Book Review: What Nature Does for Britain

'What Nature Does for Britain' is Tony Juniper's follow up to 'What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?' (see my review here) and is based on how us Brits benefit from nature's free services.   Juniper was once Executive Director of Friends of the Earth (England, Wales, and Northern Ireland) and is still an environmentalist, campaigner, writer, and sustainability advisor, so has just a little bit of experience and knowledge in this field.

Published in 2015, it goes through the number of environmental services, such as clean water, food supply, and flood protection, that we take for granted and pay nothing for.  Juniper also shows us that we're not only damaging the systems that actually protect us, thinking we're reducing costs and allowing the continuation of economic progress but that this actually doesn't make economic sense.  The damage we do now will not only cost us in the future, but is actually costing us right now.  Take for instance the subsidies we are giving farmers to be more 'productive' which has actually led to damaging the soil and the high use of fertilisers, causing runoffs into our local water systems, that then cost us to clean before we can use it in our homes.  By supporting nature and the natural systems we already have in place in Britain, such as flood plains, beavers, peat bogs, etc, we are in fact supporting ourselves.  However, 'What Nature Does for Britain' doesn't just cover what services we're getting already but also talks about how the restoration of additional ecosystems could really benefit us in the long term.

Each chapter starts with three facts about the intended subject and ends with Juniper writing down the manifesto he would like to see the British Government take on board.  These nine chapters cover everything from the animals who help pollinate and protect our food, to reducing floods, capturing carbon, obtaining sustainable energy, and treating mental illnesses.  It shows how, by working with nature in all these fields, we could save quite a bit of money in a more indirect, but resilient, manner.  One that works for everyone.

There were two things I found most interesting in this book.  First was the examples of businesses actively choosing to work with nature to protect their future and prosper financially, such as Thatchers who are encouraging the bees that are needed to pollinate their apple trees.  The second was the idea of integrating payments together.  So instead of paying for farmer's subsidies, water bills, and flood protection separately despite the fact they are all interlinked, we could pay to a system which would work with farmers to reduce the runoffs and clean up costs, and with both farmers and water boards to protect and develop ecosystems that greatly help with the reduction in flooding.  Instead of just paying subsidies etc, we would be making payments for 'ecosystems services'.

Possibly the saddest thing about this book is that it shows just how little has actually been done in the five years since it was published.  In fact you could almost argue that we're going backwards in some of the areas.  To make this work would require us to make new policies, laws, and redirect how our finances are being spent, and I have to admit I don't have a lot of hope for those we have in our Government at the moment (they gain too much by the status quo and seem to think they know best).  However, I can also see that there are those that have the knowledge to take us forward, that is is possible as many of the examples from companies making money from their activities have shown, that it won't halt progress, and that it will benefit us greatly in the long run.  So there is a little hope there, and perhaps now, with us coming through Covid-19 and Brexit, is the perfect time to make those changes.

Definitely give it a read.

Book Review: What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?

'What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?' is one of the many books that I had sitting in my mini library not being read, despite the fact that I really wanted to, partly because I didn't really have the time and partly because I had so many books to read.  But, I'm glad I decided to finally pull it out of the box all my books now sit in and give it a read.  

The author, Tony Juniper, is a British campaigner and environmentalist who advises on sustainability and was the Executive Director of Friends of the Earth.  However, if you think that the Friends of the Earth connection means that this book is going to be wishy washy, slightly hippy, and full of emotion instead of facts you'd be very wrong.  Instead, it is very to the point and full of researched data, coupled with information that Juniper has collected in his role as a sustainability adviser to many companies and governments.  All this whilst still being a very easy read.

The book itself looks at the services that nature has been and still is providing for us completely free of charge and which we completely take for granted.  In fact, these services are so taken for granted most of us don't even realise they are happening.  If put into actual financial terms it has been calculated that these services are worth twice the global GDP.  These services include bees pollinating our food, the recycling of nutrients and carbon capture in our soils, oxygen production in forests, birds protecting crops from 'pest' species, corals and mangroves protecting coastlines from storms, and the, as yet, untapped genetic codebook in the natural world which still have potential pharmaceutical uses.

However, the loss of these services would not just be a financial one with us having to actually pay to do the services ourselves, but there are also additional negative knock on effects which are far more important then the loss of finances.  Take, for example, the Indian vultures whose populations have been decimated by the use of the painkiller diclofenac in livestock which the vultures fed on.  The concentration that had accumulated in the vultures bodies has led to kidney failure in the birds and the loss of these birds meant that the free service they provided of removing carcasses from the landscape was gone.  The financial cost for this service to be done by humans is large and practically unattainable for many people in the area.  But the main knock on effect wasn't the finances but the rise in rabies related deaths in the human population.  With no vultures around to be the led consumers of the carcasses stray dogs began eating the meat and their population dramatically increased, along with the number of dogs carrying rabies and the number of dog bites in humans.  

Perhaps the most interesting part of this book was the way it looked at how our financial systems are run and the idea that pervades through them that nature and economy are separate issues and, of course, that we shouldn't allow one (nature) to affect the growth of the other (finances).  But, as Juniper points out, this is a false economy.  So many of our industries rely on these free services (fishing being the most obvious one) and destroying nature would have a serious negative impact on the global economy.  And yet, most of our economic advisers and ministers seem to be incapable of moving away from the old school idea we have of economy to include this crucial component.  Some companies are starting to realise the important steps they need to take, including M&S and Unilever, but we really need our Governments to take the next step too.  These services aren't limitless as we live in a closed system and losing them would be devastating.  

This is a great book and I would definitely recommend reading it (especially if you're a financial adviser).  The phrase 'but we just can't afford it' just isn't accurate now that we know just how much we rely on nature to keep us safe, healthy, and alive.  The fact is we can't afford to not put nature first.  I will end with Juniper's ending sentences (and my favourite in the book) which is 'The alternative is to carry on as we are now.  After all, what had nature ever done for us?'