Darren Evans is Professor of Ecology and Conservation at Newcastle University, UK. He is also a member of A Rocha International’s Conservation Science Advisory Council. He leads a research group examining the impacts of environmental change on foodwebs, especially in forestry and farmland, with a focus on mitigation and restoration strategies. He enjoys working at the science-faith interface and regularly speaks on the biblical basis for nature conservation.
I have been playing “Biodiversity Jenga” for over a decade. Players take turns to remove bricks, providing me with the opportunity to talk about the ecological role of individual species, and whether they are threatened with extinction. And, as everyone knows, ultimately the whole thing will come crashing down.
Biodiversity is a word you won’t find in the Bible, but the concept is profoundly biblical. As we look through the great themes of the Bible, the pattern is clear: God has a passion for biodiversity that runs from beginning to end.
I remember being 13, and watching David Attenborough walking through a jungle, talking about its beauty and vulnerability, and I remember thinking that I was so glad that people like him were in charge, because he would save the rainforests. It feels as if we have been saving the rainforests for my whole life.
St Helena is a sobering place to ecological eyes. In the early 17th century the Portuguese landed goats and in a hundred years they had reduced huge areas of lush landscape to bare rock. In the centuries that followed, we have made the world itself an island where the goats of hyper-individualism, corporate greed and short-term political ambition are roaming more or less unchecked.
