Bertarelli Summer2024 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 65
CO M M UNIC AT IO N
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One thing we know is that we need to get to scale, and
we need to do it fast. New Zealand has an ambitious
goal of removing invasive predators from their islands
by 2050. How can we bring together all the different
stakeholders to push these kinds of ambitious goals in
other large island systems and beyond?
Dunbar: I think one thing we need to do is ensure there
is continued support for sites like Palmyra where they
are really looking at climate adaptation and resilience.
They’ve been inviting people from all over the world
to do things that haven’t been traditionally done there
with the goal of learning what can be translated to other
sites throughout the Pacific. We can do more of that on
the Chagos Archipelago, or the Seychelles, for example.
But we also need to bring in the local communities and the people who will ultimately benefit from
the work, and we need to do it early on. When I was
working on Palau, for example, I had been going there
every year for six or seven years before people would
invite me into their homes. They wanted to make sure
I wasn’t a flash in the pan. We can’t eradicate rats on
every island, and we also can’t sever every island or
coral reef from the wider world. But we can think more
clearly about where we are putting our efforts in ways
that benefit the community on a global basis.
Baiao: For me, partnerships are also what comes to
my mind. We need trust and partnerships and to have
shared visions that incorporate local values systems as
well as the science. I think this kind of trust and partnership is ultimately the most powerful way for us to
move faster and be more effective.
But we also need to increase awareness and share
our success stories so we can inspire others.
Graham: Something else that we can do is to really
identify the high priority islands at different scales, from
archipelago to ocean basins, and prioritize these for restoration. It can get you a much bigger bang for your buck.
RE W I L D I NG
Islands represent a very small
portion of Earth’s landmass, but
they’re home to an incredible amount
of biodiversity.
and mobile marine protected areas, even though we
already know they work. We’ve got abundant data on
the fact that setting up protected areas helps rewild
that area. On land, one of the first national parks was
Yosemite in 1878, but it took the Great Barrier Reef
until 1978 to be designated as protected. We’re far
behind in terms of the oceanscape.
Graham: There are limitations with some of our current tools, particularly with poisons for eradication—
the issue is that they’re not target specific and you can
harm other creatures. You want specificity. But there is a
whole suite of work that is going on in developing genetic
technologies to control mice and rats, and that work has
been going on for about a decade. It won’t be available
tomorrow, but it is in the pipeline. There’s also some
development around creating rat-specific toxins, too.
Ultimately, rewilding is risky. And you need to do it
in places where you’re willing to take those risks, and
where you’re not risking other things that you’re not
prepared to actually risk. You’re not going to trial really
innovative or out there stuff in places where you may
have catastrophic impacts or even extinctions.
Baiao: We need to be able to take risks but that is a
cultural shift that we will all need to embrace. We’re so
focused on success stories and good outcomes that we
forget the process to get to those outcomes and learn
through experience. But we need responsible risk. So
the genetic tools, for example, years of work will be
done so that when they are ready to use, we feel confident in using them.
Do we need to take bigger risks in conservation?
Dunbar: I’m an absolute believer in pushing the envelope and accepting the risk of failure. I think that in
too much of science, especially in the U.S., the risk is
mitigated to the point that we lose out on some extraordinary discoveries.
Another area that needs work is that we are so far
behind in setting up both large marine protected areas
Karl CampBEll is the director of Latin America islands at
Re:wild. He has spent most of his career implementing island
rewilding projects, primarily in Latin America. He is now working
with local partners on a ridge-to-reef rewilding initiative spanning
the Pacific coast of Latin America, from Mexico to Chile.
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