After a few days in the cool lush foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Southern Spain, the coastal park of Cabo de Gata felt like a hostile place to be. It is what’s called a semi-arid environment, not as dry as the Sahara, but still a desert.
The only crops that can grow without a greenhouse or intensive irrigation here are prickly pear cactuses (my attempts to eat them resulted in hands coated in tiny spines with only a mouthful mildly sweet fruit to show for my efforts).
The landscape is sometimes described as ‘badlands’ because what rain there is here is torrential and washes away the light soil exposing brightly coloured sandstone and volcanic rock. This creates stunning yet forbidding scenery.
With cicadas adding to the scorching ambience with their high pitched drone, carrying a small bottle of water on a walk was a reminder of how vulnerable we were to dehydration.
There was some amazing nature here: a kind of desert daffodil, and salt marshes teeming with flamingos, avocets and great white egrets, not to mention massive practically deserted beaches.
It was a good place for a holiday, hot and interesting but the notion of living there had less appeal.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have just released a new report confirming that people are the cause for global climate change.
This sent my mind back to the desert where species struggle to eek out a living with water in limited supply. An increase in temperature has already caused desert expansion (desertification) leading to famine and dust storms in Africa. If climate change continues, it is going to mean a whole lot more habitat like this.
Okay, it’s not an immediate concern in the UK but, the other catastrophic results of climate change aside, desertification will mean the displacement or destruction of a whole lot of nature.
Some unusual species are appearing here as refugees from the changing climate. Have you seen any exotic or migratory wildlife taking advantage of our long warm summer this year?
Have you visited Sierra Nevada?It's an amazing place
https://community.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/f/wildlife-questions/204686/help-to-attract-wildlife-please/1262467#1262467
I see it as most definitely an immediate concern in the UK since the wheels of any organisational or governmental action to help reverse the effects of climate change are so laboriously slow to grind.
It makes me feel helpless and sad. So many migratory birds facing umpteen 'ordinary' difficulties in migration such as weather and predators also have care the less humans to contend with such as those that live on the island of Malta who find pleasure in shooting them.