̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Rhys Green

Pledge to phase out toxic lead ammunition in UK hunting by 2025 has failed

jg533 — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 09:14:35 +0000

̽��ֱ��pledge, made in February 2020 by the UK’s nine leading game shooting and rural organisations, aimed to benefit wildlife and the environment and ensure a market for the healthiest game meat food products.

But a Cambridge team, working with the ̽��ֱ�� of the Highlands and Islands, has consistently shown that lead shot was not being phased out quickly enough to achieve a complete voluntary transition to non-toxic ammunition by 2025. In a final study, published on 6 March in the journal Conservation Evidence, the team concludes that the intended transition has failed.

̽��ֱ��team has closely monitored the impact of the pledge every year since its introduction, recruiting expert volunteers to buy whole pheasants from butchers, game dealers and supermarkets across Britain and recover embedded shotgun pellets for analysis.

In 2025, the study - called SHOT-SWITCH - found that of 171 pheasants found to contain shot, 99% had been killed with lead ammunition.

This year, for the first time, the team also analysed shotgun pellets found in red grouse carcasses shot in the 2024/25 shooting season and on sale through butchers’ shops and online retailers. In all 78 grouse carcasses from which any shot was recovered, the shot was lead.

“Many members of the shooting community had hoped that the voluntary pledge away from lead ammunition would avert the need for regulation. But the voluntary route has now been tested - with efforts made by many people - and it has not been successful,” said Professor Rhys Green in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and lead author of the report.

Eating game meat killed using lead shot will expose people unnecessarily to additional dietary lead. Lead is toxic to humans even in very small concentrations; the development of the nervous system in young and unborn children is especially sensitive to its effects. As a result, many food safety agencies now advise that young children and pregnant women should avoid, or minimise, eating game meat from animals killed using lead ammunition.

Discarded shot from hunting also poisons and kills many tens of thousands of the UK’s wild birds each year.

Despite proposing the voluntary change, many shooting organisations and some individual shooters do not support proposed regulatory restrictions on lead ammunition.

Green said: “Private individuals pay a lot of money to shoot pheasants on some private estates - and people don’t like to change their habits. It’s a bit like wearing car seatbelts, or not smoking in pubs. Despite the good reasons for doing these things, some people were strongly against using regulation to achieve those changes, which are now widely accepted as beneficial. ̽��ֱ��parallel with shooting game with lead shotgun ammunition is striking.”

Danish shooters now say that the legal ban on lead introduced in Denmark around 30 years ago was justified. They say it has not reduced the practicality or popularity of their sport, and has increased its acceptability to wider society.

“Although a few large UK estates have managed to enforce non-lead ammunition on pheasant shoots, some have had to be quite draconian in order to do it, with the estate gamekeepers insisting on loading the guns for the shooters,” added Green.

In the 2020/21 and 2021/22 shooting seasons, over 99% of the pheasants studied were shot using lead ammunition. This figure dropped slightly to 94% in 2022/23 and 93% in 2023/24, with the remaining pheasants killed by ammunition made of steel or a metal called bismuth, before rising to 99% again in 2024/25.

Retail pressure

̽��ֱ��researchers also checked up on a pledge made by Waitrose in 2019 to stop selling game killed with lead ammunition.

They found that the retailer had been largely let down by suppliers, and that some of their shooters continued to shoot using lead despite making assurances to the contrary. As a result, Waitrose did not sell oven-ready pheasants at all between 2021 and 2023. It sold pheasants again in January 2024 and the 2024/25 season, but the researchers showed that the majority had been killed using lead shot.

In 2022 the National Game Dealers Association (NGDA), which buys game and sells it to the public and food retailers, also announced it would no longer sell game of any kind that had been shot using lead ammunition. But this pledge has since been withdrawn. ̽��ֱ��researchers bought 2024/25 season pheasants from three NGDA member businesses and found that all had been shot with lead ammunition.

Inside influence

̽��ֱ��researchers also analysed all articles relating to the voluntary transition published in the magazine of the UK’s largest shooting organisation, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. They found that articles near the beginning of the five-year pledge communicated clear, frequent and positive messages about the effectiveness and practicality of non-lead shotgun ammunition.

But by 2023, mentions of the transition and encouragement to follow it had dropped dramatically.

̽��ֱ��upshot

At the request of the Defra Secretary of State, the UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has assessed the risks to the environment and human health posed by lead in shot and bullets. Its report, published in December 2024, proposes that the UK Government bans the use of lead shot and large calibre bullets for game shooting because of the risks they pose to the environment and health. This recommendation is currently under review by Defra ministers, with a response due in March 2025.

Steel shotgun pellets are a practical alternative to lead and can be used in the vast majority of shotguns, as can other safe lead-free alternatives. But the results of this study indicate UK hunters remain unwilling to make the switch voluntarily.

Since 2010, UK governments have preferred voluntary controls over regulation in many areas of environment and food policy and have suggested that regulation be used only as a last resort.

“Shooting organisations did a lot of questionnaire surveys when the pledge was introduced in 2020, and the results suggested many shooters thought the time had come to switch away from lead ammunition. Those responses stand in contrast to what we’ve actually measured for both pheasant and grouse,” said study co-author Dr Mark Taggart at the ̽��ֱ�� of the Highlands and Islands.

Toxic lead

A previous study led by Green and colleagues found that pheasants killed by lead shot contained many fragments of lead too small to detect by eye or touch, and too distant from the shot to be removed without throwing away a large proportion of otherwise useable meat. This means that eating pheasant killed using lead shot is likely to expose consumers to raised levels of lead in their diet, even if the meat is carefully prepared to remove whole shotgun pellets and the most damaged tissue.

Lead has been banned from use in paint and petrol for decades. It is toxic to humans when absorbed by the body and there is no known safe level of exposure. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause long-term harm, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease in adults. Lead is known to lower IQ in young children and affect the neurological development of unborn babies.

̽��ֱ��studies were part-funded by the RSPB, Waitrose & Partners, and an anonymous donor. They were supported by a group of unpaid volunteers, who are co-authors of the reports.

References

Green, R E et al: ‘ ̽��ֱ��proportion of common pheasants shot using lead shotgun ammunition in Britain has barely changed despite five years of voluntary efforts to switch from lead to non-lead ammunition.’ March 2025, Conservation Evidence. DOI: 10.52201/CEJ22/EXYS6184

Green, R E et al.: ‘Sampling of red grouse carcasses in Britain indicates no progress during an intended five-year voluntary transition from lead to non-lead shotgun ammunition.’ February 2025, Conservation Evidence. DOI: 10.52201/CEJ22/YYWM1722

A voluntary pledge made by UK shooting organisations in 2020 to replace lead shot with non-toxic alternatives by 2025 has failed, analysis by Cambridge researchers finds.

̽��ֱ��voluntary route has now been tested - with efforts made by many people - and it has not been successful.

Rhys Green

Andy Hay, RSPB

Adult pheasant

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Dogs may be at risk from high levels of lead from shotgun pellets in raw pheasant dog food, study finds

cg605 — Wed, 03 May 2023 00:01:30 +0000

Lead is a toxic metal that negatively affects body systems of people and animals, with the nervous system being particularly sensitive. Although elevated levels of dietary lead are potentially damaging to animal health, lead shot can be legally used for hunting terrestrial gamebirds, like pheasants, in the UK. While most pheasants are eaten by people, some are used in petfood.

Cambridge researchers analysed 90 samples taken from three raw pheasant dog food products bought in the UK and found that 77% of samples had lead concentrations exceeding the maximum residue level (MRL) permitted in animal feed according to law. Mean lead concentrations of the three products were approximately 245, 135 and 49 times higher than the MRL.

̽��ֱ��results are published today in the journal Ambio.

“We were already aware that lead concentrations in pheasant meat sold for human consumption are often far higher than would be permitted in other meats like chicken, beef or pork” said lead author Professor Debbie Pain of Cambridge’s Zoology Department. “However, we were surprised to find that lead concentrations in raw pheasant dog food products were so much higher”

̽��ֱ��mean lead concentration in the raw pheasant dog food analysed was 34 times higher than that recently reported in pheasant meat sold for people to eat, which itself is considered to be too high. Researchers say this could be because raw pheasant meat is normally minced when used for dogfood whereas whole birds or pheasant breasts are generally sold for human consumption. Mincing may fragment lead shot, increasing the number of small lead particles in the meat and the potential for lead to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

̽��ֱ��researchers say that dogs eating food with such high concentrations of lead, especially if they are fed on it frequently or as their main diet, are at risk of harm to their health. Puppies are particularly vulnerable both because young animals tend to absorb more of the lead they swallow than full-grown animals, and the developing nervous system is particularly affected by lead.

̽��ֱ��scientists tested five pheasant-based dog food products. Three of these were raw meat products, one was a dried pheasant and partridge product, and one was a processed tinned pheasant and goose-based product. Three equivalent chicken-based petfood products (raw meat, dried and processed) were also assessed.

In addition to the raw pheasant dog food, levels of lead above the MRL were identified in some samples of the dried pheasant-based product, although the mean concentration was far lower than in the raw products. None of the samples from the chicken-based products or the tinned pheasant and goose-based product contained unacceptable levels of lead.

̽��ֱ��popularity of raw meat diets for pets is increasing across the UK – a nation which is home to an estimated 13 million dogs and 12 million cats. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that raw dog food including pheasant meat was widely available in the UK. Raw pheasant pet food was sold by 34% of the 50 online raw pet food suppliers they checked – 71% of these stated that the meat may contain shot.

“ ̽��ֱ��fact that most samples from three randomly sampled raw pheasant pet food products had very high lead concentrations, and that our recent research on shot types used to kill pheasants found that 94% are shot with lead, suggests that this is a far broader issue than for just these three products,” said co-author Professor Rhys Green. “However, some producers may source pheasants that have not been shot with lead, and owners could ask about this when buying pet food.”

̽��ֱ��study of shot types in pheasants sold for human consumption is part of a body of research assessing the effectiveness of a voluntary ban in the UK on lead shotgun ammunition to shoot wild quarry, which is being phased in over a five-year period from February 2020. Nine major shooting organisations committed to this, for sustainability reasons, considering wildlife, the environment and also to ensure a market for the healthiest game products.

Cambridge scientists have consistently found compliance with the voluntary ban to be low, which is in line with other studies investigating other voluntary bans. However, a total ban in Denmark has been shown to be very effective.

A ban on the sale and use of lead gunshot, along with restrictions on lead bullets, is currently being considered under the UK REACH Chemicals Regulation.

̽��ֱ��analytical costs of this research were funded by Wild Justice.

D. Pain, R. E. Green, N. Bates, M. Guiu, M. A. Taggart, Lead concentrations in commercial dogfood containing pheasant in the UK, Ambio. DOI: 10.1007/s13280-023-01856-x

Researchers tested samples of raw pheasant dog food and discovered that the majority contained high levels of lead that could put dogs’ health at risk if they eat it frequently.

24K-Production / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Dog eating raw meat

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Voluntary UK initiatives to phase out toxic lead shot for pheasant hunting have had little impact

jg533 — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��pledge, made in 2020 by nine major UK game shooting and rural organisations, aims to protect the natural environment and ensure a safer supply of game meat for consumers. Lead is toxic even in very small concentrations, and discarded shot from hunting poisons and kills tens of thousands of the UK’s wild birds each year.

A Cambridge-led team of 17 volunteers bought whole pheasants from butchers, game dealers and supermarkets across the UK in 2022-23. They dissected the birds at home and recovered embedded shotgun pellets from 235 of the 356 pheasant carcasses.

̽��ֱ��main metal present in each shotgun pellet was revealed through laboratory analysis - conducted at the Environmental Research Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of the Highlands and Islands, UK. Lead was the main element in 94% of the recovered shot pellets; the remaining 6% were predominantly composed of steel or a metal called bismuth.

̽��ֱ��results are published today in the Conservation Evidence Journal.

At the request of the Defra Secretary of State, the UK Health & Safety Executive assessed the risks to the environment and human health posed by lead in shots and bullets. Their report proposes that the use of lead ammunition be banned, and this is currently under review. While remaining committed to phasing out lead shot voluntarily, many shooting organisations do not support the proposed regulatory restrictions.

“If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so far,” said Professor Rhys Green in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, first author of the study.

He added: “ ̽��ֱ��small decrease in the proportion of birds shot with lead in the latest UK shooting season is nowhere near on track to achieve a complete transition to non-toxic ammunition in the next two years.”

This is the third consecutive year the team has conducted the analysis. Their latest study shows a small improvement on the 2021/22 and 2021/20 shooting seasons, when over 99% of the pheasants studied were shot using lead ammunition.

In separate initiatives, some suppliers of game meat for human consumption - including Waitrose & Partners - have voluntarily announced their intention to stop selling game killed using lead shot. An assurance scheme has also been launched to encourage suppliers and retailers to facilitate the transition.

̽��ֱ��team did not find any pheasant on sale in Waitrose in 2022/23 despite repeated visits to 15 different stores. Waitrose staff reported that the company had not been sufficiently assured by any supplier in 2022/23 that all pheasants had been killed using non-lead ammunition.

“Waitrose is the only retailer we know of fully complying with the pledge not to supply pheasant killed using lead, but it’s only managing this by not selling any pheasant at all,” said Green.

Steel shotgun pellets are a practical alternative to lead, and the vast majority of shotguns can use them or other safe lead-free alternatives. Shooting magazines and UK shooting organisations have communicated positive messages for three years about the effectiveness and practicality of non-lead shotgun ammunition.

Shooting and rural organisations - including the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust - have consistently provided information and detailed guidance to encourage the transition from lead to non-lead ammunition since 2020.

“Denmark banned lead shotgun ammunition in 1996, and a successful transition was made to steel and bismuth. It’s safer for the environment and gives game shooting a better image,” said Green.

A previous study led by Green found that pheasants killed by lead shot contain many fragments of lead too small to detect by eye or touch, and too distant from the shot to be removed without throwing away a large proportion of otherwise useable meat. This means that eating pheasant killed using lead shot is likely to expose consumers to raised levels of lead in their diet, even if the meat is carefully prepared to remove whole shotgun pellets and the most damaged tissue.

Lead has been banned from use in paint and petrol for decades. It is toxic to humans when absorbed by the body and there is no known safe level of exposure. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause long-term harm, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease in adults. Lead is known to lower IQ in young children, and affect the neurological development of unborn babies.

Funding from the RSPB and Waitrose supported this work.

Reference

Green, R.E. et al: ‘Voluntary transition by hunters and game-meat suppliers from lead to non-lead ammunition: changes in practice after three years.’ Conservation Evidence Journal, February 2023. DOI 10.52201/CEJ19/SAFD8835

Three years into a five-year pledge to completely phase out lead shot in UK game hunting, a Cambridge study finds that 94% of pheasants on sale for human consumption were killed using lead.

If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so far

Rhys Green

Andy Hay, RSPB images

Pheasant

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Pheasant meat sold for food found to contain many tiny shards of toxic lead

jg533 — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:00:31 +0000

A study has found that pheasants killed by lead shot contain many fragments of lead too small to detect by eye or touch, and too distant from the shot to be removed without throwing away a large proportion of otherwise useable meat.

Lead fragments often form when lead shotgun pellets hit the bodies of gamebirds. ̽��ֱ��fragments become lodged deep within the meat.

Researchers examined the carcasses of eight wild-shot common pheasants, killed on a farmland shoot using lead shotgun ammunition and on sale in a UK butcher’s shop. They found small lead fragments embedded in every pheasant, in addition to lead shotgun pellets in seven of them.

̽��ֱ��researchers found up to 10mg of tiny lead shards per pheasant, all of which were much too small to be detected by eye or by touch.

Lead is toxic to humans when absorbed by the body – there is no known safe level of exposure. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause long-term harm, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney damage in adults. It is known to lower IQ in young children, and affect the neurological development of unborn babies.

“While lead gunshot continues to be used for hunting, people who eat pheasants and other similar gamebirds are very likely to be also consuming a lot of tiny lead fragments,” said Professor Rhys Green in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, and first author of the study.

An earlier study in rats showed that when consumed, more lead is absorbed into the body from smaller fragments than from larger ones.

“It seems to have been widely assumed in the past that a lead shot embedded in a pheasant carcass remained intact, and could be removed cleanly before the pheasant was eaten – removing any health risk. Our study has shown the extent to which this is really not the case,” said Green.

He added: “By eating pheasant, people are also unwittingly eating lead, which is toxic.”

“One pheasant is a reasonable meal for two or three people. Consuming this much lead occasionally wouldn’t be a great cause for concern – but we know that there are thousands of people in the UK who eat game meat, often pheasant, every week.”

Around 11,000 tonnes of meat from wild-shot gamebirds, mostly pheasant, are eaten in the UK every year. Virtually all pheasants shot in the UK for human consumption are killed using lead shot.

̽��ֱ��researchers used a high-resolution CT (computerised tomography) scanner to locate the lead fragments in the pheasant meat in three dimensions, and measure their size and weight. ̽��ֱ��meat was then dissolved, allowing the larger fragments to be extracted and analysed further to confirm they were lead.

An average of 3.5 lead pellets and 39 lead fragments of less than 1mm wide were detected per pheasant. ̽��ֱ��smallest fragments were 0.07mm wide – at the limit of resolution for the CT scanner for specimens of this size - and the researchers say it is likely that even smaller fragments were also present.

̽��ֱ��lead pieces were widely distributed within the birds’ tissues and some of the small fragments were over 50mm from the nearest lead shot pellet.

̽��ֱ��results are published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

“It’s rare for people eating game meat to accidentally eat a whole lead shot, because they’re cautious about damaging their teeth and know to check for lead shotgun pellets in the meat. But the lead fragments we found in pheasant carcasses were so tiny and widely distributed that it’s very unlikely they would be detected and removed,” said Green.

There are no UK or EU regulations about the maximum allowable levels of lead in human food from wild-shot game animals. This is in contrast with strict maximum levels for lead in many other foods including meat from cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry, and shellfish harvested from the wild.

Steel shotgun pellets are a practical alternative to lead, and their use in place of lead for hunting is recommended by UK shooting organisations. But there is very little evidence of a voluntary switch away from lead being made. ̽��ֱ��UK Health & Safety Executive is currently preparing a case for banning the use of lead ammunition for hunting in the UK, and the European Chemicals Agency is doing the same for Europe.

Other game including partridge, grouse and rabbit is also mainly shot using lead shotgun pellets, and wild deer are shot using lead bullets. Hunters often remove the guts of deer carcasses to make them lighter to carry, and the discarded guts - which often contain many bullet fragments - are eaten by wildlife, which then also suffer the harmful effects of consuming lead.

This research was funded by ̽��ֱ��Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Reference

Green, R.E. et al. ‘Implications for food safety of the size and location of fragments of lead shotgun pellets embedded in hunted carcasses of small game animals intended for human consumption.’ PLOS ONE, August 2022. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268089

Eating pheasant killed using lead shot is likely to expose consumers to raised levels of lead in their diet, even if the meat is carefully prepared to remove the shotgun pellets and the most damaged tissue.

By eating pheasant, people are also unwittingly eating lead, which is toxic.

Professor Rhys Green

Robert Trevis-Smith on Getty

Pheasant

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Birds of prey populations suppressed by lead poisoning from gun ammo

fpjl2 — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:48:49 +0000

New study uses data on lead levels in the livers of thousands of dead raptors to calculate the impact of lead poisoning on population size.

These birds will soon go extinct. But their disappearance need not be in vain.

jg533 — Wed, 19 May 2021 19:11:36 +0000

̽��ֱ��White-tailed Swallow and Ethiopian Bush-crow are living in ‘climatic lifeboats’ with their tiny ranges restricted on all sides by temperature and rainfall patterns. Even under moderate climate warming, models predict a severe loss of suitable climate for these birds within the next 50 years - dramatically heightening their risk of extinction.

Demise of large animals caused by both man and climate change

gm349 — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:01:33 +0000

Past waves of extinctions which removed some of the world’s largest animals were caused by both people and climate change, according to new research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. Their findings were reported today, 05 March, in the journal PNAS.

By examining extinctions during the late Quaternary period (from 700,000 year ago until present day), but primarily focusing on the last 100,000 years, scientists have been able to assess the relative importance of different factors in causing the extinctions of many of the world’s terrestrial megafauna, animals 44 kg or larger. These extinctions included mammoths in North America and Eurasia as well as mastodons and giant sloths in the Americas, the woolly rhino in Europe, giant kangaroos and wombats in Australia, and the moas (giant flightless birds) in New Zealand.

̽��ֱ��researchers used data from an Antarctic ice core, which gives one of the longest running records of changes in the earth’s climate, covering the last several hundred thousand years. They also compiled information on the arrival of modern humans from Africa on five different landmasses (North America, South America, most of Eurasia, Australia and New Zealand).

By conducting a statistical analysis using both the climatic information and the timing of arrival of modern humans, they were able to determine whether the pattern of extinctions across landmasses was best explained by climate change, the arrival of modern humans, or both. They concluded that it was a combination of both the arrival of man (probably through hunting or habitat alteration) as well as climate change which caused the extinctions.

̽��ֱ��authors believe that the research provides insights into the consequences of pressures on megafauna living today, including tigers, polar bears, elephants and rhinos.

Graham Prescott, currently a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and co-author on the paper, highlighted how their research may inform us about the current plight facing large animals: “Our research suggests that a combination of human pressure and climate change was able to cause the extinctions of many large animals in the past. Many large, charismatic animals today are threatened by both hunting pressure and changes in climate; if we do not take action to address these issues we may see further extinctions. And in contrast to the people who first encountered these megafauna, people today are fully aware of the consequences of our actions; this gives us hope that we can prevent future extinctions, but will make it all the worse if we do not.”

David Williams, currently a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and co-author on the paper, added: " ̽��ֱ��loss of these animals has been a zoological puzzle since the time of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. At that time, many people didn't believe that human-caused extinctions were possible, but Wallace argued otherwise. We have now shown, 100 years later, that he was right, and that humans, combined with climate change have been affecting other species for tens of thousands of years and continue to do so. Hopefully, now though, we are in a position to do something about it."

Professor Rhys Green, an author on the paper from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said: "Most previous studies have argued that the extinction of mammoths and other megafauna is linked separately to either human pressure or climatic change. Our work indicates that they had their devastating effect working together. This previous combination of unusual patterns of climate change and direct human pressure from hunting and habitat destruction is similar to those to which we are subjecting nature to today and what happened before should be taken as a warning. ̽��ֱ��key difference this time is that the climate change is not caused by fluctuations in the earth's rotation axis but to warming caused by fossil fuel burning and deforestation by humans - a double whammy of our own making. We should learn the lesson and act urgently to moderate both types of impact."

Research provides new insights about what caused the extinction of many of the world’s big animals over the last 100,000 years.

Our research suggests that a combination of human pressure and climate change was able to cause the extinctions of many large animals in the past. Many large, charismatic animals today are threatened by both hunting pressure and changes in climate; if we do not take action to address these issues we may see further extinctions.

Graham Prescott, currently a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge's Department of Zoology

LaertesCTB from Flickr

Elephants at Kruger National Park, South Africa

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Research, policy, practice: conservation in the round

lw355 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:00:39 +0000

Just under a decade ago, a target was set by the world’s governments: to slow the decline in biodiversity within 10 years. But by 2010 it was clear that global efforts had largely failed. ̽��ֱ��state of biodiversity had worsened and the ecosystem services that we rely on for food and water, a stable climate, and protection from natural disasters continue to be in jeopardy.

As plans were drawn up for a new strategic plan for the next decade, the Secretary-General of the United Nations stated that conservation efforts are all too often undermined by conflicting policies; yet, “conserving biodiversity,” he said, “cannot be an afterthought once other objectives are addressed.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Professor Andrew Balmford, who helps lead the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Conservation Science Group in the Department of Zoology: “Conservation has to be mainstreamed. It can’t be on the margins. It has to be part of policy and practice across a whole range of sectors if we are to have a chance of counteracting the rapid declines in the extent and condition of natural ecosystems.”

With this in mind, he and Professor Rhys Green, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)’s Principal Research Biologist and also based in the Department of Zoology, have created a series of highly effective partnerships with conservation practitioners and policy makers. These in turn have developed a suite of tools aimed at helping decision makers make informed judgments.

“Conservation has for too long suffered from key disconnects,” explained Balmford. “One of the main problems is conservation research is often about biology, but the global loss of nature is really about people and what they do. To tackle fundamental questions about this relationship, quantitative research studies need to be linked to policies and practice that are capable of effecting behaviour change.”

“It’s an iterative process,” added Green. “Smart collaborations involve policy makers or conservation practitioners identifying the questions that need tackling and, through a dialogue with scientists, turning these into tractable research questions that researchers can answer in ways that are fit for purpose. It’s conservation in the round.”

Smart collaborations are a key part of the vision of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), a pioneering collaboration between the ̽��ֱ�� and eight leading conservation organisations and a conservation network based in the Cambridge area that integrates research, policy, practice and learning. Collaboration and funding through CCI have enabled Balmford and Green to address a series of questions that have important implications for global conservation and environmental management.

How, for instance, can the world respond to the growing demands for increased food production and yet conserve the raw material that biodiversity represents? A project led by Dr Ben Phalan from the Department of Zoology, and funded by the Newton Trust and CCI partners BirdLife International, RSPB and the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), is using recently developed global datasets to understand better how conflicts between conservation and farming in the tropics might be resolved.

“ ̽��ֱ��expansion and intensification of agriculture are the greatest source of threat to biological diversity,” explained Phalan, “and yet there is little information about how far priority areas for conservation and food production overlap. To what extent will the expansion of a particular crop threaten wild species? Are there areas where expansion of food production would be less of a problem for biodiversity?”

Following input from policy experts at a workshop held in the project’s early stages to identify focal crops, Phalan has been intersecting detailed maps of bird and crop distributions in the tropics, where agricultural expansion is most likely to affect biodiversity. Once completed later in 2012, the study will help decision makers identify the most damaging crops and the most vulnerable areas, both now and under future scenarios of agricultural change.

Another collaboration deals with the problem of how to assess the full benefits that an area’s biodiversity brings to society – its ‘ecosystem services’. These can include the formation of soils, provision of clean water, production of crops, regulation of climate and opportunities for recreation. Most are hard to measure without expert support. So when faced, for instance, with pressures to cut down a natural forest to increase food production, how can local decision makers accurately value the ecosystem services and weigh up the implications of the proposed change in land use?

An ambitious Ecosystem Services Toolkit to do just this is currently in its testing phase, led by Dr Kelvin Peh from the Department of Zoology with a team from Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ��, BirdLife International, RSPB and UNEP-WCMC. ̽��ֱ��result is a manual (and eventually an online program) that enables non-experts to make state-of-the-art assessments of ecosystem services in their region, so that they can gauge for themselves how changes in local biodiversity will affect them.

“Linking declining levels of biodiversity with the benefits biodiversity delivers, and the pressures and responses affecting it, is crucial to taking us forward in the ‘post-2010’ global strategic plan for biodiversity,” explained Green. A new approach to understanding this relationship has been the driving force behind yet another project – ‘Linked Indicators’, which, like the Ecosystem Services Toolkit project, was supported by the CCI Collaborative Fund.

̽��ֱ��idea behind the project is that indicators of biodiversity levels are easier to understand, communicate and act upon if they are linked together in a set that connects policies to outcomes. Green, one of the leaders of the study, explained: “It’s not enough to be aware of changes to biodiversity levels. It’s a bit like having a depth gauge on the Titanic – why would we want to know how fast things are getting worse unless we have an idea of why, and whether our attempts to do something about it are doing any good?”

̽��ֱ��Linked Indicators concept is based on a response–pressure–state– benefit model. It proposes a set of linked indicators for each system of interest. For fisheries, for example, the pressure on marine animals from fishing and ocean temperature is related to the resulting state of marine life, as well as the benefit fishing brings in terms of employment and food, and also the policy response to reduce losses to biodiversity by creating marine protected areas. ̽��ֱ��links between such indicators represent the best available knowledge of how the ecosystem involved works and the causal relationships between its components.

Where Linked Indicators can help decision makers is to provide them with better tools to assess whether the amount and type of response to biodiversity loss have been implemented on a sufficient scale to arrest or reverse it. ̽��ֱ��study, which was developed by a team from the Department of Zoology working with BirdLife International, RSPB and UNEP-WCMC, was presented at meetings of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) last year. ̽��ֱ��ideas it suggests are helping the CBD to improve its ability to track progress towards biodiversity targets post-2010.

“Even in the first few years, all of these projects have demonstrated the value for money that smart collaborations can generate,” added Balmford. “By building accessible tools and strengthening the evidence base for decision makers, we can help them make wise and informed decisions for the future of people and the rest of the planet.”

Conservation scientists working in partnership with practitioners and policy makers are building practical tools for real-world conservation.

Conservation has to be mainstreamed. It can’t be on the margins.

Professor Andrew Balmford

Sassan Saatchi/JPL CALTECH

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CCI: collaboration and funding

CCI is a collaboration between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and nine internationally renowned conservation organisations in the Cambridge area committed to the study and protection of global biodiversity. ̽��ֱ��founder members of CCI are:

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge: six Departments – Zoology, Geography, Plant Sciences, Land Economy, Judge Business School and the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership – founded the Cambridge Conservation Initiative along with the partner organisations listed below. Each of these departments has a growing programme of research and teaching in conservation, and work closely together on interdisciplinary programmes as part of CCI.

United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre: a branch of the United Nations that undertakes synthesis, analysis and dissemination of global biodiversity knowledge for conventions, countries, organisations and companies.

Fauna and Flora International: acts to conserve threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, delivering global and regional programmes of conservation and community projects.

BirdLife International: is a strategic global partnership of conservation organisations in over 100 countries, working to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, and to promote sustainability in the use of natural resources.

Traffic International: is a global wildlife trade monitoring network that works to ensure that trade in wild plants and animals is not a threat to the conservation of nature.

International Union for Conservation of Nature: is the world’s largest professional global conservation network, and supports scientific research, manages field projects and unites conservationists to develop and implement policy, laws and best practice.

Tropical Biology Association: is dedicated to building the capacity and expertise of people and institutions to conserve and manage biodiversity in tropical regions.

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB): is the largest wildlife conservation organisation in Europe, and works to secure the conservation of biodiversity – especially wild birds and their habitats – through research, education, habitat management and advocacy.

British Trust for Ornithology: is an independent scientific research trust specialising in impartial evidence-based knowledge and advice about populations, movements and ecology of birds and other wildlife.

Cambridge Conservation Forum: is a network that links the diverse Cambridge-based community of conservation practitioners and researchers working at local, national and international levels.

To deliver its ambitious programme CCI works closely with like-minded funding partners. CCI is particularly grateful to Arcadia, who has provided core support for the leadership of CCI and grants for the CCI Collaborative Fund, the Miriam Rothschild Programme for Conservation Leadership, the Miriam Rothschild Travel Bursaries for the Student Conference in Conservation Science and the Miriam Rothschild PhD Studentships. CCI is also deeply grateful to the MAVA Fondation pour la Nature for their support to establishment a unique MPhil in Conservation Leadership.

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