are usually in a condition that makes the environmentalists want to avoid them as much as possible (and usually to eliminate them) (Anonymous, 2008). The lapwing and the grey partridge (both Red List species) breed on brownfields and on the terrains flattened by machines on the terrain of inland ports on the Rhine and Elbe rivers, where heavy cranes and trucks dominate the landscape. Some rare plant species have retreated to brittle asphalt surfaces in the parking areas between department stores because these spaces are more or less prevented from becoming overgrown by lush vegetation. Endangered plants which have a strong affinity for salt (halophytes) have again found favourable living conditions on the edges of major roads and have been able to propagate there, because they benefit from the use of road salt (Feder, 2014). These are probably the best examples that show why species protection, nature conservation and environmental protection are not the same, but are often at opposite poles of purpose.

National park and nature reserve policies aim to preserve or to create an ecosystem that is as near-natural as possible. However, it is hard to justify what a near-natural ecosystem really is in Central Europe; and after its millennia-long exposure to man's activities, it is doubtful if pristine nature can be restored at all in Central Europe. One thing, however, would appear to be certain: the habitats inhabited by a major proportion of the endangered Red List species are not near-natural.

In Central Europe, many Red List species live in open, sparsely vegetated areas where few trees and shrubs grow. These species need open ground or stone surfaces, escarpments with crumbling earth or gravel banks, that is, surfaces that warm up quickly when exposed to sunlight. Thick grass growth, which looks so beautifully green and healthy to the human eye (and gives the impression of intact nature), offers no possibilities for life for many Red List species, because the ground beneath the dense grass growth is too moist and cool. This is why sparsely vegetated grasslands are more species-rich than green meadows (Plate 4).

In past centuries, a great variety of flowers, butterflies and other insects flourished on the overexploited and nutrient-poor soils. It has almost become an ecological basic rule in Central Europe that nutrient-poor areas produce a great variety of species, but nutrient-rich areas produce a low number of species. This basic rule alone makes it easy to understand why so many species in Central Europe today have become rare. We are losing the nutrient-poor areas. Intensive fertilisation in modern agriculture and the nitrogen raining down from above (even far from the agricultural land) have taken away the chances of existence for many species during the last half century. The loss of species in Central Europe is due to very different causes than the loss of species in the rainforest areas of the world. Consequently, the species protective measures being taken for Central Europe must differ from species protection in the tropics. It is wholly remarkable that this receives minimal emphasis in the public statements on s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Opening Remarks: Preservation of Rare Species – Breaking Grounds for a New Approach
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction: Rare Species and Near-Natural Habitats in Central Europe
• Chapter 2: Looking Back to the Lost Landscape Structures of the Past
• Chapter 3: What Does Nature Conservation Want: Clean Air, Untouched Habitats, to Make Rare Species More Numerous?
• Chapter 4: Objectives, Content and Limits of the Red Lists of Endangered Species
• Chapter 5: Changes in the Population Sizes of Birds and Butterflies in Central Europe and Germany
• Chapter 6: The Special Situation of Species in Central Europe
• Chapter 7: The Forest as a Myth in Germany
• Chapter 8: The Apocalypse of Global Extinction of Species
• Animal Index
• Subject Index
• Colour Plates
• End User License Agreement