What is “biodiversity? – and what price BNG, aka “biodiversity net gain”?

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The launch of a new series to explore the ramifications of a huge and very tricky concept that has become a buzz word and is the subject of new laws. 

By Colin Tudge 

Developers or anyone else who aspires to change Britain’s landscape significantly is required these days to demonstrate that their project will achieve “Biodiversity Net Gain”, aka BNG. Well — the intent is surely well-meaning and “biodiversity” is a handy slogan and perhaps it is a useful metric and the new laws could indeed be a step in the right direction. But there are a few caveats. 

First, we may be sure that from the outset there will be, and probably already are, people of very high IQ from the world’s most prestigious centres of learning paid enormous fees to find loopholes in the new law; ways of ticking boxes at minimal cost and with maximum profit without necessarily delivering anything of long-term value. History tells us after all that there is no idea, no matter how good and well-intentioned, that cannot be corrupted and misapplied and at some point, usually is.  

Secondly, the biosphere as a whole is in a frightful mess as everybody knows and truly to put it to rights and to establish our own – humanity’s – rightful niche within it we need to dig deep, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Alas, beyond doubt, laws are necessary to ensure good things are done, and the BNG initiative could well be a step in the right direction. We’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out.  But the point in the end is not simply to make bad things unlawful but to make them unthinkable — and to rescue Britain from its ecological decline and to save the world from meltdown we need not simply to frame more legislation but to bring about a shift of mindset and hence of Zeitgeist. The Zeitgeist is largely shaped by the people with most influence who include big governments and big commerce — and so to bring about the necessary change we need also to find better ways to appoint governments and to limit the power of those whose prime ambition is simply to dominate. 

Present evidence and history as a whole do not suggest that the newly installed Labour, or any other government, is prepared seriously to encourage the necessary mindshift, or has any great desire to do so, or even sees the point of trying. The economy is pivotal and the ultra-competitive market economy we have come to regard as the norm encourages the exploitation of nature in the cause of short-term material gain. Indeed, material gain is the goal and the raison d’etre of the ultra-competitive market economy. Then again, if we seriously care about the biosphere we need to be thinking about the next million years.  Governments are not equipped to do this, and take little notice of those who are. The long term for politicians and economists is the next 30 years at most. 

Thirdly, we need to ask whether the conceptof “biodiversity” really hits the mark. For as I have suggested many a time and oft, the real task before us, which should be our Goal, is to create a “Flourishing Biosphere”: to aim at least in spirit to create a new Arcadia, where human beings can live in harmony with each other and with the natural world in effect forever, starting with the next million years. This is still theoretically possible, and such an outcome is surely to be preferred to the fast track to Armageddon that we seem to be on right now. The chances of success are low and rapidly diminishing but the Goal nonetheless is surely worth aiming for. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate although as experienced by many millions of people worldwide and a by a very large proportion of our fellow creatures, and as shown nightly to the rest of us on Channel 4 News, it seems already to be upon us. 

The metric of biodiversity is surely pertinent but taken in isolation it does not capture the essence of what’s needed — and no easily definable metric can do so. It isn’t as obvious as it may seem that increase in measurable biodiversity in a given area really does contribute significantly to the overall wellbeing of the natural world. In this as in all contexts we cannot be sure, and certainly should not assume, that the thing we choose to measure, and think we can measure, and feel we can improve upon, is really what matters most; and the road to Hell really  is paved with good intentions.  We can be sure that although we should surely measure whatever is measurable, the things that are most important may not be measurable at all. 

With all this in mind, over the next few months or as long as it takes I want to reach beyond the present legislation and to ask in a series of blogs what biodiversity really is, with all its complexities and connotations and ramifications; and to ask why we should actually care. I do hope others will contribute to this grand endeavour. To tackle an issue this big, we need to tap in to the collective wisdom of humanity. This putative collective wisdom — what most of us feel in our bones is right and true – in the end is the world’s best hope. 

I suggest we could usefully explore the main issues in four sections, under four grand subject heads – each of which might be subdivided into a potentially infinite number of special topics, to be dealt with as and when. The headings are:

I: Biodiversity: a necessary concept but not sufficient 

An introduction to this section follows this article. 

II: How diverse is diversity?

Linnaeus in the 19^th century divided all living creatures into two “Kingdoms”, Animalia and Plantae. Modern day taxonomists recognize three Domains: Bacteria and Archaea, which lack distinct nuclei and so are called “prokaryotes”; and the Eukaryotes, including ourselves, which apparently arose as a coalition of representatives of the two prokaryote domains. Further subdivision of the taxa is very much work in progress but one very plausible analysis recognizes 22 “kingdoms” within the Eukaryotes alone. Taxonomists, like all biologists, are showing us yet again just how wondrous life really is: the facts far outstrip our imagining. But even the most basic questions are not yet answerable and in many cases can never be answered. We still don’t even know to within at least an order of magnitude how many species there are on Earth – and never can know, with certainty. Still less do we know what each of them does, and what each contributes to the whole.  

III: The absolute importance of Ecology

When I first started formal study of biology in the mid-20^th century at school and university ecology was widely seen as a Cinderella subject, to be attended to perfunctorily on Friday afternoons. The clever kids were directed towards molecular biology. 

Now, molecular biology looks far more subtle and intriguing than it did in those early and naively euphoric days – and in some circles at least ecology has achieved at least equal status. So it is that in the 1970s the Ukrainian-American evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky famously declared that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” — and now it seems fair to suggest that “nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of ecology”. I’m inclined to suggest indeed that ecology has emerged as “the Queen of the Sciences”, a title that St Thomas Aquinas in the 13^th century conferred on theology. It is the area of thought after all where the abstractions of all the sciences confront the realities and the infinite complexities of real life. All will be discussed in future essays, I hope by a variety of contributors (or that at least is the idea). 

IV:  Reflections

The ramifications of biodiversity, like everything of importance, demand reflection on all fronts: factual; scientific; practical; political; economic; legal, moral; metaphysical; religious; and all our thoughts and impressions are informed and influenced by the arts.  We need to get a far better handle on what the world is really like, and how it works. And equally, and perhaps more so, we need to refine our attitude to the natural world. Despite laws to minimize obvious damage, the view still prevails in the most influential circles that nature is there for our benefit, a “resource” to be exploited as expedient, and are apparently content to allow our policies and attitudes to be guided by the economy – which right now is the neoliberal economy, an all-out ultra-competitive race to maximize material wealth and go on raising it till the pips squeak, or indeed until the world gives up on us and the ecology implodes. Indeed to a large extent the laws that are intended to protect the natural world do not express true concern for our fellow creatures and the fabric of the Earth, but are designed instead albeit covertly to protect what we perceive to be our property, which is what John Locke in the 17^th century thought all law should be (though I paraphrase). All too obviously, this won’t do. We need instead to cultivate some variation on the moral and spiritual theme of “oneness” — far removed from the thinking of the world’s big governments and the drivers of commerce who set the tone of the world. But this discussion is for the future.  

The piece that follows this one — Biodiversity: a necessary concept but not sufficient – is intended to get the show on the road. 

Colin Tudge January 3 2025

 

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