INTERVIEW
31
Dr Simon Stuart
Award-winning conservation researcher Dr Simon Stuart was recently appointed Executive Director of A Rocha International . Simon is known to many in Cambridge from his PhD under Keith Eltringham , his work with BirdLife ( then ICBP ), the IUCN Redlist , the KBA partnership and Synchronicity Earth , besides numerous other connections .
A Rocha , the world ’ s leading Christian conservation charity , was founded by Peter and Miranda Harris in 1983 , and exists to equip churches and communities to care for the planet .
Tragically , in November 2019 a road accident in South Africa led to the death of Miranda Harris , along with A Rocha International Executive Director Chris Naylor and his wife Susanna . Peter Harris survived .
Your new role comes as a bittersweet appointment in the wake of the tragic death of Miranda , Chris and Susanna . How has the A Rocha family responded ?
It ’ s hard to know what to say . A few days after the tragedy the trustees who could make it and our A Rocha staff and the Harris and Naylor families bravely came along to a meeting at All Souls in Oxford , and we just prayed and cried , really .
Gradually over time we got ourselves organised and that resulted in myself quite unexpectedly becoming executive director . The A Rocha family around the world is still grieving , but also moving forward , and we see signs of hope in many places .
You always loved studying nature . From quite a young age you were concerned about the fact that some species were dying out …
Yes , apparently , I was making lists of species threatened with extinction when I was very small , and reading books . I can only assume that this is how God made me . I don ’ t think my parents initiated it , but they encouraged it once it started .
You weren ’ t a Christian at this point . But you found faith while at Cambridge University ?
I was always interested , and I loved the Bible stories , but I didn ’ t understand the significance of it at the time . There were teachers at my school who were Christians and I respected that . When I got to Cambridge , I came across students who were Christians and was deeply impressed by their genuine nature and that they weren ’ t trying to impress people . It was their lives , more than what they said , that mattered . And that ’ s what led to me making a commitment at the end of my first year at Cambridge .
Did you have any struggle putting this newfound faith together with your science ?
I don ’ t think so , to be honest .
There were a lot of Christians who had no problem being rigorous scientists and Christians . Later on , as society became more aggressively secular and we had much more in the way of supposedly scientific attacks on faith , I had to think about it some more .
You ’ ve spent a lifetime leading research in conservation , particularly among bird species , in Africa and around the world . Was it through A Rocha that you began to integrate your Christian faith with your passion for conservation ?
I always saw my conservation work as a ‘ calling ’ in some loose sense . But I came to realise that the Bible spoke much more about caring for creation as part of our worship of God , than I had realised .
I had been a longstanding passive member of A Rocha , but in 1999 when I was working for the International Union for Conservation of Nature in
Geneva , my wife and I met Peter and Miranda . That was the beginning of a journey for us , where we started to see the work of Christ in a broader sense .
I ’ m a scientist , not a theologian , but the New Testament talks about the renewal of creation , and we are putting it through some pretty painful times . There is a lot of death on this planet , not just human death and misery , but the death of species , ecosystems , poison , plastics , climate change and all the rest . I think what is clear , from passages like 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 8 , is that creation will be renewed . And it ’ s not some ethereal out-of-body experience , but it ’ s going to be physical .
Our family lived in Washington DC from 2001 to 2006 and that exposed us to a much more politically right wing form of Christianity than we ’ d ever encountered in Switzerland or the UK . That said , I ’ ve come across many politically conservative and politically liberal Christians who are equally passionate about conservation .
The danger of climate change has been highlighted in recent years by activists like Greta Thunberg . What do you think of their approach ?
The big challenge is that the longer we delay , the more we have to do to rectify it . Some people might see Greta Thunberg as extreme , but actually , she ’ s right . We absolutely have to act , because the time is now , it is not tomorrow .
That said , the biggest driver of extinction right now is probably habitat loss , driven by agriculture , at least for terrestrial extinction . Also , unsustainable demand for freshwater is driving extinction in freshwater habitats .
One of my big beefs is that we are so focused on climate change ( which is important ) that we are forgetting the other drivers of biodiversity loss in the planet .
Another big problem is a general belief that hydroelectric power is green .