home All News open_in_new Full Article

Plants, animals and insects come to Britain from all over the world. It would be a mistake to welcome them all | Tim Blackburn

Biodiversity is great in theory, but there are reasons to fend off invasive species and the knock-on effect of their presenceBritain would be a wasteland if it weren’t for immigration. Fifteen thousand years ago, most of the country was buried a kilometre deep in ice – not ideal conditions for life. That all changed as we moved out of the last ice age into the current, milder climate phase. The ice sheets retreated, leaving an empty landscape for anything with the wherewithal to seize the opportunity and move in. Tens of thousands of species did, mainly heading north from the European continent to which Britain was then joined. The result was a native biota where almost every species is an immigrant. Our ancestors were among them.Immigration is a natural process, but it’s one that has been fundamentally changed thanks to humanity’s wanderlust. As we’ve moved around the world we have taken many other species along with us – some deliberately, some accidentally – to areas they couldn’...


today 12 h. ago attach_file Events

attach_file Events
attach_file Politics
attach_file Politics
attach_file Politics
attach_file Events
attach_file Events
attach_file Economics
attach_file Economics
attach_file Politics
attach_file Economics
attach_file Politics
attach_file Events
attach_file Politics
attach_file Politics
attach_file Events
attach_file Politics
attach_file Events
attach_file Events
attach_file Culture
attach_file Events


ID: 3529001908
Add Watch Country

arrow_drop_down