Book Review - ‘The New Wild: Why invasive species will be nature’s salvation’ by Fred Pearce

This is a challenging and eye-opening book that demands an open mind of the reader, especially the reader who is steeped in decades of conservation theory and accepted wisdom about how to deal with alien species.

Starting from the premise that “Everything is visiting. Nothing is native”, Pearce shows us multiple examples of questionable alien species eradication policies, whether based on biased research, focused on small areas with the most damaging aliens, or founded on statistics wrongly quoted and requoted in many different settings. The result in many cases has been interventions carried out with almost religious fervour, even when the foundations for them are shaky.

Another Pearce motto is: “Conservationists favour the weak and vulnerable; nature favours the strong and wily.” The author explains how alien species can in fact strengthen native ones, and how species-rich areas are more robust.

At the heart of the arguments put forward in the book is the belief that the idea of ideal ecosystems, with every niche taken, is a myth. Pearce says that species are not co-evolved to fit niches and that the idea that they are is central to an ecological belief system that has similarities to religious beliefs in a Garden of Eden.

Indeed, this book questions whether the very concept of ecosystems is valid. As an artificial framing of nature, the ecosystem approach ignores the possible usefulness of aliens in colonising disrupted and novel environments such as logged-over forests or abandoned farmland.

Pearce identifies many negative unintended consequences of a blinkered approach to nature’s newcomers. He regards the very term ‘Alien invasive species’ as “a catch-all for nastiness and a recipe for muddled thinking”, as it conflates alienness with invasiveness. It also encourages indifference to nature away from where we expect to find it. He introduces uncomfortable parallels between a belief in the need to eradicate alien plant and animal species and hostility to foreigners in human communities.

Several ideas that emerge in the book run counter to received ecological thinking: that most greenfield protected sites are not biodiverse, due to pesticides and plough damage, and that there is considerable value in brownfield sites that is being ignored.

The bottom line: nature is not as frail as conservationists think. Nature doesn’t care about distinctions between urban and rural or alien and native – and novelty, rather than stability, is the norm in nature. The idea that we can save threatened species and return Earth to how it ‘used to be’ is doomed to failure.

The conclusion is that there are no perfect ecosystems, nor is there compelling evidence for the theory that there is a “global stock of species” that must be maintained. In contrast to these widely held ideas about ecosystems, Pearce insists that disruption is essential to evolution. This is an unexpectedly uplifting thought as it opens up new possibilities for how we can work together for the best outcomes for all of nature. 

by Michele Witthaus

At our meeting to discuss 'The New Wild', Michele also read us the poem below, which she'd written during the Covid-19 lockdown. She kindly agreed that it could be shared here!

Ecosystems Management for Beginners

The muntjac are grazing too close to the road
but keep quiet or they’ll be culled.
They have no inherent right to life
as they’re invasive, you see.

Opinion’s divided on foxes in towns,
snapped posing on garden paths;
some would prefer them hunted down
because they’re invasive, you see.

Grey squirrels are at the feeder again,
displacing your wild feathered friends.
But before you chase them, ask yourself:
Are they as invasive as we?