Number 54 • December 2006 In Practice Bulletin of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management Cardiff Climate Change Conference Focus on Wales - Wetlands, Water, Energy Sir David Attenborough Awarded the IEEM Medal In Practice December 2006 1 INFORMATION In Practice No. 54, Dec 2006. ISSN 0966-2200 Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management Editor for this issue: Jim Thompson IEEM aims to raise the profi le of the profession of ecology and environmental management, to establish, maintain and Assistant editor for this issue: Jason Reeves enhance professional standards, and to promote an ethic of environmental care within the profession and to clients and employers of the members. In Practice is published quarterly by the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. It is supplied to all members Patrons: Prof. David Bellamy of IEEM and is also available by subscription (£30 per year, UK. Prof. Tony Bradshaw £40 overseas). Sir Martin Doughty Prof. Charles Gimingham In Practice will publish news, comments, technical papers, Mr John Humphrys letters, Institute news, reviews and listings of meetings, events Dr Duncan Poore and courses. In Practice invites contributions on any aspect The Earl of Selborne and of ecology and environmental management but does not aim Baroness Barbara Young to publish scientifi c papers presenting the results of original research. Contributions should be sent to the Editor at the President: Dr Andy Tasker IEEM offi ce (address below). Vice-President: Dr Eirene Williams Opinions expressed by contributors to In Practice are not Secretary: Dr Janet Swan necessarily supported by the Institute. Readers should seek appropriate professional guidance relevant to their individual Treasurer: Dr Alex Tait circumstances before following any advice provided herein. 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IEEM is a member of: The Institute is immensely grateful to those organisations below who have made fi nancial contributions or provided substantial ‘help in kind’ to support its activities during 2006 British Ecological Society Countryside Council for Wales McParland Finn 2 In Practice December 2006 EDITORIAL AND CONTENTS Editorial Contents t was Robert Kennedy who first coined the phrase: ‘We live in interesting Itimes,’ back in 1966. Forty years Information 2 later these words ring even more true, Editorial and Contents 3 especially for us as ecologists in the light Myths and Legends in the 4 - 6 of our changing climate. Miasma of Climate Change Peter Bridgewater CEnv FIEEM Firstly, climate change itself is in the media as never before. Times are interesting Cardiff Climate Change 7 because science predicts that we have much bigger changes in store than we’ve Conference Report seen so far. And, as those of you at IEEM’s Cardiff Conference will know, there are many species changes that are already underway here in the UK. These include Nick Jackson AIEEM comma butterfly breeding over 100 km further north than just a few years ago, Cardiff Conference Ministerial 8 - 10 migrants like dunlin and ringed plover over-wintering along the north-east coast Address rather than the south-western seaboard of Britain, and even pilchard found in the Tamsin Dunwoody North Sea. Managing Wales’s Water 11 - 12 Secondly, as ecologists, we have known about population dynamics ever since David Lloyd Owen CEnv MIEEM we first started learning about the subject. We know that exponential growth only occurs until a limit is reached, and that the human population is no different Wetlands for Wales 13 - 15 from any other species in this respect. Whether population size is limited by Richard Farmer CEnv MIEEM food shortage, or limited habitat, or the build up of a pollutant waste product Renewable Energy - Ecological 16 - 18 ultimately makes no difference: there are limits to growth. The interesting times Implications for Wales here are that the CO2 we keep producing is as much a pollutant as CFCs or lead Mick Green CEnv MIEEM in petrol. The unknown elements are precisely how the CO2 build-up will impact on global and local climates, over what time-scales, and what we as a species Sir David Attenborough Awarded 19 are prepared to do about it. As ecologists, we need to ensure that our profession the IEEM Medal drives the agenda forwards, proposing practical ecological solutions when some Jason Reeves AIEEM are still denying there is a problem. We need to work with politicians, nationally Countryside Management 20 and locally, and with business decision makers, in order to provide for biodiversity Association Conference Report as our climate changes. The risk to us as ecologists is that the climate change Jason Reeves AIEEM bandwagon presses ahead with strategies and plans that ignore biodiversity completely, thinking only of energy, water and social impacts. Geographic Section News 21 - 24 Thirdly, the interesting times for us as an Institute relate to our continuing and Institute News 25 dramatic growth, with well over 2,500 Members, and new Geographic Sections in SocEnv, EFAEP and IUCN News 26 Wales, Ireland and South West England. The challenges here are both internal and external. Internally we need to develop new systems and structures to help the In the Journals 27 - 33 Institute grow and develop, harnessing the skills and enthusiasm of our Members Recent Publications 34 - 35 to achieve the ambitions of our Business Plan. Externally, we are uniquely placed to link ecology and environmental management with society, in ways that everyone News in Brief 36 - 37 can understand. This will mean as consultants, ensuring that clients are building Tauro-Scatology 38 climate change mitigation into new developments. Within the public sector there are new strategies needed to make a real difference to biodiversity across these New and Prospective Members 39 islands. And for the not-for-profit sector there are opportunities to link plans into Diary 40 action, bringing together new partnerships for delivering large areas for wildlife and ecological networks. Over the next two years of my Presidency, I’d like to see the Institute raising its profile, helping to shape and form government policies, and ensuring that ecologists’ voices are heard and taken notice of. We do indeed live in interesting times, and our role as ecologists moves closer to the centre of the stage. Are we up for this challenge? Cover image: Sir David Attenborough receives the IEEM Medal from Dr Andy Tasker Dr Andy Tasker CEnv MIEEM Photography: Paul Tennant President, IEEM Artwork on the cover will normally illustrate an article in the current issue. The Editors would be pleased CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR to consider any such material from authors. Members of Council, the Directors and Secretariat would like to wish all Members a Happy Christmas and a productive and ecologically active year in 2007. In Practice December 2006 33 CARDIFF CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE Myths and Legends in the Miasma of Climate Change IEEM Fellow Peter Bridgewater Peter Bridgewater CEnv FIEEM Secretary General, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands serious looks at the issue in the popular From a conservative economic journal INTRODUCTION press. In part the article noted: this is welcome realism indeed! n 16 Nov 1989 the ‘Australia is the biggest contributor Indeed 2006 may well be seen as the BES and Linnean to global warming, relative to its year in which climate change moved Society held a joint population, even though its hot, from scientific curiosity to media star. O dry climate makes it particularly There is abroad what one might call symposium in London on vulnerable to hotter temperatures. ‘The new Climate Change Chic.’ By this ‘Biospheric Aspects of This contradictory position means I mean a popularising of the effects and Global Change.’ This was the country risks both international dangers of climate change like never criticism over global warming, and before. But, as always, not necessarily the first real attempt to potential environmental damage. Yet in the most useful of ways, from the put focus on the issue, Australia is reluctant to ratify the Kyoto perspectives of nature conservation even though much of protocol………’ and ecosystem management. One could point to the awful ‘Day after Tomorrow’ And of course it is, as I write, trying, the symposium was on as an example of what may come to with like-minded countries to produce be called the climate change genre. It non-climatic aspects of a ‘post-Kyoto’ global agreement on was truly awful, however, and there are global change. Even so, climate change. Herein lies the problem many other, rather better, activities now – in many ways the Australian position many of the contributions around. is a correct one, i.e.