Info, news & views for anyone interested in biodiversity conservation and good environmental decision making

“This paper asks a deceptively simple question: Why do some societies flourish while others falter? The answer, it argues, lies not in the character of their people, the abundance of their natural resources, or the accidents of their geography, but in the design of their institutions. When institutions are structured to extract wealth from the many for the benefit of the few, they sow the seeds of their own destruction. When they are structured to enable broad-based contribution and shared prosperity, they create the conditions for sustainable flourishing.”
Andrew Klein [see item 3]

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In this issue of Dbytes

1. Over 75% of UK wetlands have been destroyed – restoring them would help prevent wildfires
2. Impact of citizen engagement: making a difference to policy, institutions and society
3. From Extraction to Contribution: A Century of Evidence Against the Predatory Economy
4. Legacy effects of locally extinct flagship species on protected areas
5. The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate
6. When Information Becomes Free, Truth Becomes Expensive
7. A comprehensive assessment of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate pet trade across physical and online marketplaces
8. The planetary emergency is here. The warnings are getting louder

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1. Over 75% of UK wetlands have been destroyed – restoring them would help prevent wildfires

Firefighters have been battling a vast wildfire in the hills above Blaenavon in south Wales, spreading across more than 4,000 hectares, for three weeks. Around 200 military personnel were called in to support exhausted fire crews as more fires broke out across the south Wales valleys. Smoke from Blaenavon could be seen from Cardiff and Gloucestershire. We cannot stop all such wildfires. But it’s possible to make our landscapes more resilient to them – by restoring and recreating a natural habitat we have spent centuries doing our best to remove: wetlands. Over 75% of the UK’s bogs, fens, marshes and other wetlands have been dug up, drained and destroyed since 1700, stripping the landscape of much of its natural ability to hold water. Restoring them would keep soils and vegetation wetter, providing less fuel for flames. Strategically placed wetlands could also form natural breaks that slow fires before they reach homes, forests or farmland.

Over 75% of UK wetlands have been destroyed – restoring them would help prevent wildfires

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2. Impact of citizen engagement: making a difference to policy, institutions and society

Citizen engagement processes can be transformative, especially for participating citizens. This report considers their impact on policymaking, democratic systems and the broader public. Qualitative interview and survey data reveal that public administrations that engaged in citizen participation saw significant benefits, including improved policymaking, stronger democracies, greater legitimacy and increased trust in government. The study suggests and illustrates a number of indirect impact pathways, indicating that the extent of policy impact may be underestimated. Furthermore, citizen engagement drives culture change within institutions and enhances their capacity to engage more directly with citizens. The key message is that desired impact should be the starting point of citizen engagement processes, not an afterthought. Support may erode if citizens and policymakers cannot see tangible outcomes. Commissioning bodies and organisers should prioritise commitment, legitimacy and integration to ensure meaningful impacts.

Impact of citizen engagement: making a difference to policy, institutions and society

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3. From Extraction to Contribution: A Century of Evidence Against the Predatory Economy

This paper presents a comprehensive critique of the contemporary global economic order, arguing that it has been captured by what can be termed an “extractive institutional framework”—a system designed to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a small elite while systematically undermining the conditions for broad-based prosperity. Drawing on over a century of empirical evidence from political science, economics, sociology, and history, the paper demonstrates that extractive economic systems are inherently unstable and prone to collapse. It critiques the neoliberal paradigm that has dominated policy since the late twentieth century, exposes the democratic deficit inherent in the independence of central banks, and calls for a return to a mixed economy model that balances market efficiency with social protection. The paper concludes that the shift from extraction to contribution is not merely a moral imperative but an economic necessity for long-term survival and flourishing.

From Extraction to Contribution: A Century of Evidence Against the Predatory Economy | The Patrician’s Watch

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4. Legacy effects of locally extinct flagship species on protected areas

Protected areas are often established to conserve flagship species so as to mobilize political support and secure sustained conservation investment, with the expectation that flagship-centred governance will also protect habitat. Despite such efforts, flagship species can experience extirpation, raising a fundamental question: do conservation systems endure beyond the species that inspired protection? Our results show that habitat loss trajectories did not change after flagship species extirpation, but pre-extirpation effectiveness differed. Ultimately, protected area effectiveness was shaped not by flagship species extirpation but rather by the underlying management capacity.

Legacy effects of locally extinct flagship species on protected areas – Sreekar – Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment – Wiley Online Library

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5. The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate

Thinking we have time left to address climate change, or that “Net Zero by 2050” will save us, is driving us toward full social collapse in ways that become more obvious with every new broken temperature record.

The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate

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6. When Information Becomes Free, Truth Becomes Expensive

Information is now the most abundant commodity on earth. Anyone with a phone has access to more information in a single day than the average person could consume in a decade a century ago. Historical archives, scientific journals, expert analyses, real-time reporting from war zones, primary-source documents, satellite imagery, verified data on almost any subject – all of it is available, immediately, at effectively zero marginal cost. Never in the history of civilization has a population had more information at its fingertips. And never in the history of civilization has a population had a harder time knowing what is actually true.

When Information Becomes Free, Truth Becomes Expensive

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7. A comprehensive assessment of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate pet trade across physical and online marketplaces

The terrestrial invertebrate trade in Australia is both poorly researched and largely exempt from regulation, despite numerous conservation and biosecurity risks. To determine the extent and implications of this trade, we conducted systematic monitoring of domestic invertebrate sales between 2019 and 2025, spanning online and physical marketplaces. Platforms surveyed included social media groups, pet store websites, public classifieds, insect trading expositions, and pet stores across all Australian state and territory capital cities. Using a combination of automated web-scraping and manual field surveys, we recorded 12,839 advertisements involving at least 568 invertebrate species from 410 genera and 138 families, as well as 121 undescribed ‘pseudo-taxa’. Of the described species, 537 were native and 33 were non-native. Comparison with a previous Australian snapshot study revealed substantial species turnover, including new emerging taxa and species no longer observed in trade since 2020. Thirty-five advertised species are listed under the IUCN Red List, CITES, or Australia’s EPBC Act, including one Critically Endangered species (Thersites mitchellae) for which trade is strictly prohibited. We document a substantial diversity of species not previously reported in wildlife trade and provide the first survey to concurrently monitor trade within expositions, pet stores, the surface web, and social media. Our findings highlight the scale, diversity, and conservation significance of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate trade, and demonstrate the need for improved monitoring and regulation to mitigate conservation and biosecurity risks.

A comprehensive assessment of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate pet trade across physical and online marketplaces | Biodiversity and Conservation | Springer Nature Link

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8. The planetary emergency is here. The warnings are getting louder

Decades of scientific warnings have done little to change humanity’s course. A new warning looks at the interconnected pressures facing the planet and what can be done about them.

The planetary emergency is here. The warnings are getting louder | Pearls and Irritations

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About Dbytes

Dbytes is a weekly eNewsletter presenting news and views on biodiversity conservation and environmental decision science. ‘D’ stands for ‘Decision’ and refers to all the ingredients that go into good, fair and just decision-making in relation to the environment.

From 2007-2018 Dbytes was supported by a variety of research networks and primarily the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED). From 2019 Dbytes is being produced by David Salt (Ywords). David was formerly the Editor of Decision Point, the research magazine of CEED.

Dbytes is supported by the Global Water Forum.

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