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Systematics and Taxonomy (S&TC Reports)

It is a great pleasure to start the winding-up speeches at the end of this fascinating debate. As I listened, it occurred to me that, had the Minister not had such an eminent background, he might have been slightly intimidated by the galaxy of scientific talent ranged against him today, of which I count myself as very much the most junior. However, I am sure that none of them would dream of using their great gifts to obscure the truth, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. The committee was very well served by its scientific adviser, Professor Boxshall, its Clerk, Christine Salmon Percival, and her team, and its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who today has given me a unique experience, as I never expected to hear Andy Capp debated in your Lordships’ House. As the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and others have said, the Science and Technology Committee seems to return to the issue of systematic and taxonomy with monotonous regularity. However, one should not confuse the word "monotonous" with the word "boring". The subject matter of the report and this debate is far from boring; indeed, it relates to one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines affecting our ability to survive the threat of climate change and to mitigate the effects of man’s activities on the biodiversity of the planet. That is why we keep returning to it. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, underlined its underpinning role in many scientific disciplines, and the subtitle of my 2002 report made reference to the fact that it is the science underpinning conservation. Maintaining the biodiversity that this generation has inherited on our blue and green planet is one of our most serious responsibilities. There are those who think it is easy and we just have to stop doing a lot of the things we are doing; there are those who think it is impossible; and there are those in the middle ground, like me, who believe that we can tackle the threat of climate change by making sensible adjustments to our lifestyle that will not cause us too much grief nor hinder the development of less developed countries, which have a right to strive to live as comfortably as we do. We must take action to reduce emissions, of course, but at the same time we must protect the living things of this planet, living within their carefully balanced ecosystems which are so easily upset. During the past 200 to 300 years, man has upset numerous ecosystems to the extent that plants and animals living in them have suffered and even died out because we have either destroyed their habitat or modified their climate so much that they cannot survive. Unlike animals, plants cannot get up on their legs or their wings and walk or fly to the next valley, so there are particular problems with plant conservation. Here I declare an interest as chairman of the board of Botanic Gardens Conservation International, an international charity that co-ordinates the expertise available within botanic gardens to secure plant diversity according to internationally agreed priorities. By the way, I was invited to take up that post as a result of chairing the committee’s previous report on this subject in 2002. When we talk about the conservation of any species, plant or animal, it is vital that we know what we are talking about. Scientists must be confident when they note reductions in populations that they are all talking about the same thing. The only way they can do that is by having clear, internationally agreed identification and naming criteria. Here I declare another interest as patron of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Both my interests are unpaid. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, talked about the importance of type specimens, many of which the UK holds on behalf of the world because of our rich heritage of collecting over hundreds of years. Despite two previous reports, the report that we are discussing highlights two key matters that are still outstanding: first, the lack of awareness of the state of health of the discipline among the relevant research councils, and, secondly, the lack of a lead government department, leading to the danger of poor co-ordination. As our specialist adviser, Professor Geoffrey Boxshall, has pointed out, these two issues interact to give a compound negative effect. I am pleased to welcome the Government’s acceptance of the first issue and the announcement that NERC will commission a study this year of the current number of taxonomists and trends. However, once we have that report to hand, it is unclear who will act upon it if there is no lead department. The Government seem to believe that diffuse responsibility would be better than the transfer of the lead responsibility to DIUS, as the committee recommended. In my view, that will lead only to numerous interdepartmental meetings in an attempt to co-ordinate action, whereas it could be done much more efficiently by one department—that is, the department that has the responsibility for the initial and ongoing training of taxonomists through universities and other institutions. If the Government want endless meetings, so be it. A life of endless meetings seems to suit some people but I am afraid it does not suit me if there is a better way. We are not suggesting that there should be no responsibility in any other department—that would be nonsense. Defra, for example, should have a great interest in the matter as well as the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and we have made recommendations to DfID. But we note that, in co-ordinating the Government’s response to our report, DIUS did not even consult the Scottish Government, who fund the RBG Edinburgh, the third largest taxonomic institution in the UK, as mentioned by our noble Scottish chairman. So it is no wonder that we view diffuse responsibility with some suspicion. However, if the Government are adamant that they will not designate DIUS as the lead department, they will not be surprised when this Committee keeps a very close eye on what happens to the findings of the NERC report and asks a lot of questions. Can the Minister say how it will be decided which department will have the responsibility of ensuring that any recommendations by NERC are carried out? Indeed, will NERC be making any recommendations, or will it simply present the Government with the facts of the decline of the discipline, which this Committee has already done three times? I turn now to the serious matter of stimulating the recruitment taxonomists, of which there is a serious shortage. We must not be misled by some of the figures that appeared during our investigations. For example, of the PhDs under way at RBG Kew, their evidence showed that only 15 of the 80 projects included a substantial amount of descriptive taxonomy. The Government’s response to our report stated that from 2002 to 2006, 83 of the PhD studentships funded by NERC included elements of systematics and taxonomy. I strongly suspect that these were very small elements and that very few of them helped to produce expert taxonomists. The noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, gave examples of the negative consequences of this among entomologists. One of the Committee’s most serious complaints was about the lack of awareness at research council level of the problems of taxonomy, and I make no apology for returning to this issue. We welcome the forthcoming NERC study but it is vital that it makes an effort to not only count taxonomists but to understand how they work. As the noble Lord, Lord May, pointed out, the lack of proportionality between taxonomists and the living things they study is outstanding. As an illustration of the lack of understanding with which taxonomists have been dealing, I should like to quote from an e-mail received yesterday by the Committee’s clerk from Dr Henry Disney of the University of Cambridge. He complained that, ""NERC still fails to understand the way a leading specialist in alpha taxonomy works. This remains a major reason for the current decline in fundamental alpha taxonomy. As a recognized leading specialist on a large family of flies … I am representative of those who are unable to procure funding from NERC because of their inappropriate criteria"," a point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord May. The e-mail continues: ""The demand for the PRIOR specification of hypotheses to be tested when one applies for funding to revise a taxon means one has to do much research first in order to generate the hypotheses to be tested. Who funds this prior research? Furthermore, part of being recognized as a leading specialist is that the unexpected constantly arrives in the post … In practice I am obliged to routinely reject most requests which lack novel biological data or are not specimens of applied significance. Even so I have a 20-year backlog of randomly collected specimens. I concentrate on the processing of specimens with novel biological material. Since 1984 I have been funded entirely by private trusts … as NERC routinely rejects applications for undertaking fundamental alpha taxonomy. My current funding for 2008/2009 is £500 only! Despite this I have the highest publication rate and the largest number of co-authors … from the largest number of countries overseas, of anyone in my Department—the Leading Department of Zoology in the country"." Dr Disney’s funding came from the Leverhulme and the Isaac Newton trusts, and the Wingate Foundation—all charitable organisations, like my own BGCI. So I am surprised and dismayed that the Government, who rejected our recommendation in paragraph 7.6, should give assistance and leadership to voluntary organisations and action in their efforts to fill the gaps. In other respects, the Government response paints too rosy a picture. For example, the committee recommended that more resources should go into web-based taxonomy and that a road map should be developed to ensure correct priorities. In their response, the Government refer to NERC’s extensive use of internet resources for biodiversity. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, pointed out, most of this relates to biodiversity data, geographical data, lists of species, and so on—it does not relate to taxonomy per se. Without the development of online identification tools, which was the committee’s point, such data cannot be collected or relied upon, so the Government must be realistic about this. I share the regret of the noble Lord, Lord May, that DfID does not regard it as part of its responsibility to the less developed countries, many of which are biodiversity-rich but cash-poor, to support online resources. That would help them to develop their home-grown capacity and expertise, and their ability to identify, monitor and conserve their own rich biodiversity. Many of the plants most in danger are used for food, medicine, shelter and warmth, so they must be protected from overharvesting and habitat destruction. DfID no doubt believes that human beings are its major responsibility. If that is the case, it should remember that human beings live in habitats and ecosystems too. If we, by our actions or neglect, destroy our habitat and other living participants in our ecosystem, we sign our own death warrant. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, our enemy is the unknown.