| Trust says "wake up to global warming" | |
|  | | Devon's lush green fields...are they under threat? |
| | The Devon Wildlife Trust says the planet's entire life support system is under threat by global warming. The trust issued the warning to coincide with an international conference on global warming in Exeter. |
| | | Imagine Devon under water, with coastal areas regularly flooded. Or Devon's lush, green countryside transformed into a parched landscape where plants and animals struggle to survive.
You don't think this can happen? Then you could be wrong.
The county's main conservation charity, the Devon Wildlife Trust, believes that global warming threatens everything around us.
The trust has issued the warning to coincide with a major international conference on global warming being held in Exeter.
It also follows a warning from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) that changes to the weather may endanger places like the Exe Estuary, which is an important reserve for many species of bird.
The conference, at the Met Office, is sponsored by the Government's farming department, Defra. The trust is taking this opportunity to highlight how global warming will affect all of us - unless measures are taken to reduce it.
 | | Paul Gompertz |
Trust director Paul Gompertz said: "Not before time, the world is beginning to take climate change seriously and Tony Blair is using his term as president of the G8 group of leading industrial nations to draw attention to the urgent need to address its impacts.
"Wildlife has been in decline in Devon for a long time now, mainly as a result of human activity.
"The Devon Wildlife Trust concluded long ago that there is an urgent need to put back what has been lost - to rebuild biodiversity - because all our lives are so dependent on a healthy natural world."
He added: "We are involved only because the conference is here in Devon. Wherever it had been in the world, there would have been an organisation like us, keen to do their bit.
"We are delighted to have been asked and see it as a sign that the implications for wildlife are moving up alongside flood defence and the cost of insurance as issues to address.
"Indeed, the final session on Day 1 is 'Key vulnerabilities for ecosystems and biodiversity' and one of our roles will be to take people to look at likely impacts on the ground in Devon.
 | | A godwit on the Exe Estuary - an area which could be hit by global warming |
"Avoiding dangerous climate change might well involve dealing with coastal flooding, with infrastructure damage from flood and drought, with disruption to transport links and the like.
"But the most dangerous consequence of climate change could be the disruption of the planet's whole life support system.
"We are just one of the countless wildlife conservation bodies worldwide which have been saying for years that the steady reduction in the variety and amount of life on earth has reduced its ability to support the dominant species - people.
"Wildlife has been marginalised when it should be the heart and lungs of a living planet.
"Now we are beginning to realise that climate change impacts will be dramatic, widespread and long lasting, even if we manage soon to avoid further damage."
The trust says it's not too late to reverse the trend.
But the trust's Wildlife Champions Manager, Richard White, said action is needed now:"It is crucial for the South West Wildlife Trusts and our colleagues in the South West Biodiversity Partnership to work together to rebuild biodiversity across the region.
"If we can learn to think on a bigger scale, creating more wildlife habitat and getting more of the countryside under sympathetic management then we will give wildlife the space to adapt to climate change."
Article published: 1st February 2005.
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