James Harding-Morris graduated from the University of Hull in 2010 with a degree in English Literature with Primary Teaching. Now Countries Manager for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, he is the author of Endemic, a Richard Jefferies Award-nominated book.
If we lose them, they're gone forever.
Degree
BA (Hons) English Literature with Primary Teaching
Year of Graduation
2010
Current Occupation
Countries Manager for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.
One of the most valuable things I learned was the value of research. I loved turning up to a lecture and discovering that a Shakespearean story was based on something else, which was based on something else.
I was able to put those research skills to good use when I started working on my book, Endemic, where I wanted to understand which species are only found in Britain.
It’s bizarre, because if you look at conservation outwards from Britain, whenever an organisation is doing work on Madagascar or some tropical island, people have worked out which species are irreplaceable so they can get urgent conservation attention. We don't seem to have turned that focus on ourselves in Britain.
Using the research skills I developed while at university, I pulled together my own list and discovered that around 700 species are completely unique to Britain. About 640 of them are plants, around 30 are lichens, and 22 are invertebrates.
I was attracted by the shorter, three-year course that Hull did to qualify as a teacher. And then I was absolutely won over by the person interviewing me. It was clear he had read my application, he knew about my interest in moths, and he made me feel recognised as an individual.
I studied at the Scarborough campus, which has since closed, and I was immediately taken with it for a variety of reasons. There's something about being near the sea. It's hard to explain, but there's something elemental about it. I loved being able to walk down from campus and be so close to the water.
As someone who has always been a bit of a wildlife enthusiast, Scarborough is great. You have the coast on side, but you’re also on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. It sits at the end of a strip of limestone that runs westward, full of orchids and glow worms and rare butterflies.
There's something wonderful about being jumbled up with other people, all experiencing the same thing and building new connections and relationships. The people you meet can become friends for life and, beyond that, contacts and networks that are valuable forever.You’ll find people who stretch you, point you in the right direction, and help you explore a topic or subject in more depth.
The people you meet can become friends for life and, beyond that, contacts and networks that are valuable forever. You’ll find people who stretch you, point you in the right direction, and help you explore a topic or subject in more depth.
I studied teaching and English at the University of Hull and thoroughly enjoyed it. After graduating, I went into teaching and taught for about four years. I always really enjoyed teaching the kids about science, particularly when you're doing habitats work or when teaching Key Stage 1 talking about mini beasts or the life cycle of frogs.
Towards the end of a maternity cover contract, I saw a job advertised with the RSPB organising projects for schools. I remember thinking it sounded fun, because I knew schools well and had always enjoyed doing environmental stuff.
So, I went for it. I absolutely loved trying to find that middle ground between environmental education and formal education.
I was given the opportunity to run one of the RSPB projects, the Big Schools’ Bird Watch, and thoroughly enjoyed that. I learned all about project management and developed my understanding of conservation and environmental issues.
I absolutely loved trying to find that middle ground between environmental education and formal education.
Yeah, as a kid I was into butterflies and insects and flowers. That was a big part of my childhood, but at the time I thought of that as more of a hobby than something I could build a career around.
When I applied to university, I applied to do Primary Teaching and science as well as with English, and I got accepted for both. I had to decide, and I felt I had a better grasp of science so English would stretch me more.
At the time, I was focused on becoming a primary teacher and felt that studying English would make me a better teacher too.
Back from the Brink was an amazing, magical project. Funded by the National Lottery, it was a huge collaborative enterprise which brought together a range of conservation organisations including Natural England, the RSPB, Plantlife, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the Bat Conservation Trust and Buglife.
In conservation you have species that resonate with people very easily. People tend to be won over by feathery or fluffy things and naturally want to protect them. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got things that are in urgent need of conservation attention but are not always seen as the most cute or exciting.
I think a lot of that perception comes down to how you communicate about those species. I think these species are just as exciting, but the public doesn’t always perceive them that way.
Back from the Brink involved these organisations pulling together a group of endangered species bees, beetles, moths, lichens, moss – that perhaps wouldn't have charmed the public on their individual merit. Instead, you show them 200 species that are really important, with loads and loads of interesting stories amongst them. A whole project shining a light on these species makes that easier to sell to people.
I think a lot of that perception comes down to how you communicate about those species. I think these species are just as exciting, but the public doesn’t always perceive them that way.
Absolutely. Cornish Path Moss was one of those species and is also an endemic, meaning it's only found in one place. The entire world population of Cornish Path Moss is about half the size of a doormat scattered over a site in Cornwall. That's the total world population.
Another example was a plant called prostate perennial knawel, which is only found in a part of East Anglia. It grows in a very unusual sandy habitat and nowhere else in the world. It’s become incredibly rare, and we did a translocation, moving it to a few additional sites to help it survive. I was able to go out and take part in that process. Obviously there are species only found in Britain, but I realised that I’d never seen a list of them.
At the same time, I was thinking about the difference between a local and a global view of conservation. Sometimes we focus on species that are extinct or very rare in Britain but are secure globally.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that kind of conservation work. But I think when you set that against things like endemic species, for which we have total global responsibility, the fact that they are irreplaceable should have a bit more weight on the scale of priority. Because if we lose them, they're gone forever.
I'm not saying what we're doing is wrong, but if we looked at conservation from a more global perspective, we might place greater emphasis on the species that are found only here and for which we have complete responsibility.
Now that the book is out there, I am having those conversations, and it's helped open doors.
I recently gave a talk at the David Attenborough Building in Cambridge to representatives from the organisations based there, which sparked some interesting discussions about key biodiversity areas and how endemic species can be given greater consideration when setting conservation priorities.
At the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, where I work, we manage one of the largest environmental datasets in the world. It contains more than 60 million plant records from across Britain and Ireland, and we're currently adding an endemics filter to make it easier for people to explore that data. Soon, you'll be able to filter for endemic species and see where they occur across Britain and Ireland on a map, which will be cool.
There are a few examples from researching this book where I accidentally made a difference. I set out to tell stories but ended up contributing to conservation.
I recognised a third sapling of the Catacol Whitebeam on the Isle of Arran. It’s only found on Arran and, at one point, was thought to have a global population of just a single tree.
A year before my visit, someone had found a sapling, a second Catacol Whitebeam, so when I visited Arran, I went looking for it to make sure it was still there. I found it, and when I got back, I compared the pictures I’d taken to the ones in a Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh blog where they had also visited the sapling.
I realised that it was a different sapling. One group of experts knew about one sapling, the other group knew about another, but I realised they were talking about two different plants. So now we know there are three Catacol Whitebeams on the planet, 50% more than we thought. That feels important. If you compare that to a global population of about 1,800 pandas, it shows you how incredibly rare these things are.
I also took the first ever photographs of the British false flat-backed millipede after using a bit of spare time on a research trip to look for it. The entire global population is in Devon on a stretch of coast that’s only about 10 kilometres long. No one else had documented it in photographs, we’ve only known about it since 1992, and no one had seen it for about 30 years.
One of the barriers to telling people the stories of these species is having the right materials, and photos are critical to that.
I was able to send a millipede to a professional photographer, and now there are beautiful photos of this species for communication and conservation purposes.
I set out to tell stories but ended up contributing to conservation.
I'm not saying endemics are the most important aspect of nature conservation. The whole conservation sector is underfunded, and everything is not getting all the care and attention that it ideally would have. I just think endemics deserve that little bit more visibility because they're irreplaceable.
Endemics make up the largest contribution towards global extinction rates. The IUCN has a list of extinct species and over 90% of them were nationally endemic species, species found within a single country. That makes it one government’s, one country’s responsibility to protect that species. And some do it better than others.
There are so many fascinating stories of species in Britain to be told. I’ve become quite fascinated with the idea of what species are arriving and spreading in Britain in response to climate change. Praying mantises were found on the Isle of White this year. Who knows whether they are here to stay, but it’s evidence of the change.
On the other hand, we have species, like our arctic-alpine plants which need cooler climates, moving further up mountains. What happens when they get to the top and there’s nowhere else to go?
There are so many fascinating stories of species in Britain to be told.
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