Nature Reserves: Solution or Illusion?
Are nature reserves a solution or an illusion?
When you walk through the Byes, surrounded by open grassy areas and lovely trees, with the river babbling along beside you may feel a sense of relief that this "pristine" slice of nature is safe. It has been saved from the town housing development over the years and now nature can make its home here instead of people. This is something of a paradox of the pristine, however. To a casual observer, the countryside appears thriving, yet these protected areas are often little more than biological "museum pieces".
That might seem a harsh judgement on what is a lovely part of our town but to understand the point here, imagine if you were legally forbidden from leaving your home town. Even though Sidmouth is a beautiful place to live, without roads and service stations to reach other populations, our community would eventually stagnate. This is our wildlife reality; we have built "towns" for nature but neglected the "roads" and "petrol stations" needed for survival. By isolating nature into fragments, we are inadvertently creating "extinction debts", biological promissory notes that will eventually become due as trapped species fade away.
The Birth of the Island: A 1950s Solution
You may think that we have had nature reserves in Britain forever as they are such a fundamental feature of our landscape now, but the current system of nature reserves was born out of a 1950s response to dramatic habitat loss, firstly during the war when we had to ‘dig for victory’ and then the rapid expansion of intensive farming and economic rebuilding during the 1950s and 60s. The philosophy was simple: where valuable habitat remained, draw a line on a map, put a fence around the site and guard what remained.
This process created a legal hierarchy of protection:
- Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs): Notified by Natural England under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, these aim to "conserve and protect the best of our wildlife, geological and physiographical heritage for the benefit of present and future generations." There are over 4,000 in England, covering about 8% of the land. Much of our East Devon coastline is designated as SSSIs
- National Nature Reserves (NNRs): These represent the pinnacle of wildlife value, receiving the highest level of management. Locally, the Pebblebed Heaths have recently been awarded this prestige status.
- Local Nature Reserves (LNRs): Often designated for community exercise and relaxation, these sites lack the biological rarity of SSSIs and face extreme urban pressures, including dog mess, mountain bikes, small fires, and vandalism. While well-intentioned, this "protect the best of what's left" approach assumes that fragments are enough. History and science are proving otherwise.
Beyond the legally enforced ‘protected’ areas we are blessed locally with many valuable sites being ‘informally’ protected as they are now in the ownership of bodies, both voluntary and statutory, who are committed to conserving these sites for nature and for future generations of the human race.
The "Fortress" Problem: When Isolation Backfires
The "Fortress Conservation" model, the idea that nature must be protected in isolation from humans, suffers from three systemic flaws:
- Displacement of Stewardship: Many high-value habitats were shaped by human activity over millennia. When we remove traditional stewardship, such as low-intensity patch burning or coppicing, we often see "floristic impoverishment" as a few dominant species choke out diversity.
- Misplaced Priorities (The Worthless Land Hypothesis): Historically, reserves were often established on land "worthless" for agriculture rather than land that was biologically critical. Today, this persists as governments chase "30 by 30" acreage targets, prioritising the quantity of protected land over its actual ecological quality.
- A False Sense of Security: These islands give the impression that all is well. One can visit a well-managed ‘reserve’ in the Sidmouth area and see thriving wildlife, leading to the dangerous assumption that the wider countryside is equally healthy.
Genetic Dead-Ends and "Paper Parks"
The biological reality of a static reserve is grim. A legal boundary is not a physical wall; it cannot stop climate change, pollution, or invasive species from drifting across the fence. Furthermore, isolated reserves create "Genetic Isolation." Small populations become trapped in islands too small to sustain them, leading to inbreeding and increased vulnerability to disease.
Management is the second hurdle. Nationally it is estimated that only about 22% of Protected Areas currently possess "sound management." Without active intervention, these sites become "Paper Parks"; legally protected but biologically stagnant. As the evidence warns: "A protected site left unmanaged to maintain its ancient characteristics will become pretty well worthless.
The Segregation of the Wild
There is also a psychological cost to this "Wildlife Segregation." By isolating nature into selected sites, we foster a mindset that wildlife belongs "over there." When a badger, fox, or deer enters human spaces, it is frequently viewed as a "pest." We have become increasingly separated from the natural world, forgetting that we are part of a shared, living web.
The Paradigm Shift: From "Fortress" to "Network"
So, if nature reserves are just an illusion that all is well with the natural world, then what is the reality? Is there an alternative approach? The limitations of ‘reserves’ is well understood now and the thinking is very different than it was seventy years ago. We now think in terms of biodiversity networks and we will explore that concept next time.
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