PLANT TRANSLOCATIONS AND SUSTAINABLE RECOVERY by Suffolk Naturalists' Society

PLAYING GOD OR GARDENING?

PLANT TRANSLOCATIONS AND SUSTAINABLE RECOVERY RUTH DAVIS I work as the co-ordinator of a species conservation programme called Back from the Brink, run by the plant conservation charity, Plantlife. The programme has anything up to 35 individual species programmes operating at one time, which include vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, stoneworts and fungi. In England, it is a partnership project with English Nature’s own Species Recovery Programme, and is jointly funded. Like anyone involved in species conservation work, I frequently ‘run into’ the issue of translocations, and their desirability as a recovery technique. This conference in fact comes at a very opportune time for me, because Plantlife is currently reviewing and updating its own policy on translocations, and so the subject is particularly fresh in my mind. There seemed to me to be various ways in which a paper on plant translocations could be written – a ‘dos and don’ts’ paper; an historical review of the subject; a ‘translocations I have known’ ramble. To another audience any of these might have been appropriate, but I was aware that the subject had been chosen today because this is an occasion which likes to provoke debate rather than to suppress it. I have therefore taken the presentation of this paper as a chance to explore a little of the ideology of translocations – and how it relates to the practicalities of rare plant conservation. I hope that isn’t too threatening a beginning! In order to do this, I am going to interweave a discussion about changing attitudes to introductions and re-introductions with references to one project in particular, that for the very rare plant starfruit (Damasonium alisma). I make no apologies for using this now familiar example; partly because it is a beautiful and charismatic plant; partly because it inspires passion in people, and I like it when people feel passionately about plants; and partly because it has been the subject of translocations in the past, and is likely to be so again in the future. Treading softly: the distaste of British natural historians for translocations In the past, there is no doubt that many naturalists and conservationists have seen translocations as a last resort; and generally an undesirable last resort at that; reflecting, I think, their dislike of radical (and hence ‘unnatural’) interventions in the ‘natural’ environment. It is funny, however, that sometimes those most passionately opposed in principle to the idea of moving plants around change their mind when its their pet plant or project that is at stake. Someone else’s translocation can always be accused of being ‘the worst kind of gardening’, creating ‘conservation dependent’ populations, blurring the patterns of historical distribution and at best putting off a well-deserved extinction. Your own, on the other hand, is a stunning plant rescue, which you are secretly gratified to see presented in the local press as ‘conservation hero saves rare plant from certain death’. Peter Marren put this particularly well (as ever) in his book on Britain’s rare plants, when he said that ‘the appeal of

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translocations lies in the involvement of the rescuer in an act of personal benevolence, like rescuing a cat up a tree.’ Where translocations have been tolerated, it is on the understanding that they are to make as little impact as possible on the historical, ‘natural’ distribution of genes and species; like an expert restorer of a fine painting, it is the conservationist’s role to render their work invisible to the naked eye. This was reflected in the guidance produced by many conservation bodies and natural history societies, and can be illustrated by reference to the guidance notes on translocations produced by the Botanical Society of the British Isles in 1991, summarised in the J.N.C.C. 1997 report on species translocations: The conditions under which consent may be given for translocations • Introductions (i.e. into areas or sites where the species in not locally native – in this document, these are sites with a distance of over 1 km from sites where the species has been recorded) of rare plants are discouraged • Reintroduction should only be carried out where the species either: • Has recently become extinct in the proposed recipient area; or • Is threatened in an area, and there is a site or sites within that area (within 1 km of occupied sites) that contain suitable habitat unoccupied by the species • The recipient site must contain appropriate habitat • The recipient site must have some form of long-term protection • The translocation must not threaten other rare plants • The donor population should be as near as possible, and within 1 km of the recipient site • If material other than seed is used, to avoid accidental translocation of other species it is recommended to cultivate the plants prior to release. Bearing these pre-conditions, or if you like pre-suppositions about translocations in mind, I would now like to look briefly at the translocations of starfruit which had already taken place when I began working on the project in 1996. I couldn’t resist, in doing so, showing you a table which used regularly to reduce me to frustrated tears in the first few months of my job; on the basis that since my subject matter is unlikely to make my audience laugh, I could have a go at making them cry instead. The table opposite was sent out by me as part of a consultation exercise on a Species Action Plan for starfruit. Every time I sent it out, it came back with yet another note from someone saying, ‘No, stupid, that’s a re-introduction into an introduction site where the plant was erroneously recorded once; but on the other hand it is possible that its not the introduced plants that came up at all, but some naturally occurring ones, or even some others that Humphrey Mackworth-Praed tipped in there secretly from his own private stash of seed.’ I almost gave up in the end, so complex did the tale become; and you could understand when faced with this why people were inclined to think of translocations as a dangerous farce. However, what I want to draw to your attention, in each case, is the kind of reception site chosen, why it was chosen, and the likelihood of long-term success of the translocation that took place.

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9 0

unknown

Introduced 1994

- unknown unknown

Re-establishment 1994

4. Pintmere Pond

unknown

40 149

1 c. 35

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

6. Black Park

Re-establishment 1988

3. Chequers Pond

1990

0 unknown unknown

Re-establishment 1989

2. Half Penny Pond

1989

5. Mitcham Common Re-establishment 1994

?Introduction/ re-establishment 1988

Re-establishment/ introduction

1. Brimmer Pond

Site

ANNUAL COUNTS FOR STARFRUIT SITES

PLAYING GOD OR GARDENING?

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Let us look in turn at the success (or otherwise) of these various translocation attempts, bearing those traditional precepts about translocations in mind: 1. Brimmer Pond Plants of starfruit occurred in the past on three ponds on Headley Heath, one of which might very well have been Brimmer. This pond in now within an extensive grazing compartment on National Trust land, and looks to have a secure future; it is hoped that plants with re-colonise other ponds on the site from here in the future. 2. Half Penny Pond Plants occurred here in the past; and were re-established using material from a nearby site. The efforts of local conservationists have managed to ensure that plants continue to appear periodically at the site, but it does have a huge problem with New Zealand Pigmy Weed (Crassula helmsii), which might make us think twice about putting plants into this or Chequers Pond were we to select translocation sites now. 3. Chequers Pond The establishment here was not successful, unlike adjacent Half Penny Pond, quite possibly because of the sheer extent of the Crassula problem. 4. Pintmere Pond This site was selected because it was a historic site for the plant. Conditions proved to be unsuitable and the translocation was not a success. 5. Mitcham Common This site was selected because it was a historic site for the plant. Conditions proved to be unsuitable and the translocation was not a success. 6. Black Park This pond was specially created for starfruit within an area of conservation heathland. It has proved the most successful of the translocation projects undertaken for the plant. The point of this exercise is really to demonstrate that the conditions relating to the selection of historic sites (as opposed to sites with what is judged to be appropriate, and appropriately managed habitat) is based on ideological considerations as opposed to criteria designed to ensure the success of the translocation. In other words, in seeking to ensure that we have as little impact on the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;naturalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; distribution of a species as possible, we might actually be hampering the chances of securing a successful conservation outcome. This leaves us as conservationists with something of a dilemma, encapsulated in the published species action plan for starfruit, which has as one of its objectives: To establish suitable conditions and restore to a minimum of ten former sites by 2004

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In the light of this, and the prevailing wisdom about the desirability of restoring populations to sites where they had previously been recorded, we did in fact commission an extensive survey of former sites. Of the two hundred or so places where starfruit had formerly been recorded, only a handful were either intact or in anyway suitable for restoration. So what was the best approach to take? To accept that translocation was not appropriate for this species? To attempt to restore some of these apparently highly inappropriate sites? Or to look for more suitable habitat, which didn’t necessarily fulfil the strict criteria which botanists and conservationists had previously set out for themselves? For starfruit, this is a critical question, because it is unlikely that given its current plight it will continue to evade extinction for very much longer. Just to bring home the seriousness of the situation, let us remind ourselves of the plant’s current position:

• Starfruit has been recorded on nine ponds since 1990 (native and introduction sites). • Two of these ponds are on grazed commons (both ponds into which the plant has been introduced). • Two more have the distant prospect of being grazed at some point in the future. • The remaining five others are dependent on mechanical intervention to maintain any suitable habitat for the plant, in what is probably a losing battle against succession to scrub. • Four of the nine sites are also under threat from the presence of mats of New Zealand Pigmy Weed (Crassula helmsii). • Only two ponds are situated where there is likely to be any genetic exchange between populations; the others are all entirely isolated one from the other. The new language of conservation; future landscapes and visions of recovery It is at this point that I wish to return to the more generalised language of conservation, and to examine what I perceive to be a change in the way that conservationists think of themselves and of translocation policies; and to show how I think this potentially offers a way out of the starfruit problem; not one that everyone will sympathise with, but which may be the best hope it has of remaining a British plant. Let us therefore for a minute move back to the realm of the general and philosophical, and examine the way in which the language of conservation has changed, in the last five years or so; in my lifetime as a conservationist. We have seen how traditional thinking on translocations focused on the idea of historical restoration; of preservation, of minimum intervention. Now let us turn to the modern language of conservation; a language dominated by terms such as ‘recovery, habitat creation, sustainable populations, dynamic ecosystems, metapopulation dynamics, species’ mobility’. This language

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reflects two things; firstly that we are no longer content with the idea of restoring the landscape to a particular point in time; and secondly, that we are willing to be much more overt about our role in creating habitats and populations of species, in directing, if you like, the future of our landscape. The language of conservationists is, ultimately, the rhetoric with which we struggle to come to terms with the extent of our power over and responsibility towards the rest of life on earth. This rhetoric has changed, and I would propose that so have we. We have been forced to acknowledge that the only way in which we will maintain a biologically diverse environment in our country is, perversely, to take control of what we most passionately wished to preserve as ‘wild’ and ‘natural’; to acknowledge to ourselves that this part of the world, at least, has now become our playground, our garden if you like – where what lives and dies does so, to a greater rather than lesser extent, at our whim. This is an extreme way of putting it, but I do think that this contradiction is what lies at the heart of our discomfort over translocations, and over habitat recreation programmes, and the rest of the technical armoury of modern conservation, and I am therefore trying to flush these issues out. Because what a ‘modern’ translocation is trying to do is something different from that act of seamless (and invisible) restoration which I described above. Modern conservation projects are much more likely to be focused on the idea of creating populations of plants which have a long-term future within the context of large-scale habitat restoration projects, where the aim is not historical reproduction, but the creation of sufficiently large tracts of habitat that within them there is room for mobility, for dynamism, for change without a net loss of diversity. We wish to do this for lots of reasons – because it pleases us aesthetically; because we believe the survival of species in the long-run is about their capacity to disperse, exchange genetic material and adapt to changing circumstances (particularly significant in the light of the looming threat of climate change); and because large units of this sort are ultimately more economically manageable than tiny sites requiring constant mechanical intervention. This is not to say that we believe that these large areas will ever be fully re-integrated into the agricultural economy of the country. It is more likely that they will become part of an economic sector of their own, one in which people pay for leisure, education and recreation services of which the natural environment form a part. At this point, I can hear a voice inside me screaming in protest about this picture of theme park Britain – of a world in which the natural and the counterfeit natural have become horribly confused. It is at precisely at this point in my own reasoning that I would wish to walk away – to become an observer, rather than a tinkerer with plants and their habitats. I do, deeply, sympathise with the ideology of minimum intervention which generated our inherited attitude to translocations. However, walking away will not change the fact that human beings now hold the fate of the ‘natural world’ the fate of many of the other organisms with which we ‘share the planet’ in our hands. All we will do by walking away is to relinquish power into the hands of those

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for whom biological diversity is merely a side-show – something which is tolerated where it is not inimical to other economic interests. The harsh reality appears to be to me, that in protecting biological diversity we will have to agree to abandon to some degree our attachment to the idea of ‘wildness’. But let us not despair over this. Having accepted this position, our roles as conservationists become both more powerful and less constrained – we can have a vision for the landscape that unites habitat restoration and recreation with species recovery. Power – responsibility – has its compensations. Let us turn back to the question of starfruit, having accepted that this change in our role has come about. What we propose to do is to find areas of grazed commons, either pristine, or in the process of being restored, where we can start again. These are to be within the historic range of the species, on substrates comparable to those where it has previously occurred, and with habitat judged appropriate from what we already know of the plant’s preferences. The exciting thing about this approach is that we are not just looking at an introduction to a single isolated pond on a small common or village green – we are looking at sites with, in some cases, hundreds of ponds in several thousand acres of habitat. We believe that this might give starfruit a real prospect of occurring again in abundance of real recovery, not just rescue. This is the great gain which is to be weighed against the loss of the idea of a natural, native distribution. I am not sure that everyone would be prepared to accept this bargain, and I have a great deal of respect for those who say that they can’t; this is a moral, and ideological decision, and one which every one of us has to make for themselves. But ultimately, when faced with the choice of presiding over the extinction of this plant or being accused of gardening, I chose the latter, the lesser to me, of two evils. I have one further, very important point to make. This acceptance of the fact that in certain circumstances, for certain species, translocation may very well be the most direct route to sustainable recovery must not be allowed to be taken as an invitation to developers to destroy existing sites, on the basis that we can always move them elsewhere. Here the best analogy I can think of is one of a bucket. Let us say that this bucket is filled with biodiversity and that modern economics has effectively punched a hole in its bottom, out of which are leaking species after species. Translocation might consist of moving what is left into a bucket without a hole – but by then we don’t know what we have already lost in the process. It might be desirable, it might be essential to do something before there is no water and no biodiversity left. But surely only the crass or the cynical can interpret this as an invitation to come and knock a hole in every other intact vessel in the countryside? More ludicrous still, what happens when our translocation sites themselves become subject to economic and development pressures? What happens when someone wants to come a knock a hole in our brand new, shiny bucket – saying that after all we can always get a new one? We have to remember, therefore, that every time we have to move our biodiversity from one bucket to the next, we lose something. For those of us who have accepted the inevitability of translocations, it is a particular responsibility to be vigilant about how our words are used against

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us. It is the job of every conservationist to carry around a letter of objection to planning permission in their back pocket, as a carpenter might carry a ruler, or a gardener a spade. The trick is to remember that translocation should be about long-term recovery â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not about rushing species into ER once they have been rescued from the path of an on-coming housing estate. Let us end, then, on a more positive note. Beautiful highland cattle are helping to restore the grazed heath at Headley Heath in Surrey, in a huge compartment which includes Brimmer Pond and other ponds which we hope will one day support starfruit. They are not, we must admit, animals kept for meat or for milk, but they give huge pleasure to visitors on this site, and are effective conservation grazers. If this is theme park Britain, well, maybe its not so bad after all. Ruth Davis Plantlife 21 Elizabeth Street London SW1W 9RP

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