Could winemaking be bad for nature?

While wine is usually associated with relaxation and fun, wine-producing Mediterranean ecosystems such as those in California, central Chile and southwestern Australia are growing increasingly fragmented and degraded under pressure from human activity — and agriculture (including vineyards) has often been a key driver of that degradation.

But is that trend reversing? Nature.org spoke with Jeffrey Parrish, director of global Mediterranean habitat conservation for The Nature Conservancy, about how some winemakers are actually leading the way back to sustainability — and how the Conservancy hopes to work with them.

Nature.org: What's wine got to do with conservation?

Jeffrey Parrish: The Mediterranean regions of the world are highly desirable places to visit, to live, to develop, and to grow crops and generate products (like wine) that people all over the world are demanding.

But because of this desirability, Mediterranean ecosystems are being converted at a rapid pace into farms, mines, cities, housing developments and vacation spots.

At the same time, little of this land has been protected. The combination of high conversion and low protection is what has put the Mediterranean biome in a dramatic crisis that the Conservancy is directly trying to reverse through projects in California, Chile and Australia.

Wine is a direct player in all this. Vineyard expansion and practices in many parts of the Mediterranean biome are directly driving the loss of these ecosystems. But in a few instances, the industry is also becoming a central partner in sustaining Mediterranean landscapes.

In both cases, the wine community — from producers to consumers — will be very influential in determining the destiny of the remaining Mediterranean landscapes. That's why The Nature Conservancy is engaging with wine and other Mediterranean agricultural industries as a central conservation strategy.
 

Nature.org: What are some of the environmental impacts of conventional vineyards?

Jeffrey Parrish: Vineyard expansion isn't inherently bad — for example, when land is converted from one crop such as melons or olives to wine grapes.

But in many parts of Mediterranean habitats, natural habitat is removed to meet the growing production demand for wine or for particular varietals of wine. And this activity contributes to the high conversion rates and increased fragmentation and isolation of Mediterranean habitat that have put this biome in crisis.

Similarly, there are practices within some vineyards that can be detrimental to biodiversity — such as destruction of riparian areas, overuse of agrochemicals, removal of natural hedgerows, etc. These can make vineyards pretty inhospitable to any Mediterranean plant or animal.
 

Nature.org: And what's this about corks — how can using natural cork be better for Mediterranean ecosystems than synthetics or screwtops?

Jeffrey Parrish: Here's how: Many vintners are shifting from natural cork stoppers to screwtops or plastic corks for cost and quality reasons, reducing the market for natural cork that comes from vast cork oak forests in places like Portugal, Spain, France and Morocco.

In these countries, the cork oak forests — which produce cork from their sustainably harvested bark — represent some of the last biodiversity friendly habitats left and are the primary home to many threatened and endangered Mediterranean species.

So loss of demand for cork stoppers in say, Australia, means we lose Mediterranean nature tens of thousands of miles away. It's a global market, and so conservationists such as ourselves and our partner WWF have to work globally across all these regions to find solutions.
 

Nature.org: But isn't the wine industry now going green in a big way — making organic and biodynamic wines?

Jeffrey Parrish: Yes, and we see this as a tremendous opportunity to partner with an influential set of stakeholders for the Mediterranean ecosystems of the world.

Winemakers — like most industries in the world — genuinely recognize that being green is just good business practice. And many of these vineyard owners are anxious to take action and to do so with an organization like the Conservancy that has a long history of being non-confrontational and seeking solutions with the private sector that benefit all.

Page 2: What Are the Solutions?

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Benjamin Goode (vineyard); Courtesy of Jeffrey Parrish (Jeffrey Parrish)