A meeting at the Linnean Society on 24th November 2011 will unveil the highlights from a decade of research into the Chagos Archipelago; the world’s largest marine protected area (MPA). Organised in partnership with the Chagos Conservation Trust and supported by the Pew Environment Group, this one-day meeting will explore the ecology of the Chagos and the importance of safeguarding the archipelago from the damaging impacts of over-fishing and over-exploitation.

Professor Charles Sheppard, who works part-time at the University of Warwick and for the remainder as an advisor to the UN and Government on tropical marine ecology and conservation, is the lead organiser for the meeting and will oversee a programme of invited speakers discussing varied topics; from how to monitor fish populations in the Chagos to the way ahead for the management of the MPA.

Further information is available from the website of the Linnean Society.

The British Medical Journal is organising a briefing event for a small audience on the ‘Health and Security Risks of Climate Change’. This event, organised in partnership with the Climate and Health Council, will take place at BMA House on 17th October.

Advertising the event, Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor of the BMJ says: “Whilst the fiscal impacts of climate change are increasingly discussed, less attention is paid to its human impacts.

“These are increasingly recognised to be both imminent in their emergence, and grave in their consequence. Such is the opinion of the medical community, but also of the military and security establishment.

“Indeed, the direct health impacts of climate change will threaten security and promote conflict – factors which themselves threaten human health. Such issues were bluntly clarified in a recent editorial, published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal)”.

At the event, Dr Godlee explains, “these issues will be discussed in greater detail by experts in their fields – ranging from economists, policy makers, and influential members of the business community.”

To find out more or to apply for a place email climatechange@bmj.com before the 1st August 2011, providing your name, job title, organisation and email address.

On the 25th July 2011 the draft National Planning Policy Framework was published by Government. After the release of the Natural Environment White Paper in June this year conservation organisations have been highly anticipating the publication of the Framework, which represents the next step in terms of implementing the declarations of the White Paper.

The document, which integrates the Government’s economic, environmental and social planning policies for England, was issued alongside a statement from the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, who said “It will give local communities the power to protect green spaces that mean so much to them, while still giving the highest protection to our treasured landscapes such as national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It will also ensure that development needed to grow the economy is carried out in a sustainable way.”

The Government’s objective as stated in the Framework is that planning should help to deliver a healthy natural environment for the benefit of everyone and safe places which promote wellbeing. To achieve this objective, the document states that the planning system should aim to conserve and enhance the natural and local environment by protecting valued landscapes, minimise impacts on biodiversity and provide net gains where possible. The report also makes the statement that planning permission should be refused if significant harm resulting from a development cannot be avoided, adequately mitigated, or as a last resort, compensated for.

The Framework goes on to support the Lawton Review and the White Paper with its goals to minimise impacts on biodiversity by stating that planning policy should take into account the need to plan for biodiversity at a landscape-scale as well as identify and map components of the local ecological networks, including international, national and local sites. In line with EU targets the Framework states that planning will promote the preservation, restoration and re-creation of priority habitats, ecological networks and the recovery of priority species populations.

In terms of climate change the Government’s objective is that planning should fully support the transition to a low carbon economy in a changing climate, taking full account of flood risk and coastal change. To achieve this objective, the planning system should aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support energy efficiency improvements to existing buildings, deliver renewable and low-carbon energy infrastructure and provide resilience to impacts arising from climate change.

The Planning Framework is now open for consultation until the 17th of October 2011 and followed by a series of events taking place across the UK. Read the full document here.

The Science and Technology Committee have launched an inquiry into the role and function of departmental Chief Scientific Advisers (CSAs).

The Committee will be looking at the following aspects:

• The ability of CSAs to provide independent advice to ministers and policy makers within their departments
• The extent of their influence over research spend
• Their role in providing independent challenge and ensuring that departmental policies are evidenced-based
• The range of expertise provided by the network of CSAs
• The extent to which CSAs have authoritative standing within relevant academic, industrial or business communities, including whether they have effective networks within those communities
• The contribution of CSAs in promoting public trust in the independence and authority of science advice to government.

The Deadline for submissions is Friday 16 September 2011. Details of how to contribute can be found online. After the inquiry the Committee will hold public meetings in October and November, and publish a report of their findings in early 2012.

Lord Krebs FRS, Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, criticised the UK Government on the Radio Four ‘Today’ programme this morning, accusing ministers of ‘ignoring’ scientific evidence by sanctioning a badger cull. Secretary of State Caroline Spelman MP announced the cull on Tuesday in a statement to the House of Commons. Lord Krebs questioned why the National Farmers Union, also speaking on the programme, were in favour of a cull, when the evidence shows that farmers located nearby to the cull sites, but not themselves participating, would experience a higher incidence of the disease as a result of the intervention.

In delivering her statement to the Commons, Caroline Spelman stated that ‘doing nothing is not an option’, given the devastating impact of bovine TB on the livlihoods of farmers and of rural communities. Outlining why vaccination of badgers and cattle is not yet an option to control the disease, the Secretary of State commented that ‘a useable and approved cattle vaccine and oral badger vaccine are much farther away than we thought and we cannot say with any certainty if and when they will be ready‘. Instead, the proposal is for a controlled cull in England, with Natutal England issuing licenses to groups of farmers and landowners who then commit to paying, at their own expense, trained experts to shoot free running badgers across an area of 150 km2 for a minimum period of four years. There will be two pilots in year one, to assess the efficacy of shooting and whether badgers have been killed humanely.

The potential effectiveness of the cull is a hotly debated issue within science, as Professor Krebs’ appearance this morning illustrates. Professor Krebs oversaw an initial review of the evidence for the transmission of TB between cattle and badgers in 1997. As a result of his recommendations, the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) was established to oversee the 10-year Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), which published its final report in 2007. The ISG showed that reactive culling increased the incidence of TB in cattle, making this unacceptable as a future policy option. Proactive culling, carried out over an area of 100 km2, reduced the incidence of bovine TB but this beneficial effect was offset by an increase in disease in un-culled areas. The group concluded that this was due to ‘perturbation’; the disruption of the badgers’ territorial social groups, causing the animals to roam and so spread the disease into uninfected areas.

The ISG concluded that badger culling could not meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in Britain. And yet, Caroline Spelman was adamant in the House on Tuesday that Defra’s policy is science-led and evidence-based. The scientific community does seem to be split on this issue. Several members of the ISG wrote a letter to the Times on 13th July, calling for the ‘untested and risky’ approach of badger control by shooting to be carefully monitored, whilst nine other members of the ISG were cited by Caroline Spelman this week as supporting a badger cull.

A group of independent scientific experts assembled by the Defra Chief Scientific Advisor, and including Lord Krebs, met on 4th April this year to consider the evidence and make recommendations to Defra. This group concluded that the science base (the RBCT and subsequent follow-up studies) indicates that a proactive badger cull resulted in a beneficial effect compared to areas where no cull took place. Perturbation was transient and that 12-18 months after the cull, this effect subsided. However they concluded too that the more a badger policy deviates from the conditions of the RBCT, the more likely it is that the outcome will differ; this presumably includes shooting of free-running badgers, which was untested by the RBCT, which instead trapped badgers in cages before shooting them.

The experts conclude that culling must be coordinated and sustained, over a minimum area of 150km2 and for a minimum period of four years, to avoid making matters worse. They suggest that the incidence of disease could be reduced by 20-34% after nine and a half year period, but given the perturbation effect in the area surrounding the cull locations, the net benefit would be likely to be smaller (between 3% and 24%).

Professor Krebs argued this morning that the cost of a badger cull would far outweigh the benefits; given that the total disease incidence would be eight of herds experiencing TB breakdowns in hot-spots, compared to nine out of ten herds. Questions to Caroline Spelman in the Commons earlier this week revealed that Defra will need to pay £200,000 annually to cover extra cost of policing which will be needed to deal with protests against the cull, whilst Caroline Spelman herself commented that it would ‘cost a modest amount more’ to include culling within the measures needed to deal with bovine TB in Britain. The Secretary of State suggested that reducing the social impacts of herd breakdowns, to farmers and rural livlihoods, would outweigh these monetised costs.

A busy couple of days for the BES Policy Team; first the launch of the All Party Parliamentary Biodiversity Group (APPBG) yesterday and then today, the British Society of Soil Science’s Annual Conference and launch of a new framework for professionalism in the discipline. How scientists can engage with decision-makers, whether through parliament or directly with Government, was a common theme.

The All Party Parliamentary Biodiversity Group met in the Macmillan Room in Portcullis House, Westminster. Security was tight due to the appearance of News of the World executives at the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in the building, with a large queue outside. Despite this, the Macmillan room was busy, with representatives from IEEM, the BTO, Bat Conservation Trust, Wildlife and Countryside Link, and others, assembling to network with one another and to hear speeches from Barry Gardiner MP, Chair of the Group, and Martin Brasher, Defra. Unfortunately no Defra Minister could join the event: Richard Benyon was called away to Brussels to deal with negotiations around fisheries; Lord Henley was whipped to appear in the Lords and the Secretary of State was simultaneously delivering a statement to the House regarding badgers and bovine TB.

Mr Gardiner outlined the role of the APPBG: to highlight to parliament policies in support of the environment, working as a group to identify those which should be brought in front of Government and to highlight the economic cost of not conserving natural capital. Martin Brasher then highlighted the policy drivers behind the recent Government Natural Environment White Paper for England, including the Aichi Targets agreed at the COP-10 meeting in Nagoya in October last year. The EU Biodiversity Strategy has recently been published as a European response to these targets, and the England Biodiversity Strategy is currently in preparation: when pressed by the BES for a date for the launch of this, Mr Brasher said that this would be published ’soon’.

If successful, the APPBG could provide a useful and influential means for the conservation science community to interact with decision-making within parliament. Certainly the launch attracted a number of MPs, despite the competing priority of the inquiry into phone-hacking taking place next door. A number of events are planned throughout the coming year, which the BES will remain engaged with.

The theme of scientists engaging effectively with decision-making was picked up today at the British Society of Soil Science’s annual meeting, which saw the launch this afternoon of ‘Working with Soils‘, a framework for professional standards within the discipline. Dr Miles Parker, Deputy Chief Scientific Advisor at Defra, spoke at the launch and emphasised the amount of time and money which the Department spends on linking to external scientific advice; whether through supporting research directly or by financing and supporting Scientific Advisory Committees. Dr Parker said that to deliver advice effectively, scientists must understand not only their own specialist field but also the context in which the advice is being given – understanding who else might be delivering advice and from what perspective. Scientists need to be able to speak to other experts and be able to speak to policy-makers. Skills in networking, communication and in listening to others were all important, Dr Parker said.

The importance placed by Dr Parker on scientists developing policy-relevant skills is welcome to the BES, which runs a number of schemes aimed at building capacity within our membership in this respect. Our annual Shadowing Scheme and Policy Training Workshop, aimed at early-career researchers, and POST Fellowship, for second and third year PhD students provide experience of engaging with the science-policy interface. All will open for applications once again early in 2012.

The NERC Valuing Nature Network has today launched an ‘Announcement of Opportunity’, inviting proposals for project funding. The deadline for applications is 22nd September.

Full details, including the science plan outlining the two central themes under which submissions are being sought, are available from the VNN website.

Find out more about the VNN by reading our previous blog posts on this topic.

This week the Welsh Government held a climate change and sustainability exhibition hosted by Professor Noel Lloyd, Chair of Higher Education Wales and John Griffiths AM, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development. The exhibition showcased the work of Wales’ leading university research teams in issues relating to climate change, sustainability and associated technology.

Projects from a range of research areas including technology and climate change were exhibited including a particularly interesting collaborative project between Aberystwyth University and the investment company Compton Group. This project aimed to investigate methods for reducing methane production by cattle whilst increasing milk and meat production by adding sandalwood to the animals’ feed. Sandalwood inhibits the growth of methane producing bacteria in the stomachs of ruminants, diverting the energy normally used to produce methane to growth and higher milk production.

The exhibition was also attended by the Environment Minister John Griffiths AM who spoke about the important role of universities in tackling climate change. He said “Climate change is a critically important issue and one the Welsh Government is committed to tackling. Today’s showcase demonstrates that Welsh universities are taking forward some truly ground breaking work on this issue – work that will be key to helping us, the Welsh Government, to deliver on the targets we have set out in our Climate Change Strategy. It provides a real and tangible example of how, through the academic community, Wales is leading the way on climate change research and innovation as well as demonstrating how we in Wales are working together to solve business questions and environmental issues.”

This week a report detailing the risks of overseas impacts of climate change for the UK economy was released as a first step towards a UK Climate Change Risk Assessment. On examining the evidence the Government Office for Science and Foresight Programme team led by Chief Scientific Advisor Professor Sir John Beddington found that climate change overseas will most likely be just as important for the UK as the direct impacts of climate change on the UK.

A key threat resulting from overseas climate change is the risk of international instability resulting from water stress, food shortages and extreme weather events. Climate change is likely to have the greatest effect in developing countries. Pressures on ecosystem services are also likely to be more serious in developing countries due to high rates of land use change and deforestation. If the UK cannot respond to these challenges there is an increased risk of states failing, higher levels of terrorism and an increased probability of war. In the future the UK government can expect increased pressure on the aid budget and allocation to the UN peacekeeping budget

Changes in disease prevalence and intensity could also result from increased temperature, water shortages and extreme weather events such as flooding. This could place extra stresses on the UK health aid budget. Certain infectious diseases may also spread across Northern Europe from Southern Europe and Africa which may present a novel challenge for healthcare in the UK.

The report also details possible adverse impacts of overseas climate change on business. According to the report UK businesses have over £1.2 trillion worth of overseas assets which are not currently properly protected and insured against climate risks. The UK economy is also highly dependent on overseas resources and infrastructure for food production, energy, extraction of raw materials. In addition the UK communications industry is highly reliant on countries with high probability of extreme weather events for communications infrastructure.

An important point stressed throughout the report is that climate change does not act alone, and the combined effects of climate change, ecosystem service degradation and resource scarcity must be considered by policy makers at all stages.

International leadership will be crucial in adapting to and managing these threats. The Government is already showing leadership in reducing and mitigating the impacts of climate change by signing a legally binding commitment to reduce emissions by 50% of 1990 levels by 2025. The government have also shown commitment to reducing biodiversity loss and ecosystem service degradation in the recent Natural Environment White Paper. Detailed monitoring will be needed to ensure the government meets it’s commitments. Close cooperation both internationally and between business and government within the UK will also be vital to success in this area.

Another crucial step for the government is to promote behavioural change in the UK. By raising awareness of climate impacts overseas and the risks this poses to quality of life and security in the UK the government can highlight the need for action.

Although climate change is a long term and uncertain phenomenon there is no doubt that the above challenges will arise in one form or another. Uncertainty only surrounds how severe the challenges will be and how fast they will arise. The new report draws attention to the global effects of climate change impacts on other countries and the need for urgent action to plan for and mitigate future challenges.

From the EFRA Committee:

MPs to examine Government proposals to protect and enhance the natural environment

Proposals set out in the Government’s Natural Environment White Paper, The Natural Choice; securing the value of nature, published on 7 June, will be the focus of a new inquiry by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

Launching the inquiry, Anne McIntosh, chair of EFRA Committee said, “In what is the first White Paper on the natural environment to be produced for twenty years, the Government says it wants to be the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than it inherited.

“Our inquiry will ask how well the Government’s proposals are likely to protect the environment for future generations, make the economy more environmentally sustainable or improve quality of life and well-being.

The committee is seeking evidence from interested parties and invites submissions on the following areas:

- What actions are required across Government Departments, from local government and by civil society to deliver the White Paper’s proposals to grow a green economy and reconnect people with nature?

– Will the institutional framework outlined for delivering the proposals (in particular Nature Improvement Areas and Local Nature Partnerships) be effective? Does the proposed Natural Capital Committee have sufficient powers?

– What further research and/or evidence is required to develop practical programmes sufficiently detailed to deliver the White Paper’s ambition to fully embed the value of nature into policy delivery?

– What evidence is there from other countries that the approaches proposed in the White Paper can be successfully applied in practice?

– What resources will be needed to fully deliver the White Paper’s ambitions and how can these best be provided? How might the value of ‘services’ provided by ecosystems to beneficiaries be translated into spending that will enhance the natural environment?

– Does the White Paper set out an accurate assessment of the barriers to public engagement with the natural environment and make the most effective proposals for re-engagement?

Details of oral evidence sessions will be released in the autumn. The deadline for submissions to the inquiry is 26th September.

The BES submitted a response to the initial inquiry on the Natural Environment White Paper, announced by the Committee in May. The Committee heard oral evidence on 29th June: read a summary on the BES blog.