Talk - Alex Kirby

Two different sections of flood plain next to the Ouse, two very different uses for the land. The environmental journalist and broadcaster Alex Kirby is going to give a speech tonight about the Railway Land nature reserve, entitled ‘Trouble Ahead’, in which he highlights the vital importance, on a number of levels, of maintaining such an ecosystem. Meanwhile, a few hundred yards upstream, the current site of the Phoenix industrial estate is awaiting the probable development of a large new residential and commercial district on land which, it is fair to say, nature intended for a very different purpose.

“The ecological dangers that face us in the near future are likely to be catastrophic,” says Kirby, “in Lewes, in the south-east, in England, and in the whole world. Firstly we face the problems of climate change, which is likely to lead to increased flooding in the local area: witness the high water levels last week. Secondly we are facing the loss of biodiversity in the natural world. Climate change we can do something about (whether we shall is a different matter). But many scientists believe we are at the beginning of the sixth great wave of extinction. Extinction of species - whatever Spielberg thinks - is impossible to reverse. Even if we could reconstruct species, it is impossible to reconstruct their environment.”

The Railway Land nature reserve, Kirby believes, is a good example of an environment that it is vital to maintain to help preserve the local eco-system.