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The Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species, John Major’s contribution
to last year’s Earth Summit, now has a logo, £1 million to
spend in the next nine months and, after a delay caused by May’s reshuffle
of environment ministers, guidelines on what kind of projects the initiative
will support.

Last week, 13 months after Major announced the initiative in Rio de Janeiro,
the Department of the Environment finally accepted the recommendations of
the Advisory committee for the Darwin Initiative.

The committee, which is chaired by Crispin Tickell, Britain’s former
ambassador to the UN, has taken almost total control of the pared-down
initiative. It is inviting proposals from British research institutions for
grants ‘to assist with the conservation and sustainable use of the world’s
biological resources’.

‘Progress in launching the initiative has been slow,’ says Tickell, ‘but the
committee will consider bids when it next meets, in September.’ The
initiative’s budget will increase from £1 million this year
to £3 million in two years’ time. This is a far cry from the
annual £10 million budget spoken of by officials on their
return from Rio, but subsequently squashed by the Treasury.

Only British researchers can apply for grants. First in the queue will be
the consortium of institutions, including the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew
and Edinburgh and the Natural History Museum in London, that helped to
establish the initiative. But Tickell is hoping for a wide range of
applicants. ‘It is most important that lots of people should be involved,’
he says.

The committee has spelt out the ground rules for projects that the
initiative is likely to support. They include ‘collaborative projects in
countries poor in resources and rich in biodiversity, including training in
taxonomy’; bringing students to Britain for short courses as Darwin scholars
and Darwin fellows; studies into commercial uses for genetic resources; and
research ‘covering neglected or undervalued aspects of work on
biodiversity, and particularly carried out in cooperation with local people
. . . outside Britain’.

‘We will avoid placing too much emphasis on rainforests,’ says Tickell. ‘I
am anxious to promote interest in marine biodiversity in particular.’

The committee’s list of suggested projects includes studies of the effects
on plankton and krill of the ultraviolet radiation that is streaming through
the Antarctic ozone hole. According to Tickell, American research has shown
‘some types of krill have been damaged very badly’ by UV radiation, ‘but
there has been no British research into this’.

Other suggested projects include studies of Arctic ecosystems subject to
pollution from Russian factories; surveys of wild relatives of crops in
South America; studies of the food potential of fish in African lakes; and
investigation of the greenheart tree in Guyana as a raw material for
pharmaceutical use.

Absent from the guidelines are suggestions for cataloguing the biological
diversity in particular countries or regions. In his speech to the Earth
Summit, Major listed ‘building up an inventory of the most important species
and habitats’ as a prime aim of the initiative. But such systematic research
appears to have been ruled out for lack of funds.

Gone too is the idea of an ‘integrated strategy’ for the initiative which
was being stressed by civil servants last autumn. Now the aim is simply to
channel the small amounts of money available to likely looking proposals.

Neil Chalmers, director of the Natural History Museum, and one of the
advisers on the initiative, is critical of ‘the disparity between the
magnitude of the initiative as announced by John Major in Rio and the
funding on offer’. But, he adds, ‘given the circumstances, the advisory
committee’s proposals match the amount of money available’. He welcomes the
emphasis on promoting training in taxonomy, and the priority given to
diversity in ecosystems other than rainforests.