Anja Murray: Why we need to mind our wild plants

Often the most effective action we can take is to give nature some breathing space

When grassland, where orchids have been growing for centuries, is drained, the orchids disappear. Similarly, when fertilisers, whether manure or mineral fertilisers are applied, orchids aren’t able to cope with the enhanced nutrient status and die off. Ploughing and reseeding also wipes them out. This sensitivity is why orchid-filled grasslands, common across Ireland just 30 years ago, have become a rare habitat now.

This is just one example of wildflowers existing in highly evolved habitats, each species adapted to the physical characteristics of a particular place, dependant on symbiotic relationships with other organisms, highly sensitive to changing management practices. Habitats such as these are desperately in need of better supports for landowners to manage them in ways that support their unique biodiversity.

According to the Living Planet Report, compiled by teams of top scientists, we have lost more than 60% of biodiversity across the globe in the past 40 years. Ireland is no exception to these trends. This report also points out that we are the first generation that has a clear understanding of just how much the world depends on nature, and we are also the last generation that can act to reverse the trend.

As awareness of this growing crisis grows among us, people are beginning to take an interest. The Citizens’ Assembly for Biodiversity Loss has just had its first session last weekend in Dublin Castle, made up of 99 randomly selected Irish citizens and an independent chairperson. It is commencing a six-month programme of work to examine how the State can improve its response to the issue of biodiversity loss.

And in the meantime, all across Ireland, communities have been engaging in actions to encourage biodiversity in community spaces. There are many great projects and huge collaborative efforts to get things done. But unfortunately, the response is sometimes more focused on trying to ‘fix’ things by ‘enhancing’ biodiversity, without looking about to see what is already out there! There is a huge appetite for putting up bird nest boxes, installing ‘bug hotels’, spreading wildflower seed mixes in flower beds, and filling hanging baskets with pollinator friendly flowers to liven up community spaces. Surely some hungry bees who are struggling to find sustenance in our increasingly flower-free landscapes will appreciate special plots of wildflowers planted up for them.

Many of these actions for biodiversity can be worthwhile, especially if built, designed and placed in ways that actually make them useable for the birds, bees and bugs they are intended for. But when the rest of the neighbourhood is bereft of native trees, tightly mowed, sprayed, and littered with slug pellets, these little patches of ground for biodiversity are missing the point. The main benefit is the sense of agency and optimism that people get from getting engaged in tackling the biodiversity crisis. And this is not something to be taken for granted either. But creating a false sense of security, the feeling that something is being done to address the crisis, can be problematic in itself, when the truth is that we aren’t going to achieve any reduction in the haemorrhaging decline of biodiversity with bird boxes and hanging baskets.

But if we can widen our thinking and approach to biodiversity by increasingly giving nature a chance to do its own thing, the benefits will be far greater. In each parish, there are sensitive, species-rich, even rare habitats, where specialised species of orchids and other wild plants grow, each an essential component of a very particular ecosystem. Sometimes these need management interventions to restore the balance, sometimes it’s a matter of reducing existing pressures. 

We are also becoming increasingly aware of the many ‘ecosystem services’ that we derive from ecosystems. Wherever increasingly rare wild habitats are present in a community, positive management of could be made a priority for those seeking to help biodiversity.

And in the in-between spaces, such as hedgerows and roadside verges; patches of woodland and scrub; church grounds and graveyards, even in urban waste ground and old walls and ruins, communities of wild plants will develop if given a chance to do so. The wild plants that find their own way in are the basis of diverse food chains, where butterflies lay their eggs on the leaves, bees drink nectar from the flowers, and grasshoppers dwell in among the tall grasses. Small mammals and wild birds eat the insects that live off the wild plants. In time, thriving ecosystems will develop, rich in every layer of a functioning food chain. Nature can be surprisingly good at healing itself. Often, the most effective action we can take to help biodiversity is to give nature some breathing space.

For those individuals and communities wishing to engage with biodiversity and take positive action to tackle the biodiversity crisis, getting to know what’s around is the first key step. There is so much to discover when exploring the plant communities in each neighbourhood. Investigating the habitats in the locality, finding out where the special communities of plants and animals are will be rewarding and potentially of greater benefit to biodiversity than planting up a small pollinator patch.

If there are wild orchids, see what can be done to ensure their survival.