Volunteering for victory: can people power make New Zealand pest-free?

I've often discussed citizen science and how it varies from pie-in-the-sky research to projects with practical goals that may be achievable within a lifetime. When it comes to conserving native species New Zealand has a plethora of public engagements, including the Garden Bird Survey and Great Kererū Count (the latter being the country's largest citizen science project.) In a nation that is slowly waking to the realisation that it is far from '100% Pure', concerted efforts are finally be made to secure a future for beleaguered native fauna (and to a lesser extent flora, although few are seemingly aware of the interdependencies).

In late 2016 I wrote a post about the Predator Free 2050 scheme, focusing on how impractical it seemed. There was good reason for this: the University of Auckland estimated that it would require an astonishing NZ$9 billion to implement, a figure approaching 4% of the national GDP. Five years on and it appears this negativity was well deserved, as the project appears woefully underfunded; according to their website so far only NZ$178 million has been spent on the scheme. By comparison the annual budget for controlling possums, rats and stoats is NZ$114m, so it could hardly be deemed a flying start. There are an estimated 30 million possums in New Zealand, never mind the mustelids, rodents and other lesser pest species; the obvious implication is that numbers this large will require equally immense resources to eradicate them.

So what's to prevent this from being just another example of  'doomscrolling', of which have plentiful examples at the moment? After all, with billionaires now spending precious resources on racing to become astronauts - presumably superyachts are so last decade - it could be argued that those with the funds for the task just aren't interested in anything as mundane as conservation. It's often said that it is the people who make a place and in the case of New Zealand, it could just be the citizens - both with and without science - that make the difference. Kiwi ingenuity (that's the people, not the bird) and the 'number eight wire' mentality have enabled a young nation to punch well above its weight in so many fields. Can they do likewise in conservation?

Let's start with the science. New Zealand's rugged landscape requires a smart approach to predator control; there are so many reasons why flying thousands of bait-dropping helicopter missions would not be a good idea, not least due to the impossibility of funding them. Various projects are therefore now looking to lower the cost of poisoning and trapping, seeking robust maintenance-free solutions that can survive in the wilderness with minimal human intervention. From new thermal imaging cameras to auto-reset bait stations containing long-lasting toxins, research projects are showing that small-scale developments can make enormous differences to pest eradication. Hopefully, some of these devices will be out in the field in useful numbers within the next few years.

Often unsung heroes, there are also thousands of New Zealand citizens doing unpaid conservation work. I've met various volunteers for the Department of Conservation who spend their weekends climbing up and down knotted ropes and wading through icy streams in order to replenish bait boxes and reset traps. Many are retirees and some are ex-military - it's physically demanding and not at all glamorous, but can very satisfying work. The nation has a long history of such volunteering, something which has escalated in the past forty years with the setting up of predator-free fenced mainland sanctuaries and small sanctuary islands. To date, there are approximately 120 such refuges for native wildlife, many having been initiated by their local community and now being sustained by volunteers.

Even businesses are belatedly getting in on the act, giving their staff paid workdays to undertake volunteering such as planting and weeding within sanctuaries and coastal rubbish clean-ups. Earlier this year (between lockdowns of course) I was lucky enough to spend a day on Motuihe Island in the Hauraki Gulf, one of a group of thirty or so volunteers removing the noxious invasive plant woolly nightshade. What was amazing was seeing small flocks of native birds such as saddleback/tīeke, New Zealand parakeet/kākāriki and whitehead/pōpokotea, as opposed to the usual one or two you might see elsewhere (such as in zoo enclosures). Clearly, the planting of native species and foreign pest eradication - including abseiling to reach some of the weeds - has paid off beautifully.

Small islands are one thing, but what about the mainland? The nation's capital, Wellington, might be claimed by its inhabitants to be leading the way. Predator Free Wellington is the umbrella organisation for a range of projects that are aiming to eradicate pests from 30,000 hectares in and around the city. Already being possum free, the Miramar peninsula has been the starting point of rodent eradication, with almost 10,000 bait stations and traps placed at regularly intervals, mostly in residential gardens. The project is labour-intensive but still costs millions, so the hope is that by setting an example of what can be achieved, other regions in the country will follow suit. Whether their local councils will prove as farsighted as the capital's remains to be seen.

Like climate change mitigation, it seems that engaging and motivating the general public will be the only way to achieve a predator-free New Zealand, whether in 2050 or most likely at some point later. If this seems a bit naive - and overly optimistic, especially when compared to my initial assessment in 2016 - then last year's incredible work by the population to contain COVID-19 made New Zealand a frequent feature on international headlines, something that was previously a rare event. The 'team of five million' showed the naysayers (most of these, in my experience, being middle-aged white men) that even a relatively small group of people, globally speaking, could provide inspiration and be a role model to kick-start action elsewhere. If a lot of people take a little action, surely it can combine into an enormous amount of change? Much depends on the success - and cost - of Predator Free Wellington; if the nation's capital can achieve it the snowball effect might just take off, with local groups of volunteers making up for the lack of support from government and big business. 

What's in it for the volunteers, you might ask? The health benefits, from physical exercise to reducing stress and anxiety, are now well established. In addition, those who dedicate their spare time to unpaid conservation work can learn new practical skills, meet like-minded people, engage in teamwork and gain enjoyment from the sheer empowerment - knowing that you are actually achieving something useful. According to the Department of Conservation, it is estimated there are currently 200,000 active volunteers in this sector, which might not sound like a large number until you realise that it accounts for almost four percent of the New Zealand population!

Considering the history of the fenced reserves and sanctuary islands, it seems clear that motivating local communities can achieve wonders. If the Predator Free project is to succeed, we need a widespread engagement of the general population. New Zealand is far from alone, but having lost over fifty birds (more if you include the Chatham Islands), three lizards, three frogs, a bat, a freshwater fish, four plant species and numerous invertebrates, now is the time to act. Despite the negative effects of pollution and habitat loss due to development, it is a sobering thought that invasive fauna are equally capable of inflecting immense damage on a previously isolated ecosystem. As this plaque shows, many species were lost prior to the landing of the first Europeans: the original human inhabitants of New Zealand arrived less than a thousand years ago, but a combination of the introduced Polynesian rat and Polynesian dog, and their own hunting prowess, rapidly kick-started the eradication process.

Well, this is my last post, as least for a while. After twelve years I've learnt an enormous amount, but my sustainability champion voluntary work - engaging with over 5,000 work colleague on climate change mitigation and wider environmental issues - is taking up my spare time. If there is a moral to this story, it's a simple one: let's act - now!

Life in a rut: if microbes are commonplace, where does that leave intelligent aliens?

A few years ago I wrote about how Mars' seasonal methane fluctuations suggested - although far from confirmed - that microbial life might be present just under the Martin surface. Now another world in our solar system, the Saturnian moon Enceladus, has ignited discussion along similar lines.

The Cassini probe conducted flybys of Enceladus over a decade, revealing that Saturn's sixth largest moon was venting geyser-like jets of material, including water vapour, from its southern polar region. The material being emitted from these vents also included organic compounds and methane, hinting that this distant moon's watery oceans may also contain alien methane-producing microbes. Whereas Titan and Europa were originally deemed the moons most suitable for life, Enceladus's status has now been boosted to second only to Mars, with conditions not dissimilar to those in the oceans of the early Earth.

Of course, unknown geochemical processes cannot be ruled out, but nonetheless the quality of the evidence is such as to invite further exploration of Enceladus. There have been at least seven potential mission designs proposed by various bodies, including NASA and ESA, to gain more information about the moon and its geysers. Several of these include landers, while others would fly through a plume in order to examine the vented material for biosignatures. However, to date none have received official funding confirmation. As it stands the first probe to arrive might be billionaire Yuri Milner's privately-funded Breakthrough Enceladus, rather than one from a major organisation. However, don't hold your breath: the earliest any of these missions is likely to reach Enceladus is at some point in the 2030s.

What happens if future probes find evidence of microbial life on both Mars and Enceladus? Or even, whenever a method is found to reach it, in the ice-covered oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa? The first key fact will be whether they are genetically independent of Earth biota or if the panspermia hypothesis - the delivery of microbes via cometary and meteorite impact - has been proven. If that turns out not to be the case and multiple instances of life arose separately within a single solar system, this has some profoundly mixed implications for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). After all, if simple life can arise and be sustained on three or even four very different worlds - including bodies far outside their solar system's 'Goldilocks zone' - then shouldn't this also imply a much higher chance of complex alien life evolving on exoplanets? 

Yet despite various SETI programmes over the past few decades, we have failed to pick up any signs of extraterrestrial intelligence - or at least from other technological civilisations prepared to communicate with radio waves, either in our galactic neighbourhood or with super high-powered transmitters further away. This doesn't mean they don't exist: advanced civilisations might use laser pulses at frequencies our SETI projects currently don't have the ability to detect. But nonetheless, it is a little disheartening that we've so far drawn a blank. If there is microbial life on either Mars or Enceladus - or even more so, on both worlds, never mind Europa - then a continued lack of success for SETI suggests the chances of intelligent life evolving are far lower than the probability of life itself arising.

In effect, this means that life we can only view via a microscope - and therefore somewhat lacking in cognitive ability - may turn out to be common, but intelligence a much rarer commodity. While it might be easy to say that life on both Enceladus and Mars wouldn't stand much of a chance of gaining complexity thanks to the unpleasant environmental conditions that have no doubt existed for much of their history, it's clear that Earth's biota has evolved via a complex series of unique events. In other words, the tortuous pathways of history have influenced the evolution of life on Earth.

Whereas the discovery of so many exoplanets in the past decade might imply an optimistic result for the Drake equation, the following factors, being largely unpredictable, infrequent or unique occurrences, might suggest that the evolution of complex (and especially sapiens-level intelligent) life is highly improbable:

• The Earth orbits inside the solar system's Goldilocks zone (bear in mind that some of the planets have moved from the region of space they were created in) and so water was able to exist in liquid form after the atmospheric pressure became high enough.
• The size and composition of the planet is such that radioactivity keeps the core molten and so generates a magnetic field to block most solar and cosmic radiation.
• It is hypothesised that the Earth was hit by another body, nicknamed Theia, that both tilted the planet's axis and caused the formation of the Moon rather than having a catastrophic effect such as tearing our world apart, knocking it on its side (like Uranus) or removing its outer crust (like Mercury).
• The Moon is comparatively large and close to the Earth and as such their combined gravitational fields help to keep Earth in a very stable, only slightly eccentric orbit. This is turn has helped to maintain a relatively life-friendly environment over the aeons. 
• The Earth's axial tilt causes seasons and as such generates a simultaneous variety of climates at different latitudes, providing impetus for natural selection.
• The Great Unconformity and hypothesised near-global glaciation (AKA Snowball Earth) that might have caused it suggests this dramatic period of climate change led to the development of the earliest multi-cellular life around 580 million years ago.
• Mass extinctions caused rapid changes in global biota without destroying all life. Without the Chicxulub impactor for example, it is unlikely mammals would have radiated due to the dominance of reptiles on the land.
• Ice ages over the past few million years have caused rapid climate fluctuations that may have contributed to hominin evolution as East African forests gave way to grasslands.

The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould often discussed 'contingency', claiming that innumerable historical events had led to the evolution of Homo sapiens and therefore that if history could be re-run, most possible paths would not lead to a self-aware ape. Therefore, despite the 4,800 or so exoplanets discovered so far, some within their system's Goldilocks zone, what is the likelihood such a similar concatenation of improbable events would occur of any of them? 

Most people are understandably not interested in talking to microbes. For a start, they are unlikely to gain a meaningful reply. Yet paradoxically, the more worlds that microbial life is confirmed on, when combined with the distinct failure of our SETI research to date, the easier it is to be pessimistic; while life might be widespread in the universe, organisms large enough to view without a microscope, let alone communicate with across the vast reaches of interstellar space, may be exceedingly rare indeed. The origins of life might be a far easier occurrence than we used to think, but the evolution of technological species far less so. Having said that, we are lucky to live in this time: perhaps research projects in both fields will resolve this fundamental issue within the next half century. Now wouldn't that be amazing?