Duke Research: Creating Knowledge. Serving Society

Stuart Pimm, Ph.D. is the Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences. His globe-trotting research examines species extinction, habitat loss, introduced species, and conservation management.

I participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count and winter bird counting for Cornell’s Laboratory of Ornithology. Is this kind of information helpful in determining habitat availability, changes in habitat and biodiversity? Are there other “citizen science” opportunities to monitor animals and their habitats?

Well that makes two of us! That alone tells you that these efforts are important. Moreover, I’ve been doing citizen science counts of various kinds since I was a teenager (in Britain) over 40 years ago.

Take the backyard count, for example. I do field work in the Florida Everglades and the last couple of years, I’ve been in Key Largo, Florida for the count, preparing for that research. I often get three species that few others see (and sometimes no one) — black hooded parakeets, black-throated blue warblers, and yellow-throated vireo. The first is an example of just how careless we have been in moving species around the world. (Collared doves are now probably Key Largo’s most common bird.) Introduced species are a major cause of species extinctions around the world. Counts like these (and the Christmas Bird Count) provide the best data on the spread of such species.

The other two species are surely becoming more common in the Keys in winter and global warming is likely the cause. (The vireo is particularly interested in this context.)

These sources are more than just anecdotes. Check out the work of Dr. Terry Root at Stanford. She’s one of those 1000+ scientists who just shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Almost all of her work comes from citizen science data — and she’s a leading international figure in showing the biological consequences of climate change.

Has the increased awareness about climate change and tropical rainforest destruction had any effect on the rate of forest decline? I get the sense that it’s individual subsistence farmers doing the most damage, and that they’re pretty much outside the influence of government or anyone else.

It’s complicated. My Nicholas School colleague Professor Norman Myers, has shown that in addition to the shifting cultivator — the man who cuts the forest, plants in the burned ashes, then moves on in a couple of years — there’s a huge class of shifted cultivators — families who have been evicted from their original lands, usually by violence by well-organized, large-scale ranching operations. And, of course, there’s a lot of large scale clearing for crops and cattle. Is the rate of deforestation slowing? No. But it’s clear that the world’s attention is increasingly focused on forest losses. For one thing, burning tropical forests contributes about 20% of the human contribution to carbon emissions! So, the four major polluters are the US, China, Brazil and Indonesia.

We can change that.

What can I do in my everyday activities and choices to help maintain the planet’s biodiversity?

Here’s what I do:

My wife and I have made sensible choices about energy use. We have one car, live where our travel to work and shops is modest, our home is well-shaded to the south, and I’ve now nearly replaced all my light bulbs with efficient ones.

We only eat sustainably harvested fish, using one of the various wallet cards to guide our choices. More generally, we try to make “green” consumer choices.

I run a small non-profit, www.savingspecies.org. We recommend excellent small NGOs around the world that buy up degraded forest in biodiversity-rich places. That soaks up a lot of carbon dioxide — the purchase that the group made late last year will eventually offset 100,000 tons and it helps save some the most threatened species in the Americas. Of course, I’d like you to contribute!

We get the political leadership we deserve. I visit House and Senate members and their staffs regularly and, especially when I’m in Florida, the county commissioners. You don’t have to go to DC to do this — our elected officials are in their districts a lot too. We elect them, not the other way around. Ask for a meeting. Prepare for the meeting carefully. Tell the member what are your environmental concerns — and ask him/her to do something about them. Yes I know this sounds like Civics 101. But I’m amazed by how few of my friends, colleagues, and students get involved. I have two specific suggestions below.

Between Florida’s urbanization and the aggressive invasive species like Hydrilla, is there any hope for saving what’s left of the Everglades, or are they already too damaged?

No; we can still save them. The Everglades are in a mess, however, and some very expensive restoration efforts are seriously flawed. Billions of dollars have gone to useless engineering and almost nothing to helping nature. This is politics. Complain to the politicians and let them know you care.

After attending Will Steger’s talk at Duke about the melting of Earth’s polar regions, I concluded that it is impossible to halt or slow the warming trend in time to save the polar bear. Do you agree that this majestic animal is bound for extinction in the wild?

No, we can still save it. We have to do something fast about global warming — energy efficiency, alternative fuels, stopping deforestation, and re-growing degraded forests are all solutions. The polar bear ought to be a federally endangered species. This administration is dragging its feet on this — and every other endangered species in our nation. (I spent the third week in January in DC complaining about such matters.)

Let your elected officials know that you care about polar bears — and the appalling changes to our planet that are causing its decline. The Secretary of the Interior has postponed the decision. Write to complain.

Next Month:

How does water move in the environment? What makes it wet in one place and dry in another? Post a question of your own about rainfall and drought, global patterns of water movement and how we go about measuring these things to environmental engineer Ana Barros.