Interview – Page 8 – Hoopoe

SCOTLAND: The Big Picture: Q&A with Peter Cairns

In response to the growing climate and biodiversity crisis, SCOTLAND: The Big Picture is working to drive the recovery of nature across Scotland through rewilding. Using positive storytelling, they hope to inform and inspire change, while also enabling practical rewildling through partnerships and collaborations. They see a role for everyone in creating a wilder Scotland, with a vision of a vast network of rewilded land and water where wildlife and people flourish.

Executive Director, Peter Cairns, has kindly taken the time to answer a few questions for us.

Peter Cairns © Nigel Atkinson / Wild Images

Could you tell us about the work that SCOTLAND: The Big Picture does and how the charity began?

Our core team has been involved in environmental communications for more than two decades so when the rewilding story really started to gain momentum in Scotland, probably about a decade ago, we were well placed to document it. The ‘R’ word (rewilding) remains contentious to this day, but as we embraced it at an early stage, we gradually – and unwittingly – became the voice of the movement, or at least one of them. That gave us a platform and in 2019, we became a fully-fledged charity, working to drive the recovery of nature across Scotland through rewilding, in response to the growing climate and biodiversity crises.

One part of your vision is creating a future for Scotland where people thrive, but development and industry can sometimes be in contention with wildlife. How do you think a nature-based economy could allow for long-term restoration of habitats without negatively impacting communities?

Pitching people against nature helps neither. We need to look for new ways to marry our economic systems with our ecological systems.

We believe the transformational recovery of nature can only be achieved with the support of local communities – rewilding will only work if people can see social, cultural and economic benefits that work in tandem with ecological recovery.

The original principles of rewilding were founded on the ‘3C’s’ – cores, corridors and carnivores, and there’s no reason why such a model can’t be explored in Scotland. ‘Cores’ means areas that are effectively given over to nature, allowing natural processes to shape and govern the land. Around these could be buffer zones, where a high degree of ecological functionality is maintained, but a range of nature-based economic activities, such as payments for natural capital, wild produce and diverse nature-based experiences, help support vibrant communities.

Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) feeding on red deer carcass, Assynt, Scotland © Peter Cairns

SCOTLAND: The Big Picture was a founding member of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance, how have you found the reception of this alliance amongst organisations? Are they generally in favour of large-scale rewilding in Scotland?

Rewilding has come to mean different things to different people and that can be a challenge, but it also provides opportunity for it to be rolled out at different scales and settings, while still making a valuable contribution to nature recovery. The members of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance are all at different stages on their journey, but all recognise that the traditional models of conservation have failed to arrest and reverse ecological decline, and are committed to a fresh, more ambitious, more holistic approach.

Outside of the Alliance, there is a growing appetite for change across Scotland, as land managers look at the social, political and economic horizon, and realise that business as usual is not an option.

Your upcoming feature-length documentary, Riverwoods, reveals the perilous state of Scotland’s salmon and presents the inextricable relationship between fish and forests. What are the main threats to this species and Scotland’s rivers, and why is salmon such a valuable species for forest ecosystems?

Atlantic salmon is a modern-day canary in the mine – an indicator of ecosystem health. The reasons for its spectacular decline, like so many species, are many and complex, and this film doesn’t attempt to address them all. Instead, Riverwoods tells the story of salmon – young salmon in particular -in our rivers, and carries a simple message: The health of our rivers and all the life within them, is directly dependent on the health of the landscapes through which they flow.

Perhaps to set the scene, I can quote from a recent article we produced on this very subject:

6,000 years ago, a rich, dynamic woodland ecosystem stretched across 60% of Scotland’s land area. These were diverse forests of Scots pine, oak, rowan, birch, aspen and willow; a complex community of shrubs and bushes, tall trees, tiny trees, dead and dying trees, all intertwined in a constantly evolving system.

Flanking Scotland’s rivers and lochs, these woodlands were shaped by beavers, creating fresh coppice growth, new wetlands and backwaters, raising the water table and toppling insect-laden trees into and alongside the river. The decaying timber provided food and sanctuary for more invertebrates, as well as casting dappled shade across the river’s surface.

Spent salmon, exhausted after an epic journey from freshwater to sea and back again, fed brown bears, wolves, eagles, ospreys and otters, before the precious marine nutrients found in their carcasses, were taken up by the soil nourishing fresh plant and tree growth.

In other parts of the world, the connectivity between river, forest and ocean, and the bountiful runs of salmon that still persist, creates a living, breathing, working system. Here in Scotland, just 3% of our native forest remains, clinging on in isolated, lonely fragments and despite their reputation for beauty and drama, the glens through which our rivers run, are often bare and treeless, reflecting the centuries of ecological decline that we have come to accept as normal.

Pine marten (Martes martes) foraging in pine woodland, Glenfeshie, Scotland © Peter Cairns/scotlandbigpicture.com

How do you think Scotland’s river catchments can be restored? What changes need to take place?

Fundamentally, we need to perceive and manage river catchments as a complete ecological system and not as a series of individual species and habitats. No species exists in isolation and again, the health of our rivers is dependent on the health of the surrounding landscape.

More immediately, many of Scotland’s rivers are getting warmer, some approaching the lethal limit for young salmon, so these fish are crying out for the trees that once shaded and nourished them. The roots of trees like alder and willow, which can live in the water, protect fish from the sun and provide hidey-holes during high flow events. Tree roots help stabilise riverbanks and woody structures like fallen trees in the river, create deep pools and riffles providing salmon with the structurally diverse riverbeds they favour. A lack of overhanging trees also reduces insect numbers which in turn, means less food falling from branches into the mouths of hungry fish.

For people inspired by your work, how would you suggest they get involved?

We normally recommend 3 actions:

WILD YOUR SPACE: It’s easy to imagine rewilding at a landscape scale but this is a journey that offers space for everyone. Parks, gardens and public spaces can all make a valuable contribution to a landscape rich in nature and passionate individuals and communities are already working together to create more space for bats, bees and butterflies. Everyone can get involved.

MAKE SOME NOISE: Rewilding is as much a change in mindset as it is a physical change to the land or sea, so it’s good to talk. Most people don’t realise that Scotland has become a nature-depleted nation. Talk to family, friends and work colleagues about the potential of a rewilded Scotland for nature, climate and people. Encourage them to join our Big Picture community.

PUT YOUR MONEY TO WORK: There are many ways to invest in rewilding. You can support businesses such as local farms that are working to restore wildlife, or nature tourism operators who donate part of their revenues to rewilding. And of course, you can help make more rewilding happen by supporting organisations like SCOTLAND: The Big Picture.

Red squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris, two backlit on pine branch, Cairngorms National Park, Scotland © Mark Hamblin/scotlandbigpicture.com

You can find out more about SCOTLAND: The Big Picture from their website and by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Lancashire Peatland Initiative: Q&A with Sarah Johnson

The Lancashire Peatland Initiative, run by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, has delivered habitat restoration across over 200 hectares of degraded lowland raised bog. These habitats are peatland ecosystems that develop primarily in areas less than 150m above sea level, particularly in cool, humid regions. These deep bodies of peat can be raised several metres higher than the surrounding land and are much wetter, usually covered in typical bog vegetation, such as cotton grass, sphagnum moss and heather.

This pioneering initiative has spanned the past three decades, with active restoration activities on numerous sites, including Little Woolden Moss, Winmarleigh Moss SSSI and Astley Moss SSSI SAC. The Trust’s tireless efforts, in collaboration with Natural England and other partners, has ultimately halted the decline of these nationally significant sites and species, resulting in an expansion of active raised bog habitats.

The Lancashire Peatland Initiative won the NHBS sponsored Best Practice Award for Large Scale Nature Conservation at the 2021 CIEEM Awards. Project Manager Sarah Johnson has kindly taken the time to answer a few questions for us.

Could you tell us about the Lancashire Peatland Initiative and how it started?

The Lancashire Peatland Initiative was born out of a desire to bring together and co-ordinate all of the peatland restoration work happening in Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, raising awareness of the importance of these amazing habitats, and ensuring their protection in the future.

In 2019 we were delighted to be awarded funding from the Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation to create and support the Lancashire Peatland Initiative. This allowed us to fund Project Officers, Assistant Project Officers, communications support, and myself as Lancashire Peatland Initiative Project Manager, to work across all of the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside’s peatland nature reserves in the area. We also co-ordinate the Lancashire Peat Partnership and the Northern Lowland Peatland Coalition, and work closely with the Great North Bog Coalition and the Great Manchester Wetlands Partnership, bringing together partners and other organisations who are involved in our peatlands.

This allows the Lancashire Peatland Initiative to work on our own peatland restoration projects, but also support those of our partners and develop new projects across areas of commonality and innovation.

Digger creating a bog pool at Little Woolden Moss. Image by Lancashire Wildlife Trust

How did these habitats become so degraded and what are the main threats they are currently facing?

Our peatlands face threats from all directions. Historically peatlands have been seen as wastelands that needed to be tamed by humans before they could be exploited, either for conversion to agricultural land or for the extraction of the peat. Deep ditches were dug to drain the water from the peat, destroying these fragile ecosystems.

Unfortunately, many of these same threats are still faced by our peatlands today. Drainage and conversion to agriculture, overgrazing, rotational burning and extraction of peat for use in the horticultural industry has left only 13% of England’s peatlands in a near-natural state.

Public opinion is often integral in the success of large restoration projects such as this; how have you found local reception of peatland restoration? Are people generally supportive?

Peatlands are not always at the top of people’s agendas, so we are working hard to get the message out there about the importance of our peatlands, not only to provide a habitat for lots of amazing plants and animals but also in our fight against climate change, as natural flood mitigators, water filters and protection against wildfires.

However, we have found that once people know about these fantastic ecosystems they really support our work to restore and care for them. Of course, there are some issues still to fully answer, such as the need to protect both peat and our food supplies, so much of which is grown or grazed on drained peatland. But we have found that as the plight of our peatlands enters more people’s consciousnesses, they are more willing to work with us to find solutions.

Little Woolden Moss bog pool. Image by Lancashire Wildlife Trust

The sale of peat compost to gardeners is to be banned from 2024; how do you think this will affect peatland degradation and restoration? Are there any other policies you think are needed to protect these habitats?

A ban on domestic sales of peat compost is a fantastic step towards protecting our peatlands. But so much more still needs to be done. Large amounts of peat are still being used in commercial horticulture, growing the plants that are for sale in your local garden centre, and this is an issue that is yet to be addressed. Another really damaging practice is the growing of lawn turf on drained peatlands, one of the highest carbon dioxide emitting uses of peat that not many people are aware of.

However, we do need to be careful that we are not simply exporting the issue elsewhere to areas of lower regulation. For example, Ireland recently announced an end to its peat extraction, but just a few months later there were reports of millions of tonnes of peat being imported into the country from one of the Baltic states.

We also really need policy support for the movement towards more environmentally sensitive management of land on peat-based soils. For example, the adoption of paludiculture or higher water table agriculture (wet farming) and land management could have a huge impact on CO2e emissions from our peatlands, but until these practices can be shown to be financially viable how can we expect landowners to take up these changes? This is an area where public subsidies and financial incentives could make a real difference.

There also needs to be an immediate end to all peatland burning, as the current legislation is riddled with loopholes.

Species reintroductions began in 2018; how are the species chosen for reintroduction? What are the criteria for determining whether an area has recovered enough to support these reintroduced species?

Species reintroductions are one of my favourite parts of my job! Currently, we are focusing on reintroducing species lost from Greater Manchester, and so a working group from the Great Manchester Wetlands Partnership comes together to appraise which species would be suitable for reintroduction. However, this can only happen after years of habitat restoration to create the right conditions for these returned species to thrive.

A recent success story was the reintroduction of the large heath butterfly. Locally known as the Manchester argus, the destruction of its peatland habitat drove it into local extinction almost 150 years ago. However, by following strict IUCN guidelines and working closely with Natural England and Chester Zoo, we were able to reintroduce the species to Astley Moss in the summer of 2020. Since then we have had the privilege of seeing the first native population flying on the moss this summer.

Sphagnum and Cotton Grass plugs – Winmarleigh

With the current COP26 summit, what are your hopes for the future of the Lancashire Peatland Initiative and the restoration of these habitats?

We have really high hopes for the future of our peatlands. It seems clear to anyone in the know that we need to be prioritising the recovery of these habitats as they can provide us with quick, massive wins in terms of carbon reductions. For example, at our pioneering carbon farm we have already seen a 90% reduction in CO2e emissions from the site, compared to an adjacent area of drained peatland that has been converted to agricultural pasture. This has been achieved in just over a year by simply re-wetting the land, and give us another year or two to fully re-vegetate the site and we expect it to become a functioning carbon sink.

What we are really hoping to see out of COP26 is a commitment to ambitious peatland restoration targets, that are backed up by both the policy and the funding to actually achieve this. In the words of Greta, we need action now – not more ‘blah, blah, blah’!

You can find out more about the Lancashire Peatland Initiative from the Lancashire Wildlife Trust website and by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Author Interview with Arthur V. Evans: Beetles of Western North America

Beetles of Western North America is a landmark book – the only comprehensive colour photographic guide to the remarkably diverse beetles of the United States and Canada west of the Continental Divide.

A follow-up to the highly regarded companion title Beetles of Eastern North America, this engaging and accessible book provides extensive information on 1,428 species from all 131 families that occur in the west, lavishly illustrated with more than 1,500 stunning images. This is an unmatched guide to the rich variety of western North American beetle fauna, a must-have book for anyone from amateur naturalists and nature photographers to insect enthusiasts, students, professional entomologists and biologists.

Arthur V. Evans has kindly taken the time to answer a few questions for us below.

Could you tell us a bit more about how you became interested in entomology? What prompted you to start producing field guides?

My interest in insects began when I was five years old. I grew up on the south-western fringes of the Mojave Desert in southern California, where there were plenty of insects to discover and observe. My parents were incredibly supportive of my interest in insects and nature and took my sister and me on numerous weekend excursions to explore natural areas and historical sites throughout the region. While in elementary school, I met an entomologist who arranged my first visit behind-the-scenes at the Entomology Section of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC), one of the largest natural history museums in the United States. There, I had the opportunity to meet with each of the entomology curators, all of whom encouraged my interest in entomology. During my high school years, I took part in several extended summer field trips to collect insects, especially beetles, throughout southern California and the Southwest. Several of these trips focused on the Sky Islands of south-eastern Arizona, a biodiversity hot spot in North America. Upon graduating high school, I was hired as a student worker at NHMLAC, an experience that ultimately helped to launch my pursuit of academic degrees in entomology at California State University at Long Beach (B.A., M.S.) and the University of Pretoria (D.Sc.) in South Africa.

I have always had a long-standing interest in informal science education. Not long after I finished my doctorate in entomology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, I accepted a position as the Director of the Ralph M. Parsons Insect Zoo at NHMLAC. While working there, I was invited to write my first book, An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles (with Charles Bellamy, Henry Holt, 1996). On the strength of this book, I was approached by several publishers over the years to write field guides on insects, including Field Guide to California Beetles with James Hogue (University of California, 2004), Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America (Barnes and Noble, 2007), and Beetles of Eastern North America (Princeton University Press, 2014). I have always found field guides useful and writing them gave me an opportunity to share my passion for entomology and my insect images with a larger audience.

Beetles of Western North America, and your other related work Beetles of Eastern North America, are comprehensive guides documenting thousands of species. Can you tell us about your decision to tackle such a huge project?

A truly comprehensive work covering the entire beetle fauna of an area as large as western or eastern North America is a very tall order! Still, I accepted the challenge of these writing these richly illustrated books in order to give these fascinating animals their due. Both Beetles of Western North America and its companion volume, Beetles of Eastern North America, are the first books to present in full color representative species from all families known in their respective regions. I think the diversity of beetles presented in these books will not only appeal to coleopterists and other entomologists but also field biologists and naturalists, as well as anyone interested in macro photography. My hope is that these works will not only stimulate interest in beetles but will also encourage the production of similar regional works that feature orders of insects other than Lepidoptera (moths, butterflies and skippers) and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies).

Surveying and photographing species in an area as large as western North America must have been challenging. How did you select the species that appeared in the book?

My initial goal was to include images of as many genera as possible representing all 131 families currently known to occur west of the Continental Divide, an area that stretches from Alaska south to western Mexico. However, the book focuses primarily on those species that inhabit the region from southern British Columbia to southern California and south-eastern Arizona. Species selections were based on surveys of several museum and university beetle collections in Arizona and California, reviews of species that appear on bugguide.net and iNaturalist.com, and my own field experiences throughout the west. I concentrated on species that people were likely to see at home and in the field. From 2010 to 2018, I undertook six field trips to observe, collect and photograph beetles for this book, driving more than 8,000 miles. Of the 1500+ images in the book, about half of them were photographed by me, while the rest were supplied by 116 other photographers who generously contributed their photographs to the work.

This book is more than just an ID guide; it also provides tips on photographing, collecting and rearing species. Why did you decide to include these sections?

As a child, I grew up using several field guides that included sections collecting and rearing insects. I found this information incredibly useful then and considered the inclusion of this material essential in Beetles of Western North America. The book begins with an extensive introduction to their morphology, behavior and natural history, use as biocontrol agents and indicators of past environments, threatened and endangered species, observation and photography, conservation, collection and preservation, rearing, and internet resources. I have long believed that both collecting beetles and carefully preparing them as museum-quality specimens are essential for their study and conservation. Eventually, all collections should be deposited in museum or university collections where they will be available to researchers in perpetuity.

Do you have any more field guides of this scale planned for the future?

Yes! I am currently working on a field guide to the beetles of Arizona with Margarethe Brummermann that will cover nearly 2,500 species in more than 80 families. Although the focus is on beetles that occur in Arizona, this book will be very useful for identifying species in adjacent states in both the United States (south-eastern California, southern Nevada, southern Utah, south-western Colorado, western New Mexico) and Mexico (Baja California, Sonora).

MARINElife: Q&A with Rick Morris and Tom Brereton

MARINElife is a science charity that conducts research on the health of our oceans by gathering information on key marine species. With the help of experienced volunteers, they carry out dolphin, whale and seabird surveys in UK and bordering waters and provide relevant, robust and up-to-date information to those working for the sustainable future of our oceans. MARINElife also runs an extensive programme of educational and outreach events, from species identification to full surveyor courses.

Research Director Tom Brereton and Trustee, Trainer and Wildlife Officer Rick Morris have kindly taken the time to answer a few questions for us.

Could you tell us about the work MARINElife does and how your charity began?

MARINElife is a charity (established in 2005) that is dedicated to the conservation of marine wildlife through research and educational activities. MARINElife grew out of the Biscay Dolphin Research Programme (BDRP), which was a survey and educational programme originally based on a P&O ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao (1995-2010).

Today, MARINElife carries out scientifically robust surveys of dolphins, whales, and seabirds, made by experienced volunteers, on a variety of vessels at sea in UK and bordering waters, from angling boats through to large commercial ferries. The work is done in partnership with a wide range of sponsoring bodies from ecotourism through to research institutes and shipping companies.

MARINElife Surveyors by Rick Morris Photography

You survey many key marine species to monitor the health of our oceans. Could you explain a bit more about the role dolphins, whales and seabirds play in the marine ecosystem and the key threats they are facing?

Dolphins perform crucial roles in their native ecosystems wherever they’re found and function as high-level predators feeding primarily on fish and squid. In any ecosystem, carnivores near or at the top of the food chain establish fundamental order all the way down to the bottom, and their removal can have wide-ranging and highly complex repercussions.

Whales play a vital role in the marine ecosystem as they help provide at least half of the oxygen you breathe by providing nutrients to phytoplankton.

Seabirds can be a good and visible indicator of the wider health of the marine environment as they feed on many of the same species as cetaceans and are often found in association with cetaceans during feeding.

The key threats to whales, dolphins and seabirds are: whaling, climate change, overfishing, by-catch, entanglement in ghost fishing gear, noise pollution and ship strikes.

The marine realm is an important resource for many communities but is also intensely exploited. Do you believe a balance can be found between its continued use and the improvement and maintenance of ocean health?

We believe that through scientific evidence and good educational programs, cooperation with local fishing communities and everyone who depends upon the marine environment can be established to safeguard the future of our seas.

Presently, you are focusing on your small boat surveys in Lyme Bay monitoring dolphin populations. Have you noted any changes since the start of the pandemic?

Generally, there seems to be less commercial fishing activity during the day than there was a few years ago, perhaps a sign that the area has been “fished out” to some degree. There has been a notable increase in Balearic Shearwaters throughout the summer months in both years, with the Bay becoming more and more important for this species. 2020 was characterised by large numbers of Bluefin Tuna, whilst 2021 was a late season with hardly any Mackerel until September.

Bottlenose Dolphin by Rick Morris Photography

Using data collected by MARINElife, a major study published this year highlighted the importance of south-west UK waters to the Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater. What conservation measures would you like to see put in place to help this species?

The main global threats to the species have been identified as drowning in fishing nets and predation by introduced species on their breeding grounds. For the bycatch issue, appropriate mitigation measures are urgently needed, whilst predator control and eradication measures need to be stepped up at breeding sites. Research is required on other threats including light pollution, marine plastics and climate change. More locally, shoaling pelagic fish such as Anchovy, which are key prey items, need to be protected from overfishing and disturbance of moulting flocks need to be monitored and regulated if required. Work needs to continue to identify and designate Special Protection Areas for the species, where these will make a real difference to the conservation of the species.

Balearic Shearwater by Tom Brereton/MARINElife

For those interested in your work and would like to get involved with MARINElife, how would you best recommend they do this?

The best route to get involved would be to email info@marine-life.org.uk and state what skills you have that would be suited to our work!

Reference

Phillips, J. A., et al. 2021. Consistent concentrations of critically endangered Balearic shearwaters in UK waters revealed by at-sea surveys. Ecology and Evolution, 11(4): 1544-1557.

You can find out more about MARINElife from their website and by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Author Interview with Angela Harding: A Year Unfolding

A Year Unfolding: A Beautifully Illustrated Guide to Nature Through the Seasons is a stunning book by much-loved printmaker Angela Harding, the first solely dedicated to her art. It is a celebration of Angela’s beautiful prints and a glimpse into her detailed and meticulous process.

A Year Unfolding is a journey through Angela’s year in nature, watching the seasons unfold in front of her studio in Rutland. This book shows how nature transforms and evolves over the course of the year, while also telling the stories behind some of Angela’s most popular images, giving context to her celebrated works, as well as new art created specifically for the book. The beautiful illustrations and evocative imagery of the prose make this the perfect book for readers and art lovers everywhere.

Angela Harding has kindly taken the time to answer a few questions for us below.

Could you tell us how you became interested in nature and printmaking?

Born in Stoke-on-Trent, the Potteries, one of the most industrial parts of the UK, it is perhaps surprising that I am more at home in the countryside than in towns. At school, I was the misfit teenager in socks rather than tights, whose bedroom was plastered with bird posters rather than popstars. So it has continued into my adult life, I have never lost my love of the natural world and in particular, birds still inspire my work. As a student of Fine Art at Leicester Polytechnic in the 1980s, I was first introduced to printmaking. My student home was a tiny cottage in the graveyard of St Marys church in Melton Mowbray. I would cycle the 18 miles to Leicester, collecting roadkill that I strapped to my handbags to draw at college. These drawings would then be turned into prints; at that time, I mainly worked in drypoint and etching. So my love of drawing moved easily into a love of printmaking. Today I work in a combination of block printing and silkscreen, but you can still see my love of line in the way I carve the blocks I make.

A Year Unfolding is a journey through the seasons. Why did you decide to give early spring and early summer their own chapters?

I love all the British seasons, but of all of them, it is the energy of spring and early summer that inspires many of my images. I always try to bring movement into my work, so there is a natural fit with the bursts of new growth and new life you get at these times of year. Also, the intensity of colour, the fresh greens of the garden and hedgerow. Birds become so much part of our day in spring and early summer, in the beauty of their songs and in their mad dashing flight to build nests and find mates.

The natural world takes centre stage in your prints; how important do you think art is in bringing awareness to the environment and how do you think it could be better used?

All of us have moved so far from a proper connection with the natural world—our comforts come high on what we need or what we think we need. So if my prints are a small reminder of the fact that we are very much part of the natural world, I am honoured. We all cherish those moments when we spot a kingfisher or come across a hedgehog in the garden. I hope, in my work, I communicate some of that joy. So if these wonders of experience with nature are to continue and grow, we need to be reminded how special they are and how much we value them.
You’ve created many beautiful and striking book covers, including English Pastoral, The Wild Isles and The Salt Path. What is the process of creating these? Do you approach each project differently?

Working with publishers over the years has given me wonderful opportunities to create new work and see my work published on a variety of themes. The advantage of being an older illustrator is that I come with a lifetime of experience. So when I was asked to do the cover for Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path, I could draw on the experience of having walked that coast path and spent a lot of my youth camping in Cornwall. I hope it is evident in the illustration I made for The Salt Path how much I love Cornwall and what great times I have had exploring its coastline.

The covers English Pastoral and The Wild Isles both used print that I had already made and luckily fitted with the themes of the books. English Pastoral featured a print call the Shippen Curlew—made after visiting my friends Mary and Hugh Elliot, who run the Twenty Twenty Gallery in Ludlow. Shippen is the Shropshire word for sheep shed and they live in a converted Shippen surrounded by farmland. Very sadly, Shropshire curlews are not as common as they were when I lived in Shropshire in my 20s, but they are still a bird I very much associate with the area. The Wild Isles shows a nightjar and moth against a seascape—this image is one of three prints made on the same theme. It was inspired by the trips my husband and I make on our small wooden boat—a lot of our summer months are spent sailing on the east coast of Britain.

What prompted you to make the jump from illustrator to author and create your own book?

I have always wanted to collect my work into a book. I work in themes and series so even though many of the images were made years apart, they fit together well. I hope the writing in the book is ok; I am, of course, more comfortable with a pen or chisel! I do come from a literary background; my father was an unpublished poet and a great influence. He studied English at Cambridge in the late 1940s under Professor F. R. Leavis. It is a shame my father is no longer here to see my book; I hope he would have approved. The poems that mark my chapter headings are ones we often shared together.

Finally, do you have any further projects planned that you’d like to tell us about?

I do have new projects in mind, but nothing definite that I can share with you at the moment. I am hoping to do a series of prints about the British coast that my husband and I visit on Wingsong, our boat. Travelling by boat and bike gives a different perspective on our landscape—we mainly spend time on the east coast moving from Suffolk up to Shetland, but we have both been around the whole coast by boat and by bike.

Author Interview with Stephen Littlewood: Wild Mull

Wild Mull: A Natural History of the Island and its People guides the reader through the world of the Isle of Mull in its glory, considering every facet of the island’s natural history, diverse species and stories of past, present and future.

Mull is a seaborne landscape off the west coast of Scotland, displaying uncommon biodiversity and full of rare wildlife experiences, but today it faces some of its greatest challenges. With superb illustrations and illuminating text, Wild Mull is testimony to the power of wild places and the duty we have to protect and learn from them.

Stephen Littlewood kindly agreed to answer some of our questions below.

Mull mountainscape across Loch na Keal by Martin Jones

Could you tell us what inspired you to write this natural history of the Isle of Mull and its people?

We live in an era when wildlife is being pushed more and more into the margins, and many people are starved of the experience and understanding of wild places. In this context, there is a consensus that Mull is formidably equipped to display a concentration of land and marine species that is very rare today. It is also a relatively accessible destination. Consequently, the island and its surroundings have become significant attractions for a burgeoning population of wildlife tourists and, it must be said, for the tourism industry which has prospered on the back of a fascination with the so-called ‘wild’. Today, Mull’s reputation for delivering outstanding and intimate associations with many iconic British species draws people from far and wide. However, until now there has been no single resource that explains how Mull came to this position, or what it is about its aggregation of species and habitats that makes it so outstanding. I felt that it was high time to rectify that, but in doing so it was important to address some of the questions that are often overlooked during the pursuit of the profound pleasure to be gained from embracing nature in cherished land and seascapes. The book was always intended to be as much a history, an explanation and an exploration of this special place, as it was a guide to its species and habitats.

Visitors typically arrive on Mull with a wish-list of species to see. That list is invariably topped by eagles (white-tailed and golden), otters, puffins, and cetaceans. What people tend to be less appreciative of, or often not at all interested in, is the backstory both to these species and of the multitude of supporting flora and fauna. All of them are equally beautiful and extraordinary in different ways, and it is the sum of their parts that enables the headline species to thrive. I wanted to encourage the reader to explore as much of Mull’s complex biodiversity as possible, whilst also explaining how, in such an apparently injury-free landscape, it is constantly under pressure and subject to continual interventions by people, in the same way as anywhere else. To do so the book had to be factual but at the same time attractive and not overbearing. This meant that it would have to deliver a visual thrill; to make all of it, even the smallest elements, tangible and exciting. I also knew that Martin could sprinkle that magic, embroider the broad design concept, and embellish the text with the kind of high-quality photo images that would prove irresistible to the potential readership. He has done this wonderfully well.

You mention that human intervention has had a profound effect on Mull. Could you tell us a little more about the historical relationship between humans and the environment on the island?

Mull’s environment isn’t perfect, or unblemished. Most of that is down to the fact that people have been surviving on, profiting from, and ‘improving’ it for 10,000 years. If we were going to tell an honest story of the island’s natural history, it had to include the role of people, for better or worse, in shaping it. To begin with, I thought that this would be a tale largely of land use, of subsistence arable farming, grazing by domestic animals, wholesale planting and harvesting of cash-crop conifer plantations and so on. Of course, these are significant elements in the story, but only when I started to examine the historical record did I realise the extent to which species have been manipulated, consciously and unconsciously, by human interventions that have fundamentally impacted the flora and fauna over time. The picture of what we think of as a natural biodiversity, not only on Mull, isn’t necessarily as we perceive it. An extraordinary proportion of our flora and fauna has been introduced, exterminated, or tampered with. What I find interesting is that each time these actions have occurred they have been judged by the social, moral or economic expediency of the age. Today, we may feel confident that we know the right and wrong ways of addressing biodiversity issues, but one wonders if future generations will have a different perspective again.

The pine marten is flourishing on Mull, which is considered by some to be a success story, given their critical status in England and Wales. However, you highlight their potential negative impact on many of Mull’s endangered bird species. How does Mull plan to tackle this conservation conundrum?

In short, Mull doesn’t plan to tackle it at all nor, I think, is it a topic that is widely discussed. The pine marten is a very recent arrival on the island, and although it was not ‘formally’ introduced, it is generally accepted that it is here to stay. Its presence is mostly felt by the inhabitants to be desirable, so hopefully, its impact upon other species will not be to drive them beyond sustainable populations. Its role as a new predator does raise interesting questions, however. It is certainly thriving, but nobody is monitoring the impact of its reintroduction, nor the size of its population. It is a protected species in Scotland, so, therefore, cannot be deliberately trapped, whilst at the same time, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) have said that, because its introduction was never officially sanctioned, if it is accidentally caught in mink traps, for example, it should be removed from the island as an illegal immigrant and liberated elsewhere. We don’t really know if its migration is good or bad for Mull’s wildlife, and we don’t have any inclination to find out. I find this a confused response and a fascinating conundrum in the light of current approaches to the restoration of our damaged environments.

Pine Marten, an ‘accidental’ introducation by Nathen Steggles Briggs

Tourism, particularly ecotourism, contributes a large proportion of the island’s economy. However, negative aspects of ecotourism, such as overuse of areas, can lead to environmental damage. What measures are being taken to keep tourism sustainable?

Ecotourism is probably now the largest contributor to the economy of Mull, but again this isn’t a question that is really generating much deliberation about the future or consideration of potential interventions. There are parking issues, particularly in the centre of Tobermory, which have been the subject of debate and are likely to result in the community and local authority trialling solutions to excess traffic in urban areas. However, in terms of ameliorating traffic growth on the roads, the impact of ‘wild’ camping, or the increasing pressures on species such as puffins and otters by wildlife photographers and so on, there is little formal debate and very little coming forward by way of attempts to make tourism more sustainable to protect the environment. It was interesting, whilst writing the book, to reflect upon the significant behavioural responses of wildlife during the Covid-19 lockdowns. There were many discernible changes, both as a response to restrictions upon tourism and the subsequent lifting of those restrictions.

Do you have any future projects planned that you can tell us about?

Mull could be likened to an accessible ‘mini laboratory’ with the potential to explore many environmental issues which are being played out on a much bigger stage. I would like to use the prism of Mull to address some of the big questions that arose in writing the book, although unpacking and making sense of the many wicked issues that come to mind is a complex and hazard-strewn path which would be a wholly different kind of journey. In the meantime, perhaps Martin and I will further develop some of the core themes of this book, which continue to fascinate and engage an ever-increasing number of interested individuals.

Wild Mull: A Natural History of the Island and its People
Stephen Littlewood (Author) and Martin Jones (Photographer) | October 2021

New Networks for Nature: Q&A with Amy-Jane Beer

Amy-Jane Beer talking with musician Feargal Sharkey about rivers © Holly Wilkinson

Amy-Jane Beer, a biologist, writer, editor and member of the steering group for New Networks for Nature, kindly took the time to talk with us about the work they do and the importance of their annual event, Nature Matters.

We discuss the role of the creative arts in engaging with the natural world, the political priority of wildlife and how best to get involved.

Firstly, could you tell us about the work that New Networks for Nature does?

Our entire focus is an annual event called Nature Matters: not quite a festival, not a conference, not a symposium, not an exhibition, not a variety show… but with elements of all these. It is two days and one evening of hugely varied dialogues, debates, readings, performances and displays about and in concert with nature. Our contributors are writers, artists, poets, filmmakers, activists, scientists, naturalists, musicians, photographers, conservationists and sometimes politicians and entrepreneurs. Our audiences contain many more of the same, plus publishers, journalists, producers, campaigners, representatives of major NGOs who use the opportunity to make new connections.

You are a relatively new charity, founded in 2009 and registering in 2016. How did the charity start and what are your hopes for its future?

The first event, held in 2009, was the brainchild of our founders: Jeremy Mynott, Mark Cocker, John Fanshawe and Tim Birkhead – four big thinkers who, in Jeremy’s words ‘shared the conviction that wildlife had a far richer role to play in the human experience than that defined by science or economics alone.’ They decided to try and reach more like-minded, creative souls and rapidly realised that an event offering both inspiration and social connection was a powerful way to build a network. By 2019, pre-COVID, that initial one-day event with 44 attendees had grown to a two and a half-day version with 30–40 contributors and an audience exceeding 250. This is about as big as we can manage on a voluntary basis with a minuscule budget funded purely by ticket sales. It’s rewarding but exhausting for the organisers, and the risk of burnout is very real. So the next phase for us as an organisation has to be sourcing funds that will allow us not only to offer an ever more diverse and accessible event but also to pay for some of the services that currently push us to our limits. It may be we offer a Friends of NNN subscription, seek carefully vetted sponsorship, or grant funding that doesn’t compromise our ethos or creative freedom.

One of your main aims is to challenge the low political priority that is placed on the natural world. Why do you think that there is so little importance placed on wildlife and nature nationally?

As a society we’ve come to take nature for granted, living lives so removed from the true sources of everything that sustains us we forget we’re not only dependent on nature, but part of it. That disconnect means that when we encounter problems, we often come up with solutions that target symptoms rather than the root cause. And the cause, almost every time, is that vast rapacious monster of global capitalism, to which politicians are wedded. Among the most toxic spawn of capitalism is a media that has reduced politics to a frantic minute-by-minute battle over the next headline. How can politicians possibly tackle the big issues when they’re doing that? In the current system, taking time to engage deeply with nature has become an almost subversive act, because it leads, inevitably, in my experience, to a recognition that we need a wildly different path.

Silk demonstration with arachnologist Sara Goodacre © Nick Williams

Your upcoming event, Nature Matters, is an annual creative celebration of nature. How important do you think the creative arts are for exploring and raising awareness about the environment?

The creative arts have a critical role to play in bringing us home to nature. And I say that as a former scientist who ‘jumped the fence’. Creativity was an aspect of my education that was horribly neglected. It’s all well and good to absorb information – to document and analyse and theorise. But in order to know what to do with all that, we need wisdom, emotional intelligence. We need stories, and we need huge amounts of love because love motivates and emboldens us like nothing else. Art makes sense of knowledge. Art asks questions science cannot and is free to go where science cannot see its way. Art lights up some of the dark. And wow, it’s getting dark right now.

This event has a huge varied list of sessions, from nature writing courses to panels on plastics in the environment and a session on nature and spirituality. What are the main goals that you want to achieve through Nature Matters?

Folk singer Sam Lee performing at New Networks for Nature © Nick Williams

New Networks for Nature does what the name suggests. It is mycelial activism. It connects people, with nature and with each other. The events are entertaining but they are not entertainment. Attendees come to listen to and admire amazing people, but also to meet and link to them. We like to think that everyone in the room at a NNN event will go away inspired but also having inspired others. I started attending about 8 years ago, very shyly, but through a few mutual friends was introduced to others and now every year I go along with the express purpose of meeting more people. As the Irish saying goes – a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet. At NNN, a stranger is a link to many more people, more voices for nature, more opportunities to disseminate, mobilise. Many of my NNN connections have become deep friendships – but they are also highly intentional and purposeful relationships. I cultivate them because, if we can take any lesson from the current political castes, we desperately need a chumocracy for nature.

For any readers interested in your charity and its aims, what are the best ways that people can get involved?

New Networks for Nature audience © Robert Fuller

Come along! The attendees are as much part of the network as those on stage at any event. We bust a gut to keep the cost of attending to a minimum and make it accessible. There are always opportunities to ask questions, to socialise and to connect. As a rule, we don’t invite applications to perform or speak. Each event is organised by a different team and the programmes are themes and very organic. There are always a few big names in the mix but increasingly we tend to feature up-and-coming contributors or less exposed specialists – and to be honest, those more niche sessions are often where the real ‘wow’ moments happen. Unlike other festivals, we’re not really part of the promotion round – no one will get rich or famous or achieve a bestseller by appearing, or achieve social media celebrity. But we hope that everyone will go away with fresh fire in the belly, new light in the mind, and a list of names and allies to add to their personal network for nature.

Nature Matters 2021 will be held in Bath on 19th-21st November and will feature an exciting list of contributors, including ecological activist Satish Kumar, popular ornithologist David Lindo, breakthrough nature writer Nicola Chester, musician and curlew campaigner David Gray and young environmental campaigners Kabir Kaul, Holly Gillibrand and Bella Lack. To see the programme and book a ticket visit https://www.newnetworksfornature.org.uk/2021-event/

You can find out more about New Networks For Nature from their website and by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Trees for Life: Q&A with Alan McDonnell

Alan McDonnell, Conservation Manager for Trees for Life, kindly took the time to answer some questions on the important work they do in the Scottish Highlands and their ambitious East West Wild project. The Caledonian Forest has been under threat for thousands of years and, by the 1950s, only 1% of the original forest remained. Since its creation in 1993, Trees for Life has worked tirelessly to restore this forest and its ecosystem.

In this captivating conversation, we discuss the importance of working in collaboration with landowners and local communities, how the Covid pandemic has affected them as a charity, and share different ways to get involved in helping Trees for Life achieve their goals.

Could you begin by introducing us to the goals of Trees for Life and the work that you do?

We are a rewilding charity working in the Scottish Highlands. For us, rewilding is about allowing natural processes to work on a large scale. It’s about creating potential for communities to thrive as a result of the health of the natural environment around them.

Our work has therefore increasingly focused on involving people close to where we operate. Our volunteering programme places an emphasis on nature connection. This includes practical action like planting trees, restoring peatlands, and working in the tree nursery at our Dundreggan conservation estate. In recent years, we’ve been increasing our partnerships with others interested in using nature to benefit people’s mental health. We find this hugely rewarding for everyone involved.

Our practical rewilding work includes restoring red squirrel populations to parts of their original range in north and west Scotland and communities play an important role in supporting that. We’ve also just completed an assessment of the health and resilience of Scotland’s ancient pinewoods, which we hope will be just the start of a journey to secure and expand these iconic woodlands in partnership with land managers. Finally, we continue the work Trees for Life started with, restoring native woodlands to appropriate parts of the landscape.

On your website, you state that you believe you can always achieve more through teamwork. Why do you think it is so important for Trees for Life to collaborate with landowners and local communities?

One way or another, we all have a stake in the land and an influence on its future, but people’s priorities are different. If we focus too much on our own interests in isolation, we end up in conflict. This tendency has dogged the land management debate for decades, to the detriment of everyone. We want to help change the focus to one where landowners, communities, and environmental interests look at what they have in common and what they can achieve together. We’ve already seen how this can create new possibilities for sustainable progress, and at a larger scale, for nature, people’s wellbeing, and the local economies that communities depend on.

You have several major projects in the works, including your very ambitious East West Wild project. This project aims to form a coalition of landowners and communities to create a nature-based economy, could you tell us a bit more about what this entails?

The initiative is founded on the precept that nature, communities, and the economy need each other – if one fails, sooner or later it will take the others with it. East West Wild looks at it the other way round: progress in restoring the health of nature in a large landscape can be a catalyst for both social and economic regeneration. We already know that given time and a little help, nature can surge back, so our focus now is how that could create opportunities for people and local businesses. A scoping study has identified nature-friendly forestry, farming, private investment in ecosystem services and small-scale renewable energy as some of the ways in which we can help nature to recover. Such an approach could also create jobs, and sequester carbon through sustainable land use. We’re under no illusions about the challenges involved in attracting the investment to turn these ideas into reality. But we’re also really excited about having the chance to go for such big gains as part of such a diverse partnership of interests.

Birch tree being planted © Trees for Life

The project area stretches from the west coast of Scotland to Loch Ness, encompassing multiple Glens including Glen Affric, Cannich, and Moriston. What was the process behind selecting this area for this project?

One of the earliest aspirations of Trees for Life was to realise the potential for Glen Affric to act as a coast-to-coast habitat corridor, noted I believe by George Peterken in the 1980s. However, as the idea grew in our minds, we knew we wanted to try for a big area to get the ecological multiplier effects that come from genuine landscape-scale change. We also know that the potential here is massive, with a diverse range of woodlands, peatlands, freshwater, montane, riparian, and coastal habitats all capable of restoring themselves. If we can increase the ecological connectivity at this scale, potentially 2000 sq km, the wildlife response that follows will be tremendous and importantly, resilient over the longer term.

Of course, all of that is little more than a daydream if we fail to bring the communities and landowners with us. Our key priority at this stage is to show people that a high level of ambition for the natural environment can positively impact their ways of life.

Trees for Life volunteers in Glen Affric © Trees for Life

Have you found the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the development of this project? How have you coped with the challenges of the current situation?

It’s been both good and bad. It has caused us problems as we’ve been trying to reach out and build new relationships without the spontaneity and informality of face-to-face conversations. However, as we all got our heads around online meetings, we’ve benefited from the speed at which we can meet people and reduced the need to spend time travelling. Hopefully, as we get to the point of starting the initiative in earnest this autumn, we’ll have the scope to meet people in person, which will undoubtedly help the partnership to become genuinely co-creative.

For anyone who is inspired by the vision of Trees for Life and wishes to help, how would you recommend they get involved?

You can learn more about Trees for Life and our vision for a rewilded Scotland by visiting our website.

We hope that our volunteer programme will restart in spring 2022. This includes our popular Conservation Weeks. People should keep an eye out for updates on our website and social media channels.

We have a Cycle for the Climate initiative, where people can raise money for rewilding through bike challenges – both big and small. And of course, we are forever grateful to people who choose to make regular and one-off donations to the charity. This is what we depend on to plan future projects and keep building towards a rewilded Highlands where people and nature enjoy a better relationship.

Trees for Life volunteers © Stephen Couling, Trees for Life

You can find out more about Trees for Life from their website and by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Author Interview: The Handbook of Acoustic Bat Detection

Acoustic detection is a popular and widespread method of environmental assessment, and its use is increasing, driven by the development of increasingly accessible and sophisticated detection devices. The Handbook of Acoustic Bat Detection provides an in-depth understanding of the principles of acoustic detection, study planning, data handling, properties of bat calls, analysis of results, and the manual identification of species. It also includes information on quality assurance, the benefits and drawbacks of automatic species recognition, and the background physics of sound.

We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to ask the authors some questions.

The applications of data derived from acoustic bat detection are diverse and wide-ranging. What motivated you to write The Handbook of Acoustic Bat Detection and what impact do you hope the book has in this field?

In our daily work, we have seen a lot of improper use of acoustic data. Mainly driven by misconceptions regarding the interpretation of acoustic data and quite often due to missing basic knowledge on bioacoustics and signal analysis. With the easy availability of acoustic detectors and the relative simple usage, these problems became more common, especially in consulting activities. Many new “bat experts” appeared in the field basing their work on automatic detection and identification systems. We hope to help such users to gain a basic understanding of bioacoustics and give more experienced users new information to further improve their work. Thus overall we hope to improve the quality of projects based on acoustic data and increase the evidence level.

This book discusses some of the different methods for processing acoustic data, such as zero-crossing. What are the benefits of this method versus full-spectrum analysis?

The main benefit of zero-crossing is the much smaller amount of data produced and the possibility of listening to the recorded sounds directly. Full-spectrum detectors produce much larger amounts of data and do not allow direct listening to the bat calls. Yet, the benefits of zero-crossing are decreasing with cheaper data storage and higher processing power. Thus today one can nearly instantaneously listen to full-spectrum sound resampled to zero-crossing or heterodyne representation in real-time. In our opinion, the real-time data gives more insights into the calls on a much easier-to-understand level, yet we accept that experts can do powerful analysis with zero-crossing data as well.

You have all had many years of experience in this field; how has bat detection and acoustic analysis developed and changed since you first started?

We started working on bat acoustics in the field when only heterodyne or zero-crossing detectors were available. So in our early days, we walked through the field listening for bats. We were already interested in better and more reliable species ID back then. Then the time-expansion system was available as well as the Anabat system. We used time-expansion a lot, but both didn’t work well for our scientific research interests. So we developed with the batcorder a real-time detector that completely changed bat work in Germany within a few years. Back in the beginning, sound analysis of bat calls was something only a few were able to do. Now with fully automated systems, the whole process changed. Surveys can run for multiple months nearly everywhere – not only ground-based but also on wind turbines or off-shore. We collect billions of bat calls a year with these systems and thus are able to learn more about their calls and ecology. Yet this is not always the best, since a lack of bat knowledge often prevents optimal solutions for bat-related landscape changes.

Bat acoustic recording visualised through the Anabat Insight Software

In chapter 11, ‘Quality assurance of reports’, you provide criteria to improve the quality of specialist reports used in impact assessments, such as which information should be included and the procedures that should be followed. How do you think the previous lack of clear guidelines has impacted bat surveying and, consequently, conservation?

In Germany, quite often surveys were conducted and it was later not possible to understand the low or high results since important information was missing. Also for legal complaints in planning processes, it was quite often impossible to understand how the data was actually sampled. If surveys and methods are well documented, it is much easier to evaluate the planning process and even more to work out optimal sampling schemes for following surveys in the new planning processes.

Now that this book is complete, do you have any future projects you would like to tell us about?

There are many projects – especially since we now face a major green-green dilemma with climate conservation often acting against biodiversity conservation. This especially is visible in the renewable energy sector. So currently some of us are investigating chances to further identify the possibilities of improving bat conservation for planning wind parks and other sources of renewables.

Another project is the ongoing improvement of species identification based on bat calls. We are working on new solutions to give better results.

The Handbook of Acoustic Bat Detection

Available for pre-order: Due September 2021

Paperback | £39.99

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

Author interview with Beat Wermelinger: Forest Insects in Europe

Forest Insects in Europe has been written not only with professional entomologists in mind, but also for nature lovers generally. The descriptions of the various roles insects play in forest ecosystems are intended to be easily comprehensible, but still scientific.

We recently caught up with the book’s author, Beat Wermelinger, who works as a Senior Scientist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL. His research interests include bark beetles and natural enemies, Biodiversity, windthrow succession, climate change and neozoa. Beat answered our questions in German and our bi-lingual team members were excited to translate these to English for us. Discover more below in both languages.

1) Could you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to write Forest Insects in Europe: Diversity, Functions and Importance?

I have been working at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL (Swiss Federal Institute WSL) (a forest research institute) for 30 years and until recently was the head of the entomology group. Simultaneously, I have also been teaching forest insects at the ETH Zurich. During this time, a large pool of knowledge and information has accumulated. I have also been a passionate insect photographer for just as long, which is reflected in an image database of around 16.000 insect photos. These two strands provided an ideal basis for conveying the importance and fascination of insects in one scientifically based book, which was also richly illustrated with photos, for both specialists and all those interested in nature.

Können Sie uns etwas über Ihren Hintergrund erzählen und wie Sie dazu kamen, Forest Insects in Europe: Diversity, Functions and Importance zu schreiben?

Seit 30 Jahren arbeite ich an der Eidgenössischen Forschungsanstalt WSL (Swiss Federal Institute WSL) (einem Waldforschungsinstitut) und leitete dort bis vor kurzem die Gruppe Entomologie. Zugleich unterrichte ich fast gleich lang zu Waldinsekten an der Hochschule ETH in Zürich. In dieser Zeit hat sich ein grosser Fundus an Kenntnissen und Informationen angesammelt. Ausserdem bin ich seit mindestens ebenso langer Zeit ein passionierter Insektenfotograf, was sich in einer Bilddatenbank von rund 16.000 Insektenbildern niedergeschlagen hat. Diese beiden Grundlagen boten eine ideale Basis, die Bedeutung und Faszination von Insekten in einem zwar wissenschaftlich fundierten, aber auch reich mit Fotos illustrierten Buch sowohl Fachpersonen als auch allen Naturinteressierten zu vermitteln.

2) The book tackles a vast array of insect groups and ecological functions – were there any particular challenges in collating so much information in one place?

Much of the information comes from my readings or lectures. However, since I wanted to portray the ecological and economic importance of forest insects as broadly as possible, I still had to review a lot of published material. Above all, I wanted to support quantitative data with accurate citations. Owing to the Internet, such research is easier today than it was 20 years ago… Fortunately, I also had my own photographs on almost all topics.

Das Buch befasst sich mit einer Vielzahl von Insektengruppen und Funktionen – gab es besondere Herausforderungen, so viele Informationen in einem Buch zusammenzufassen?

Ein wesentlicher Teil der Informationen stammt aus meinen Vorlesungen oder Vorträgen. Da ich aber die ökologische und ökonomische Bedeutung von Waldinsekten möglichst breit darstellen wollte, musste ich doch noch Einiges an Literaturarbeit leisten. Vor allem wollte ich quantitative Angaben mit korrekten Literaturzitaten abstützen. Dank dem Internet sind solche Recherchen heute einfacher als noch vor 20 Jahren… Erfreulicherweise hatte ich auch zu fast allen Themen eigene Bilder.

3) Are there any insect groups that hold a particular interest for you?

Professionally, I am mainly concerned with wood-dwelling insects. I am especially interested in the bark beetles, and their natural enemies as well as the intensive interactions with their host trees. Bark beetles are known to be pests, but they are also pioneers in the decay of wood. I also deal with the wood-dwelling longhorn beetles and jewel beetles, which often lend themselves to photography because of their size and beauty. For decades I have dealt with the development of their biodiversity after disruptive events such as storms or fire. The social red wood ants or the galling insects also fascinate me with their ingenious way of life.

Haben Sie eine Insektengruppe, an der Sie besonders interessiert sind?

Beruflich beschäftige ich mich vor allem mit holzbewohnenden Insekten. Mich interessieren die Borkenkäfer, ihre natürlichen Feinde und die intensiven Wechselwirkungen mit ihren Wirtsbäumen. Borkenkäfer sind zwar als Schädlinge bekannt, sie sind aber auch Pioniere beim Holzabbau. Weiter befasse ich mich mit den holzbewohnenden Bock- und Prachtkäfern (longhorn beetles, jewel beetles), die sich oft ihrer Grösse und Schönheit wegen auch zum Fotografieren anbieten. Über Jahrzehnte habe ich mich mit der Entwicklung ihrer Artenvielfalt nach Störungsereignissen wie Sturm oder Feuer beschäftigt. Auch die staatenbildenden Waldameisen (red wood ants) oder die gallbildenden Insekten (galling insects) faszinieren mich durch ihre ausgeklügelte Lebensweise.

4) In Chapter 18, you discuss the severe and widespread decline of several insect groups. What has caused so many species to dwindle in European forests? And what is being done to address these threats?

There are two main causes for the decline in much of the forest insect fauna. The intensive use of wood in the past centuries has led to the fact that the forest area in Europe has decreased significantly over a long period of time, the trees no longer reach their natural age phase, and there were almost no dead trees that could slowly rot. In the case of many wood-dwelling insects that are dependent on so-called habitat trees or develop in decayed, thick tree trunks, this has led to a severe threat to their biodiversity. In recent decades, the forest area has increased again and in many countries the preservation of old trees and dead wood is being promoted. However, the impact is still modest.

A second reason is the fact that many shrubs and pioneer tree species such as willow and poplar have disappeared and the forests have often become more monotonous and closed. This mainly affects the forest butterflies. Today, clearings are created on purpose from which not only these insects, but also other light-loving forest species such as certain orchids or birds can benefit.

In Kapitel 18, erwähnen Sie den verbreiteten Rückgang mehrerer Insektengruppen. Was hat den Rückgang so vieler Arten in den europäischen Wäldern verursacht? Und was wird getan, um diese Bedrohungen zu begegnen?

Es gibt hauptsächlich zwei Gründe für den Rückgang eines grossen Teils der Waldinsektenfauna. Die intensive Holznutzung der vergangenen Jahrhunderte hat dazu geführt, dass die Waldfläche in Europa über lange Zeit sehr stark abgenommen hat, die Bäume nicht mehr ihre natürliche Altersphase erreichten, und fast keine abgestorbenen Bäume vorhanden waren, die langsam verrotten konnten. Dies hat bei vielen holzbewohnenden Insekten, die auf sogenannte Habitatbäume angewiesen sind oder sich in toten, dicken Baumstämmen entwickeln, zu einer starken Bedrohung ihrer Artenvielfalt geführt. In den letzten Jahrzehnten hat die Waldfläche zwar wieder zugenommen und in vielen Ländern wird der Erhalt von alten Bäumen und Totholz gefördert. Die Auswirkungen sind jedoch noch bescheiden.

Ein zweiter Grund ist die Tatsache, dass durch die Bewirtschaftung viele Sträucher und Pionierbaumarten wie Weiden oder Pappeln verschwanden und die Wälder oft monotoner und dunkler geworden sind. Dies wirkt sich vor allem auf die Wald-Tagfalter (forest butterflies) aus. Heute werden gezielte Auflichtungen durchgeführt, von denen nicht nur diese Insekten, sondern auch andere lichtliebende Waldarten wie bestimmte Orchideen oder Vögel profitieren.

5) A particular highlight of the book is the wonderful collection of insect photographs, most taken by you. Do you have any advice for people interested in insect photography?

The main problem when photographing small objects is always to be able to focus as much as possible on them. This requires a small aperture and therefore a lot of light. I photograph everything “hand-held” and therefore the shutter speed should be short. For these reasons, I almost always use a ring flash with separately controllable halves and 100 mm macro lens with my SLR camera. Nonetheless, even cameras with a small sensor (even mobile phones!) can nowadays produce surprisingly good images of larger, less volatile insects.

In order to photograph an insect as sharply as possible, you should position yourself so that the insect is parallel to the camera. At least the eyes should always be sharp. Of course, you can also choose a different level of focus for special effects.

In addition to technology, you need an eye for the little things in nature, patience and always a bit of luck! Knowledge of the behavior of certain groups of insects can also come to great advantage.

Ein besonderes Highlight des Buches ist die wunderbare Sammlung von Insektenfotos, die meisten davon von Ihnen aufgenommen. Haben Sie Tipps für Leute, die sich für Insektenfotografie interessieren?

Das Hauptproblem beim Fotografieren von kleinen Objekten ist immer, einen möglichst grossen Teil davon scharf abbilden zu können. Dies erfordert eine kleine Blende und damit auch viel Licht. Ich fotografiere alles “aus der Hand” und deshalb sollte die Verschlusszeit kurz sein. Aus diesen Gründen verwende ich mit meiner Spiegelreflexkamera und dem 100 mm Makroobjektiv fast immer einen Ringblitz mit separat steuerbaren Blitzhälften. Aber auch Kameras mit kleinem Sensor (sogar Handys!) bringen bei grösseren, wenig flüchtigen Insekten heutzutage erstaunlich gute Bilder. Um ein Insekt möglichst scharf abzulichten, sollte man sich so positionieren, dass das Insekt möglichst parallel zur Kamera steht. Mindestens die Augen sollten immer scharf sein. Natürlich kann man die Schärfenebene für spezielle Effekte auch anders wählen.

Zusätzlich zur Technik braucht es aber vor allem das Auge für die kleinen Dinge der Natur, Geduld und immer auch etwas Glück! Auch Kenntnisse des Verhaltens bestimmter Insektengruppen sind von grossem Vorteil.

6) What’s next for you? Do you have any projects that you are currently involved in that you would like to tell us about?

Professionally I am still working for another year, but of course my interest in insects will not vanish when I retire. I would like to use my pictures in other ways and maybe do another book. Above all, not surprisingly I would like to use the time to photograph insects in the great outdoors.

Was kommt als Nächstes für Sie? Haben Sie Projekte, an denen Sie aktuell beteiligt sind und die Sie mit uns teilen können?

Beruflich bin ich noch ein Jahr tätig, aber damit erlischt mein Interesse an Insekten natürlich nicht. Ich würde gerne meine Bilder noch anderweitig in Wert setzen und vielleicht noch ein weiteres Buch in dieser Art machen. Vor allem aber möchte ich die Zeit nutzen, um – wen wundert’s – in der freien Natur Insekten zu fotografieren.

Forest Insects in Europe Diversity, Functions and Importance
By: Beat Wermelinger
Paperback | July 2021| £42.99 ~~£49.99~~

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.