Britain is about to launch a new GCSE in natural history – which some will doubtless greet with indifference while others will write it off as another soft option, to rank alongside media studies and textiles.
Indeed as Mary Colwell now tells us in British Wildlife (May 2025, pp 391-393) she first started promoting the idea of such a GCSE back in 2011, but unnamed Tory MPs objected. So it is only now going through, helped on its way by the former leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, and the new Green MP, Ellie Chowns, and put into practice by Labour’s Secretary of State for Education, Katherine McKinnell.
High tech, low values
We are not apparently allowed to know why the erstwhile objectors objected but I suspect it’s because they believe, in line with the zeitgeist, that education must be firmly focused on material wellbeing in general and on Britain’s ability to compete for a bigger share of the global market and to increase GDP (“growth, growth, growth”, to quote both Truss and Starmer).
To this end, the thinking has it, we need hard science. In particular we need biotech, the practical offshoot of molecular biology, in which Britain once had the lead (with Crick, Watson and Frankin, Sydney Brenner’s work in Cambridge, and so on).
We also need AI (in which Alan Turing in particular gave Britain a head start). For, they say, it’s in such high technologies that the future lies! Media studies and textiles have slipped under the wire, presumably, because both serve the interests of big business.
But natural history? Who needs it? True, we benefit from “ecosystem services” including ecotourism – but all we really need for this is the science of ecology, with respectable, testable hypotheses underpinned by maths. Natural History is simply what in primary school we used to call “nature study”. This in practice means birdwatching and flower-pressing. Self-indulgence, in other words; wool-gathering.
Science, policy, and practice
But as I argue at length this month in Fellow Creatures, such supposed hard-nosedness is dangerously misguided. For the natural world matters far more than is generally realized, both for the good of humanity and for its own sake.
And because the natural world matters, wildlife conservation matters. Effective conservation needs excellent science of course – the science of ecology – for we cannot take proper care of the natural world unless we understand how it operates. We need good technique, too, so that our interventions, when intervention is needed, do what is intended, and not what is not. The collateral damage from ill-judged interventions has been horrendous.
We also need appropriate policy, in particular to develop wildlife-friendly agriculture and to build wildlife-friendly cities – and this in turn requires a radical shift in the economy, away from the obsession with “growth, growth, growth”.
Hearts and minds
Above all – the sine qua non – we need to cultivate an appropriate attitude. We need truly to care about wild nature if we are to keep our fellow creatures and the fabric of the Earth in good heart.
Appeal to the material benefits conferred by the natural world is not enough. We need truly to feel that the other species with whom we share this planet are not just a resource but are our fellow creatures. We need to feel in our bones as many of our forebears evidently did, and many people still do, that nature is sacred. Its destruction and despoliation should be seen not simply as a crime, as is now at last being acknowledged, but as a sin: an offence against God, or for those who reject the idea of divinity, an offence against the cosmos.
Natural history is a key player in all of this. The science of ecology has no substance without a thorough knowledge, or as thorough as human beings can achieve, of what’s out there, and that they all do, and how they interact; and this is the essence of natural history.
Unaware
Neither can we care about what we do not know exists – and most of us are profoundly unaware of the intricacies of the natural world, and the wonders all around us. As the world becomes more and more urbanized and politics becomes more and more focused on power and wealth, our awareness diminishes.
Shakespeare had a far greater knowledge and feel for the creatures around us, more than 300 years ago, than most of us do now. Yet the ecological pressures and the urgency in the present day are far greater. For all our knowledge and high tech we are skating on very thin ice.
In truth we need a mind shift: to put the natural world at the core of government policy and of education, alongside the care of humanity itself, for the fates of both are intertwined. The new GCSE is, or should be, very much part of what’s needed. There is far too much to say than can be said in one article and I want my present blog to grow into a series. As ever, I hope as many people as possible will put their oars in.
Author’s note: This subject is discussed in greater detail in my blog.
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