Ecologists meeting at a congress express their concern about the setbacks that are taking us further away from a liveable world.
(Congrès SFE² Lyon 21-25 Octobre 2024)September 2024: science tells us that a seventh of the nine planetary limits crucial to the Earth's viability has just been crossed. The acceptable level of ocean acidification has been exceeded, as have been acceptable climate thresholds or biodiversity degradation of. What was once a concern for those whose job it was to monitor planetary processes has become a reality that is getting worse every day. It was also in September 2024 that an international survey1 by the Global Commons Alliance revealed that, whatever the country, a vast majority of citizens from all walks of life are acutely aware of current environmental issues, and are calling for action to maintain the Earth's habitability for all to take precedence over the imperatives of the market economy. This survey echoes, almost point for point, the barometers published by ADEME in February 2024 showing that more than 70% of French people were expecting more structuring changes to respond to the climate challenge. They want public policies that favour economic activities that protect the environment, penalise those that harm it, and prioritise environmental protection over economic growth 2.
These surveys highlight the profound contradictions that are emerging between the players who dominate politics and the economy and public opinion, which is calling for urgent and far-reaching changes to the economic, social and political functioning of our societies, but is faced with contradictory political offers. They also raise the question of the acceptability of the political response, which will have to be centred on principles of social and environmental equity.
The willingness of citizens to get involved that these surveys reveal would require the public authorities and economic players to be fully involved and attentive. It should draw on the knowledge accumulated by scientific research to define, together with society as a whole, the actions needed for a desirable future that guarantees a good life for all in a society where the imperatives of environmental and social justice take precedence over those of the market and its imperative of economic growth. A society that complies with the Arrhus Convention, which defines the fundamental right of every person to environmental justice and to live in a healthy environment3, as recalled by a recent decision of the French Constitutional Council based on the Charter of the Environment4.
Far from being punitive, as certain discourses attempt to define it, this ecological transformation of society is by nature oriented towards more ‘power to live’ and freed from the punishments that submission to the imperatives of production and accumulation inflicts on us, and will inflict on us more and more. These imperatives benefit a minority, but reserve an ever more severe punishment for the majority.
The facts today confirm the most alarmist predictions that science has been repeating for more than half a century. But once again, as ecologists, instead of progress, we are seeing further setbacks. They respond to the fierce resistance of those threatened by the changes that would make it possible to preserve a planet that is liveable for all. The recent backtracking by our governments on the all-too-modest progress made towards more sustainable agriculture is just one example of this, with no guarantee of a decent income for those who feed us. They are the latest in a long list of regulation weakening pushed by minorities in specific sectors, a history already fraught with official resignations to the detriment of public health. The asbestos scandal is just one of many tragic examples of decisions taken in defiance of long-established knowledge. Even the most promising elements of change, such as the production of photovoltaic electricity, are being subverted, resulting in the destruction of natural environments or the appropriation of agricultural land for industrial facilities instead of roofs, industrial wastelands and other artificial sites, all in defiance of the official recommendations of ADEME5, which considers them to be more than sufficient to meet the stated ambitions.
Is the political world capable of understanding, or accepting, the need to implement profound changes in modes of production and consumption and to reduce inequalities? Small adjustments to legislation or to the size of protected areas have long ceased to be measures that are equal to the challenge, which today concerns the habitability of a large part of the planet if the current trajectory is maintained.
While in the second half of the twentieth century a lack of scientific and ecological literacy could at times explain deleterious decisions, the current accumulation of knowledge and its availability in the public arena, together with the inescapable involvement of political players in the climate and biodiversity conventions, mean that ignorance can no longer be a credible excuse and that inaction is culpable. The growing involvement of scientists in public debate and action should also be a wake-up call to a political world that tends to dismiss it with the unacceptable label of eco-terrorism.
At this congress, researchers in ecology and evolution feel it is their duty to remind those who influence the direction of our societies of their full responsibility for the future that is taking shape, to take the measure of it and to act accordingly. Contrary to what has been claimed, wrongly, for the economy, there is an alternative to the current impasse. And it is an alternative that will free us from the trap that is closing in on us.
1 https://res.cloudinary.com/dfyeeawiq/images/v1724426386/Global-Commons-Survey-2024-Global/Global-Commons-Survey-2024-Global.pdf?_i=AA
2 https://infos.ademe.fr/lettre-strategie/climat-les-francais-attendent-une-plus-grande-implication-de-letat/
3 https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/nouveaux-cahiers-du-conseil-constitutionnel/environnement-droit-international-droits-fondamentaux
4 https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/actualites/communique/decision-n-2022-843-dc-du-12-aout-2022-communique-de-presse
5 ADEME, Transénergie. Mars 2019. Évaluation du gisement relatif aux zones délaissées et artificialisées propices à l’implantation de centrales photovoltaïques – Synthèse https://librairie.ademe.fr/energies-renouvelables-reseaux-et-stockage/846-evaluation-du-gisement-relatif-aux-zones-delaissees-et-artificialisees-propices-a-l-implantation-de-centrales-photovoltaiques.html
For a policy to adapt French forests to climate change based on forest ecology
(SFE² Congress Lyon 21-25 October 2024)As well as providing forest products, forests are home to a significant proportion of biodiversity, protect soils, filter air and water, and sequester carbon [1]. Like all ecosystems on Earth, French forests are subject to the stresses caused by climate change [1]. Droughts, increasingly frequent and intense heat waves, attacks by pests such as bark beetles, and the increased risk of fire are all having a major impact on the health of trees, seriously increasing their mortality rate [2] and undermining the way they function as ecosystems. As a result, the carbon storage capacity of French forests has almost halved in ten years [3], greatly reducing their role in mitigating climate change.
Enabling our forests and forestry practices to adapt to climate change has therefore become a major challenge. Against this backdrop of major changes and uncertainty, it seems essential to favour well-established practices that aim to maintain a wooded state, and therefore the carbon stock, and to limit disturbances to the ecosystem, while ensuring the forest's economic contribution by harvesting the trees that are most affected. These practices already exist, such as the use of Continuous Cover Mixed Silviculture, i.e. silviculture based on the natural dynamics of forest ecosystems, or the enrichment of dying stands where necessary, or, more generally, the diversification of species and structures in the forest. These approaches could be complemented by an increase in the proportion of forests that evolve freely, without any major intervention, providing an opportunity to test the capacity of our forests to adapt to future changes by selecting resistant individuals from the genetic variability present in native populations. These practices are also in line with the recommendations of the European Green Deal [4] and the EU's new biodiversity strategy for 2030, which aims to ‘strengthen the protection and restoration of forests through careful management that promotes their multifunctional role and adaptive capacity’.
However, French forestry policy seems to favour a highly interventionist approach, advocating the replacement of stands deemed unsuited to future conditions with species deemed more resistant and resilient [5]. This essentially takes the form of injunctions to reduce the time between felling and to clear stands considered to have no future, followed by planting. The flagship of this policy is an ambitious programme to plant a billion trees over 10 years [6]. Most of these massive plantations take the form of single-species stands, sometimes of exotic species, considered to be less expensive and better adapted to market demands. The effectiveness of these practices in terms of the carbon balance, the guarantee of a viable forest or the supply of wood products in the coming decades, raises questions. Numerous studies show that these practices are actually detrimental to the future of forests. The carbon balance of clear-cutting is very negative in the short term, and can take decades to balance out [7]. As for planting, its success is uncertain due to the uncertainties of summer conditions, particularly droughts and heatwaves. In 2022, plantations carried out in France had an average failure rate of almost 40%, the highest failure rate documented to date [8]. The widespread use of this radical approach to replacing forests, and in particular deciduous stands that are diverse in terms of species and structure, with monospecific plantations, or even plantations of exotic species, homogenises the composition and age structure of woodlands. It severely impoverishes their biodiversity and their functioning as ecosystems [9], as illustrated by the accumulation of studies showing that these stands are more sensitive to disturbances and climatic hazards than diversified stands [10, 11]. The disappointments that have followed the implementation of such approaches in the past, and the threats they would pose in the future if they became widespread, should give us cause for alarm.
To date, the warnings issued by scientists on the risks associated with highly interventionist approaches or to propose alternatives that are more respectful of our forests [12-14] have gone unheeded in a context where, moreover, the number of foresters in France, in both public and private forests, has been falling sharply for decades. Faced with the need to adapt France's forests and their wealth to future conditions, the ecologists gathered in Lyon by the Société Française d'Ecologie et d'Evolution (SFE²) are insisting on the need for a forestry adaptation policy based on preserving the capacity of forest ecosystems in all their diversity to respond to disturbances, and not on massive interventions based on bets on the future that are as scientifically fragile as they are risky for biodiversity and the climate. This need inevitably goes hand in hand with the need to ensure the long-term survival of French forestry expertise, and therefore to increase the number of foresters working for the future of our forests.
References
[1] FAO and UNEP. (2020). The State of the World’s Forests 2020. In The State of the World’s Forests 2020 - Forests, biodiversity and people. doi: 10.4060/ca8642en
[2] IGN. (2023). MÉMENTO 2023.
[3] Citepa. (2022). Rapport Secten édition 2022.
[4] European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Green Deal – Research & innovation call, Publications Office of the European Union, 2021, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/33415
[5] https://www.info.gouv.fr/politiques-prioritaires/planifier-et-accelerer-la-transition-ecologique/accompagner-le-programme-visant-a-planter-1-milliard-darbres-dici-2032
[6] https://agriculture.gouv.fr/changement-climatique-aider-la-foret-en-replantant-des-especes-plus-resistantes
[7] Aguilos, M., Takagi, K., Liang, N., Ueyama, M., Fukuzawa, K., Nomura, M., … Sasa, K. (2014). Dynamics of ecosystem carbon balance recovering from a clear-cutting in a cool-temperate forest. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 197, 26–39. doi: 10.1016/J.AGRFORMET.2014.06.002
[8] Département de la santé des forêts. (2022). Plantations forestières 2022, la plus mauvaise année ! Retrieved from https://agriculture.gouv.fr/plantations-forestieres-2022-la-plus-mauvaise-annee
[9] Landmann, G., Delay, M., Marquet, G. (2023). Expertise collective CRREF « Coupes Rases et Renouvellement des peuplements Forestiers en contexte de changement climatique ».
[10] Ammer, C. (2019). Diversity and forest productivity in a changing climate. New Phytologist, 221(1), 50–66
[11] Jactel, H., Moreira, X., Castagneyrol, C. (2021). Tree diversity and forest resistance to insect pests: patterns, mechanisms, and prospects. Annual Review of Entomology 66 (1), 277-296
[12]https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/09/19/il-est-important-d-encourager-une-plus-grande-diversification-d-arbres-dans-les-forets-francaises_6052802_3232.html
[13]https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2021/11/21/climat-un-effort-massif-d-extension-des-surfaces-boisees-doit-etre-accompli_6103023_3232.html
[14]https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2023/10/25/biodiversite-la-politique-forestiere-doit-s-appuyer-sur-les-ecosystemes-existants-plutot-que-raser-et-replanter_6196357_3232.html?lmd_medium=al&lmd_campaign=envoye-par-appli&lmd_creation=ios&lmd_source=default
By restricting protection for wolves, Europe is going down the wrong road and contradicting its own expertise!
(Congrès SFE² Lyon 21-25 Octobre 2024)In 2023, the European Commission commissioned an in-depth analysis of scientific and technical knowledge available on the return of wolves to Europe 1.
This analysis estimates the number of wolves in Europe at around 20,000 individuals, a number that still tends to increase. Despite this, of the 39 conservation areas defined, the conservation status of the species in more than half of them, including the Alpine areas, remained unfavourable or even vulnerable, with fewer than 1,000 breeding individuals.
Destruction by legal shooting and collisions are the main causes of wolf mortality in analyses of wolves found dead in Europe. In analyses of data on wolves fitted with radio collars, poaching appears to be an important, if not the most important, cause of mortality, including in countries where hunting or legal shooting are authorised.
The commission's study identifies and highlights the important role played by wolves in ecosystems. Even if trophic cascades on the scale of those described in North America have not yet been identified in Europe, European studies have already been able to highlight the effects of the presence of wolves on wild ungulate populations. They are reducing their negative impact on forests and agriculture, the number of vehicle collisions with big game and limit the prevalence in wildlife of diseases that can be transmitted to domestic livestock, such as tuberculosis and swine fever.
Although wolves feed mainly on wild ungulates, their impact on sport hunting is negligible. They take far fewer animals than hunters, and more often than not individuals of lesser reproductive value.
Predation by wolves on domestic livestock is undoubtedly the most negative aspect and the main source of conflict caused by their presence. More than 65,000 animals fall victim to wolf predation in Europe every year, mainly sheep (wolves take 0.06% of an estimated 60 million head of livestock), but also goats and, to a lesser but not negligible extent, cattle. The main damage is concentrated in Italy, France and Spain. While on a large scale the damage caused by wolves to livestock could be considered minimal, their local impact can be significant and, on a farm level, often dramatic and hard to bear.
While depredations on domestic livestock have increased with the increase in wolf numbers, the frequency of attacks or the proportion of successful attacks on domestic livestock has fallen significantly (Germany) or stabilised despite the continuing increase in wolf numbers (France), a trend attributed to the increasingly effective implementation of flock protection measures. The application of effective protection measures adapted to the local context remains the most effective way of limiting depredation by wolves. Numerous studies describe the methods available and their implementation, often as part of LIFE projects funded by Europe. They emphasise the need to take into account the local context of each farm when implementing them, and the importance of support and expertise provided in anticipation rather than as a curative measure. Despite the effectiveness of these measures, the presence of wolves remains a major challenge for livestock farmers.
North American studies on the effectiveness of lethal shooting have shown that it only reduces damage to livestock if it is sufficiently intense to significantly reduce the wolf population. In France, analysis of the effectiveness of defensive shooting has shown that there is no systemic response in the medium term to the frequency of attacks.
Yet on Wednesday 25 September 2024, the Council of the European Union adopted a proposal from the European Commission to lower the wolf's protection status under the Bern Convention. This change, supported by France, implicitly considers the culling of wolves as a solution to livestock predation. Not only does it run counter to the European Union's commitment to safeguarding and restoring biodiversity, it also contradicts the conclusions of the scientific and technical expertise commissioned by the same European community. It highlights a fundamental contradiction between rhetoric promoting science-based policies and actual policies that contradict what we have learned, and which are defined in response to pressure groups or partisan imperatives.
This initiative is a major setback for conservation efforts in Europe, and a misjudgement of the benefits and constraints brought about by the return and role of wolves. It endorses an approach that can be perceived as a policy of conflict with the living world rather than a policy of conciliation. It runs counter to decades of progress in the European Union's consideration of the living world. It sends out a very negative signal in favour of other regressions mentioned here and there, in particular with regard to other predators.
Despite the problems posed to livestock farming, the vast majority of people in Europe, whether in rural or urban areas, and whatever the country, continue to express overwhelming support for maintaining strict protection of the species.
What should we learn from this analysis of scientific and technical work? That the return of wolves should be seen in a broader context that includes their contribution to society and their role in ecosystems, while reducing as far as possible the problems they cause for livestock farming by focusing on the most promising lever, which is to increase the effectiveness of protection measures. This is the area where investment in experimentation and research is most likely to produce solutions.
At a time when the priority should be to take all possible steps to make the coexistence of human activities with the presence of large predators in the same territory compatible, this decision to reduce the wolf's protected status calls into question the credibility of the European Union's international commitments in favour of biodiversity. By moving away from an approach centred on coexistence, this decision is also a denial of all the breeders who have spared no effort to protect their herds over the years, and whose expertise acquired at regional and European level still needs to be put to good use.
The ecologists gathered in Lyon by the Société Française d'Ecologie et d'Evolution, at a time when COP16 on biodiversity is being held in Colombia, are insisting on the need to integrate our knowledge into the definition of our policies, knowledge that identifies prevention and protection measures as our best tools for reducing damage to livestock, combined with an agricultural policy capable of guaranteeing a legitimate income for livestock farmers for whom the return of wolves is a constraint that society must share the burden. It calls for wolves to retain their high protection status and, on the basis of the knowledge acquired through research, for greater efforts to be made in terms of anticipation and protection measures, and for shooting to be limited to the strict immediate defence of flocks.
1file:///C:/Users/martin/Downloads/the%20situation%20of%20the%20wolf%20canis%20lupus%20in%20the%20european-KH0623027ENN-1.pdf Blanco JC and Sundseth K (2023). The situation of the wolf (Canis lupus) in the European Union – An In-depth Analysis. A report of the N2K Group for DG Environment, European Commission