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Hugh Warwick with a hedgehog
Hugh Warwick and friend. ‘What I do know, as an ecologist, and a fan of the hedgehog, is that we ignore the reality of the finite nature of the planet at our peril.’ Photograph: Hugh Warwick
Hugh Warwick and friend. ‘What I do know, as an ecologist, and a fan of the hedgehog, is that we ignore the reality of the finite nature of the planet at our peril.’ Photograph: Hugh Warwick

Politicians of the UK, I ask you this: what’s your line on hedgehogs?

This article is more than 9 years old

We need ecologists to point the way forward for Britain. For a start, what do economists know about small mammals?

All credit to Natalie Bennett for being open and honest in the Guardian about her shockingly poor interview performance. Lessons have, I am sure, been learned. But how do we measure the quality of a politician? Is it by the smoothness of their delivery? If that were the case, used-car salesmen would probably dominate the nation’s affairs.

For me there is one simple measure: hedgehogs. What is politicians’ position on hedgehogs? I have written two books on the subject and studied them for the last 30 years, so it is right at the top of my agenda.

I ran a stall for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (yes, there really is one) at the Green party conference last year, and got talking to Natalie Bennett. She was genuinely fascinated by the animals, concerned about their plight, and wanted to meet one.

Which is why I found it particularly amusing to see the Daily Mirror mocking Bennett for being partial to these charismatic creatures. If their intent was to repel voters from her, they will have surely failed. This is an animal that is regularly voted the nation’s favourite. And the project Hedgehog Street has signed up more than 33,000 households – not far off the membership of the Liberal Democrats, I reckon.

There is real concern about Britain’s hedgehogs. The population is in steep decline and the only party with any serious intent on addressing this and other biodiversity issues is the Greens. Which brings me to the serious point of this piece – we are beset by politicians unversed in ecology and obsessed with economy. Yet ecology and economy share a link: the Greek oikos which means home. One word means the study of the home – in this case our planet – and the other refers to its management. I am sure I am not alone in thinking there are rather too many managers out there and too few who take the time to study.

It was an eco-guru, Satish Kumar, who made this link first for me, when he pointed out the folly of trying to manage something you do not understand. What Bennett is doing is bringing the need to understand the ecosystem back into a political world that is heavily dominated by those who think we can just manage it with tools developed by 18th-century economists.

It is naive in the extreme to measure the wealth of nations in terms of the movement of printed pieces of paper. Our wealth should be measured in terms of ecological and societal resilience. Professor Herman Daly, a former senior economist at the World Bank, said: “Once you sit down and draw a little picture of the economy as a subset of the larger ecosystem … you have to say, well, there are limits. We’re not going to be able to grow forever.” And he concludes that this obvious fact raises very threatening questions.

I do not know the answer. And it takes a brave politician to be honest enough to admit any fallibility. But what I do know, as an ecologist, and a fan of the hedgehog, is that we ignore the reality of the finite nature of the planet at our peril.

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