A Few Questions About Human Intervention.

[lol geoff]

Going on from the Asda Bird Box debate does the forum think that human intervention has significantly increased or decreased the diversity that now exists in our green and pleasant land?

Are we interfering too much if we conserve areas at a stage of natural progression that we are happy with rather than let nature run it's course, and can we be happy with the results?

[Tursiops2]

An interesting question, but a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. The rich diversity of the British countryside is the end result of hundreds, even thousands, of years of Human intervention in the natural process of succession. Without continued intervention, most of the countryside would quickly revert to scrub, and then to secondary woodland - probably dominated by Sycamore and Japanese Knotweed. The corresponding loss of diversity would be devastating.
T2

[BloomingMarvellous]

I Wondered this last year when a Fox was run over outside my house, I felt I was to Blame as I had purposely put food out for It every night. I feel like that when I feed the Birds, Man and Woman have made looking for Food very easy for them, what would happen If everyone stopped feeding them, would they survive without Human Intervention.

[Phoebe]

Because we have taken away some of their habitat to house ourselves the least we can do is to replace what we can. But, I do think that we possibly do over feed the wildlife and if that were taken away they would decline in numbers considerably. Birds, if given a plentiful supply of good food will rely on that when nesting and bringing up chicks.

The wildlife would be so different without our intervention. I don’t know if that is good or bad.

[Hedgehoggy]

The 'Human intervention' Red Kite breeding programme is one success story

[camo]

Originally Posted by Tursiops2

An interesting question, but a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. The rich diversity of the British countryside is the end result of hundreds, even thousands, of years of Human intervention in the natural process of succession. Without continued intervention, most of the countryside would quickly revert to scrub, and then to secondary woodland - probably dominated by Sycamore and Japanese Knotweed. The corresponding loss of diversity would be devastating.
T2

I am with Tursiops on this one and believe the country side as we see it is the total result of man's intervention. To sustain the current or increased wildlife we have to continue to intervene.

In the scheme of things man has been on this planet for a fraction of its existence but has had an impact that far outweighs our time. However man evolved as did Dinosaurs and the DoDo and man will ultimately be replaced by a successor it is likley that Earth will exist long after man, albeit a little warmer!

Should we continue to intervene? how can so many living on too small a piece of land not affect wildlife, there will always be some people that feel guilty enough about mans impact to support wildlife with intervention.

For me I feed the birds because it get pleasure out of being close to nature however this is probably a selfish act where the birds also benefit.

Roy

[ron1863]

In my opinion we humans have decreased the diversity of nature with the use of chemicals and pollution and the reduction or extinction of some natural environments for numerous species of insects, amphibians etc.
How did species such as Japanese Knotweed, Sycamore etc. arrive on our shores - human intervention?

Nature can exist without mankind, can mankind exist without nature.

[nakedgardener]

Originally Posted by Hedgehoggy

The 'Human intervention' Red Kite breeding programme is one success story

It was human intervention that killed them off in the first place!

[nakedgardener]

Human intervention surely plays a huge part in the bio-geography of Brittain, all of the habitats have been altered by what we do, even wilderness and nature reserves have to be managed and controlled.

In general species which tend to be generalist will do well, adaptable species, whether native or introduced can thrive. It's the more specialist species, that have evolved here to fill a niche that will suffer as we change the environment more and more, especially if they can't compete with alien species, or if we destroy the habitats which they need.

Introduced species can, and do increase biodiversity, conifer plantations have helped bird species such as siskins and crossbills, gardens provide a food source for many birds, so gardens have now far higher populations of some species than an equivelant area of woodland.

Other introduced species can and will be to the detriment of biodiversity, Japanese knotweed, Rhododendron ponticum, and Himalayan balsam are such thugs that they swamp out all other species, and don't add much to the food chain. Grey squirrels have pushed out our native reds (but it does mean we have 2 species instead of one!) American crayfish have pushed out our natives..... the list goes on....

The more we interfere, the more we will have problems new species will find there way here, some of which will cause damage, and this will only be made easier by climate change.

In the long run it will lead to a small number of globally sucessful species dominating, at the expense of more specialist species.... the World will be a much poorer place because of it.

[Gill Catton]

natural sucession can be arrested by far more species than just humans. We all know about succession, but its often not that simple look at pingo ponds, ponds are supposed to silt up and become dry land then scrub and trees right? Well they've been there since the end of the ice age so they really are taking their time about it!!

The over grazing by deer in Scotland (and all over the place) shows us how new saplings can be eradicated over a wide area by a herbivore.

Rabbits also very good at maintaining a diverse grassland sward.

Personally I feel human intervention is likely to have massively decreased biodiversity if only because of the sheer area of land that we have covered in concrete, tarmac and green agricultural desert.

and we are forced into repeated intervention to protect the remaining fragments.

The Great Fen project and similar schemes may well be an opportunity to sit back and see what happens if you let things go and manage themselves (though we are probably too impatient a species to let that happen as it could take over a hundred years or more for the ecological communities to stabilise into something resembling a natural ecosystem)