Column: Take action to stop more disasters like the bush fires

At times I forgot I was in Berlin. Natural history museums are similar across the world. I could have been working in London, Paris or Tokyo. There’s a look, a feel, even a smell about museums. It’s often a mix of mustiness and polish, especially those established in the 19th Century. They are naturally popular with tourists and schools. People love looking at their cabinets of curiosities filled with weird and wonderful things.

On Monday morning, as part of a group of scientists and science educators, I was taken into the museum through a back door. I had access to a behind the scenes look at the private life of the museum. Immediately I was met by the spectacle of hundreds of jars filled with specimens, most of which I couldn’t identify. They represented the work of many naturalists, some very famous, most just hardworking scientists. They spent their careers cataloguing life on our planet, travelling in wild and inhospitable places to collect specimens, many of which were new to science.

My meeting was about citizen science – how can we engage people in scientific activities. Not just learning about science but carrying out scientific research that adds to our knowledge and understanding of the world. People, with no formal training as scientists, going out and gathering data using specially designed apps. Taking photographs of what they find and uploading them so the scientists can analyse the data. You’ve probably heard of some citizen science projects – calls from scientists for people to record their observations and sightings on everything from ladybirds to lichens. There was one we were told about in Germany where people were recording instances of wild boars in their gardens. We’re used to urban foxes in the UK, but we don’t have a problem with wild boar. People set up cameras to capture photos of the boar and they fed these observations, the photo, date and time back to scientists who are studying the habits of wild boar and how much they invade the cities. We have similar programmes in the UK with urban foxes.

Citizen science is fun and informative for children and adults alike. It’s not just about big animals, birds or things we can easily see. Citizen science is being used to catalogue creatures and organisms we hardly notice, or we see but do not look at carefully. There are projects to record things like pests, such as slugs. We are also asked about plant life, trees and organisms that attack our native species. What I now appreciate much more is that such organisms can have fascinating lives and life histories.

People are naturally drawn to the cute and cuddly, but when it comes to bugs, pests or parasites, we seem to have an inbuilt aversion. I was amazed to learn that dung beetles navigate using the milky way. They orientate their bodies in line with it and walk a path that reflects the position of the milky way. Gardeners will see aphids as pests that need to be eradicated. Many buy chemical sprays to control and kill them, but they are the natural food source for ladybirds.

Seeing the preserved bodies of hundreds of fish, reptiles, mammals and birds, I was immediately reminded about the enormous loss of life and the destruction of various ecosystems in Australia. There is little doubt that the unprecedented level of destruction will have a profound and lasting effect on the native Australian fauna and flora. We have all seen the pictures of rescued koalas, wallabies and kangaroos. They are the ‘cuddly’ creatures we have empathy with and sympathy for. But many of us will never think about the billions of invertebrates that also died. Who cares about a wasp nest being destroyed or spiders, ants and beetles being killed? They’re neither cute nor cuddly. We may even say good riddance. But every loss has consequences – our ecosystems are more delicately balanced than we’d like to admit. Removing one food source can tip the balance and have a knock-on effect with unintended consequences. What is a pest to one species is food for another, what may kill our beloved roses, could save the life of a ladybird.

Natural disasters cannot be avoided – we just need to think about how volcanic eruptions can devastate wide areas. We know that ecosystems can recover, not necessarily resulting in the same mix of plants and animals, But the bush fires, although still a ‘natural’ disaster, have been exacerbated by climate change and the warning for us is crystal clear. If we take no action, such ‘natural’ disasters will become more common and the effect on our ecosystems will be devastating.