The Babel fish is one of the more inspired forms of fictional
biodiversity. It features in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy by Douglas Adams (sadly no relative), and allows his
antihero, the ape descendant Arthur Dent to traverse the
universe with only his speaking handheld digital assistant, the
Hitchhiker’s Guide, for company (forget Siri, Douglas Adams got
there first). The Babel fish is described as ‘small, yellow and
leech-like’, and when it had slithered into Arthur Dent’s ear,
he could understand anything that was said, in any language of
the universe. As usual in the Hitchhiker’s Guide, this turns out
not to be entirely a good thing. Many conservationists seem to
hope that ecosystem services will work like a Babel fish for
them. For decades they have hammered on about how valuable
nature is, and nobody has paid much notice. Humanity blithely
goes on strip mining the earth’s stock of natural capital and
burning it getting rich, or just keeping alive. But the
ecosystem services Babel fish promises t