"Accelerating through technology is the only way forward"

Technology helps us analyse all life on Earth and speed up that analysis.” That is why Edwin van Huis, director of Naturalis Biodiversity Center, is pleading for large-scale investments: “To resist the rapidly deteriorating biodiversity.”

Besides being director of Naturalis and member of the Supervisory Board at SURF, Edwin van Huis is above all a biologist: “In 1972, the Club of Rome published ‘The Limits to Growth’. This report stated for the first time that, if we continue like this, it will soon be over with our planet. I was fourteen at the time and this made a huge impression. I went on to study biology in the deep conviction that we must arrange a life in which we use no more than the earth has to offer us.”

Under pressure

After positions at the Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid and the Rijksmuseum (see insert), among others, Edwin van Huis has now been shaping his original passion and motives from Leiden for twelve years.

“Naturalis has a great responsibility to research and map the Dutch biodiversity. If you don't know ninety percent of life on earth, how can you understand what is happening in our ecosystems and how, for example, toxins and climate change affect those ecosystems? We actually have a very limited idea. In 2019, a study was released showing that in the last 50 years, 75 percent of all insects in our country have disappeared. That's hugely shocking, but perhaps the strangest thing is that everyone was surprised. No one had seen it happening. Protected animals, such as certain species of meadow birds, are closely monitored, but for insects - after all, the largest and extremely important group in the animal kingdom - this strangely did not happen. We must not let that happen again!”

“Fortunately, many people are gradually realizing that biodiversity is under enormous pressure and that this is very worrying development. In the rest of Europe this subject is high on the agenda, but in the Netherlands, we mainly talk about the climate. Little by little the realization is dawning that a decreasing biodiversity is bad for humanity. If biodiversity declines, it becomes increasingly difficult to survive. Forty percent of the earth's people depend directly on nature for their food and a much higher percentage for their income. Reason enough to protect nature. Unfortunately, from a European perspective, the Netherlands is not doing very well. Our surface water is polluted, our agricultural land is as good as dead, the North Sea is overfished, and the far too high nitrogen levels put enormous pressure on nature. There is an important role for researchers like those at Naturalis to show how biodiversity is doing and to indicate how we can turn the tide.”

Artificial intellingence

To avoid recruiting an army of biologists for every shovel of sand or every water sample taken, the application of smart technology is indispensable for Naturalis’ 140 or so full-time scientists (and about 200 visiting researchers).

“There are very few people who recognize all the plants and animals in the Netherlands and who understand how our ecosystems work. That’s why we rely more and more on genetics and IT. I already told you that we needed 400 years to describe two million species. We now have another 20 years to recognise the remaining species. It can only be done if we use technology to do the recognition of species for us.”

“Accelerating through technology is the only way forward. To protect nature and halt the decline of biodiversity, we need to make a giant leap forward in the next 10 to 20 years. Without large-scale, international investment, this is impossible. It requires sharp political choices. And cooperation. This is where nature once again sets an example. Every species, every plant, every animal is part of an ecosystem and depends on cooperation. A plant cannot absorb its food without cooperating with the bacteria around its roots. Nor without fungi in the soil supplying the minerals it needs. Plants provide sugars and carbon in return. That’s how everything works together. To protect nature, make agriculture organic, improve the quality of our surface water and bring life back to the North Sea, we need to join forces. Only then can we understand, monitor, and improve biodiversity in the Netherlands. That is our challenge, but without the support of politicians and cooperation with parties like SURF we will not succeed.”

Edwin van Huis is speaker and host the SURF Summit 2023, the annual event for administrators, CSCs and other relations of the SURF cooperative, on 11 October. During this edition at Naturalis, we will use nature as a source of inspiration and hear what it has to teach us. We look both at what is there now: 'what is already blooming', and at 'where are buds that are about to bloom'; where do we together have extra water to give?

Watch the aftermovie www.surf.nl/agenda/surf-summit-2023

Text: Edwin Ammerlaan

Photos: Koen Mol