Wildlife and Countryside Link (Link) submitted its response to the Independent Panel on Forestry’s Call for Views in July 2011, emphasising the need for strategic planning and integrated management of woodlands to ensure they support improved public access and enjoyment, a sustainable woodland resource and enhanced habitat and biodiversity.

The group state priorities for English forestry policy should include the protection of all native woodland with semi-natural characteristics and restoration of native woodland on ancient woodland sites currently covered with plantation forests (PAWS), as well as the restoration of open habitats through the removal of inappropriate conifer plantations. They also emphasise the need for an increase in appropriate management using evidence-based approaches tailored to the specific characteristics and management objectives of different woodlands. Sustainable woodland expansion, using the principle of “the right tree in the right place”, should be used where appropriate, particularly where it can provide a buffer for ancient woodlands or improve woodlands’ resilience to climate change. Maintaining and enhancing public access for leisure and recreation should also be a priority, as well as improved support for research and information gathering to allow better understanding of the state of England’s woodlands. Link also state that public ownership will continue to be an important element in the ownership mix for forests and woodlands.

The full response can be found here

Today the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee took oral evidence on the Forest Research Inquiry into the effects of the spending review, and research priorities in the forestry research community. The evidence session involved witnesses from a variety of backgrounds including academia, industry, public bodies and the learned societies, who were represented by Jackie Caine, Science Policy Officer at the Society of Biology. The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food the Rt Hon Jim Paice MP was also present.

Forest research is highly important because forests require active management and appropriate research will help us to understand how best to obtain the unique set of benefits forests can provide. The importance of this was outline in the National Ecosystem Assessment which was released last month. Forests are also experiencing a unique set of threats including novel pests and diseases, and climate change which needs to be researched to aid future adaptation.

The effect of the spending review on forest research in the UK and current funding strategies were one of the main topics covered by the committee’s questions. Both Forestry Commission and Research Council funding is declining. Currently the government spends around £10 million on forestry research however this is expected to decline to approximately £6 million by 2015 when the cuts have taken full effect. Almost 30% of jobs at Forest Research will be cut over the period to 2015. Reduced levels of funding available to the agency Forest Research may reduce the agency’s capacity to leverage funding from other sources such as industry and Europe. The Minister said that even with the budget cuts and fewer scientists research in priority areas will be maintained by redirecting funding from other areas.

A range of funders and a range of perspectives on research priorities may be useful for forest research in the UK. It was the opinion of Stuart Goodall from the Confederation of Forest Industries that potential income for forest research from industry is fairly modest. The sale of high quality wood and other forest products was suggested as one way in which the forestry sector could become self sustaining and fund it’s own research, however this would take time and investment. Several innovative approaches to obtaining new funding were suggested including using the carbon markets and approaching international forestry companies with high revenues to request funding and investment in future forest products and technology. Whatever the funding source is it needs to be secure over long periods because of the time frame of forest research. There was agreement that in the future it would be best for the forestry sector to become self sustaining and pay for its own research. This could be achieved by investing in research now, and developing high quality products. According to the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food the Rt Hon Jim Paice MP it shouldn’t be made mandatory for the private sector to provide funding.

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) fund a small amount of forest research within their other programmes. NERC and BBSRC hardly ever receive proposals for forest research because there is widespread belief that forestry is not within their remit. NERC and BBSRC would be happy to consider more proposals for forestry projects. Representatives from NERC and BBSRC were reminded that the research councils have a responsibility to ensure university forestry departments are funded appropriately and have longevity.
If Forest Research is made more independent it may be able to access research council funding in addition to the funding it receives from the Forestry Commission. Public sector organisations are currently excluded from applying for research council funding.

Priority setting by forest research institutions was also scrutinised by the committee. Dr James Pendlebury the Chief Executive of Forest Research reminded the committee that forest research is complex, long term and has numerous priorities that are balanced in the best way possible by Forest Research.

One point of agreement was that forest research needs an overall long term strategy developed by all the stakeholders in an open discussion with better coordination between universities, Forest Research and within Europe. Across the witnesses there was a consensus that the Forest Research Coordination Committee needs to be brought back. In addition the witnesses felt that better transparency is needed in the relationship between Forest Research and the Forestry Commission.

Researchers in academia currently feel that important areas of forest research are not being considered by the research councils. Appropriate outreach programmes to make sure that research is communicated to the people that use it are vital according to Stuart Goodall.

Among individuals from industry, the Forestry Commission and academia there was concern that UK forests are under managed. More research into how to produce high quality wood and other forest products is needed according to Professor Philip Turner, from the Forest Products Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University, but this is currently not a main priority of the research councils or the Forestry Commission.

The ability of Forest Research to monitor and research the impacts of climate change, and emerging diseases such as Phytophthora ramorum is crucial and this shouldn’t be impacted by the spending review. The private sector doesn’t have the skills and experience to carry out this type of research.

Currently no-one takes responsibility for disease monitoring and research into prevention for trees in hedgerows and in public spaces. This is a serious gap in the current research priorities. It was suggested that the Forestry Commission provide an easy to access database documenting their research on particular diseases, the risks associated with the disease and potential solutions. In the future the UKNEA is likely to influence the research priorities of Forest Research.

Finally the committee discussed careers in the forest research sector. Forestry, which will be important for the green economy and green jobs, has been in decline as a profession with few graduates choosing to study the subject. Consequently the numbers of specialist scientists required in forest research such as entomologists and tree pathologists are declining. One of the main causes of the problem is the lack of PhD studentships and potential employers for graduates. The cuts are likely to affect the number of PhD studentships sponsored by Forest Research although no reductions have been made as yet. In addition as a result of the spending review Forest Research the agency is not able to hire new staff. This has significant implications for early career researchers in forestry who, in the past, have undertaken short placements after their doctorate at Forest Research as a way into the profession.

It is of paramount importance that there are scientists available trained in particular aspects of forest research because future threats will act too quickly to wait for a skills base to be re-established.

You can watch the evidence session here.

Following the results of the consultation on the Green Paper on a Common Strategic Framework for future EU Research and Innovation Funding it has become clear that many researchers in ecology have been left feeling that biodiversity research is falling off the radar.

The Green Paper, published in February this year was designed to spark debate about research funding to inform the Horizon 2020 strategy which will replace the Framework Programme for research, the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology after the next EU budget in 2013.
Evidence was gathered in five main areas:
1. Working together to deliver on Europe 2020
2. Tackling societal challenges
3. Strengthening competitiveness
4. Strengthening Europe’s science base and the European Research Area
5. Public debate and further steps

Despite biodiversity loss being a major societal challenge it was not mentioned at all in the Green Paper, and there was no mention of funding research to help meet the 2020 biodiversity targets. This was noted by a variety of organisations including the French government, Defra, NERC and WWF Europe. Many were dismayed that biodiversity research had been omitted when biodiversity loss is such a pressing issue with a great deal of public interest.

Several organisations emphasised the need for biodiversity and ecosystem related research to be one of the main research priorities for the EU, as large scale projects with international collaboration are needed. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures noted that long term investment by the EU is needed for novel technologies (such as remote sensing) to monitor biodiversity, as well as investment in technology to utilise the massive quantities of environmental data that are accumulating.

Despite the omission of biodiversity loss from the Green Paper there were some indications in the European Commission’s initial analysis that they intend to develop an international collaboration strategy which will be valuable for the field of biodiversity research.

Concerns that biodiversity is falling off the radar have been reflected in the recent failure of EU member states to endorse the 20 concrete measures proposed by the EU executive to implement the six headline targets that will allow the 2020 biodiversity target to be achieved. Some countries including Denmark and Italy have refused to endorse the six headline targets because of the perceived high financial cost of protecting biodiversity. Many of the member states said they require more time to consider the measures and emphasised the need to learn from the mistakes of the 2010 targets, which failed mainly because the EU never really agreed on how best to achieve the goals and how to finance them.

Public interest in biodiversity issues may also be declining. Googletrends has shown that the number of times the word biodiversity has been searched has declined from 2004 to the present day, whilst searches for ecosystem services continue to increase.

Whether biodiversity research gets the funding it needs from the European Commission in Horizon 2020 remains to be seen.

On Thursday 17th February 2011 it was announced that the consultation into the future ownership and management of England’s Public Forest Estate will be halted, and that and all forestry clauses in the Public Bodies Bill will be scrapped.

In response to over half a million people protesting against the privatisation of up to 258,000 hectares of public forest, the Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, made a statement in the House of Commons yesterday declaring the end of the consultation, saying that the government had “got this one wrong”.

Mrs Spelman further announced the establishment of an independent panel to advise on the future direction of forestry and woodland policy in England, and consider the role of the Public Forest Estate and Forestry Commission. The new panel will include representatives from key environmental, forestry, and access organisations, and will report its findings to the Secretary of State in autumn.

In her speech Mrs Spelman said “we have listened to people’s concerns … if there is one clear message from this experience, it is that people cherish their forests and woodlands and the benefits they bring.”

Today Defra launched a further consultation to help shape the natural environment. As part of the Defra Business Plan, the department have committed to assessing the scope for actions to offset the impacts of development on biodiversity in England.

They are seeking written comments of 2000 words or less to address a range of issues, including:

Organisations and interested individuals with relevant expertise are welcome to submit contributions, but comments must be received by the end of January 2011. Full details of how to take part in the consultation are available via the Defra Biodiversity Offsetting website. Views gathered from this process will feed into a wider consultation on the Natural Environment White Paper, due to be released in Spring 2011.

Biodiversity Offsetting is also the focus of the ‘Towards no net loss and beyond’ workshop series currently being held by the Natural Capital Initiative (NCI). The final workshop in the series, entitled ‘Designing a system to offset for the residual impacts of terrestrial development on ecosystem service provision’, will be held on 7th December at the British Ecological Society. Reports from previous biodiversity offsetting workshops, and further information on the NCI are available via their website.

The Policy Team has today submitted its response to Defra’s consultation on the forthcoming White Paper on the Natural Environment. The Department’s discussion document published earlier this summer, asked a series of questions about the current system of nature protection in England, and sought input on how it could be improved.

In responding to the document, BES has presented practical improvements in a number of policy areas, from biodiversity protection, to water, sea and air pollution. The discussion document also asked consultees to comment on the overarching challenges identified by the Department, and the best way to respond to these challenges. The document included a strong emphasis on the role of the ‘Big Society’ in delivering conservation objectives, asking what role civil society should play in managing future conservation work. Some key recommendations in the BES response are below:

• The challenge posed by biodiversity loss requires explicit recognition in the White Paper.
• A systematic review of existing legislation is needed to identify gaps for the White Paper to fill. The proper implementation of existing law is equally important, as is the strengthening of existing planning guidance, which could be reworded.
• Innovative ways need to be found to fund conservation, in the absence of public funds. Market mechanisms, for example a biodiversity offsetting system to compensate for losses from development, could be considered.
• Civil society can be given an enhanced role in the management of the natural environment but only in the context of an overarching national framework. It is not practical to rely on NGOs and charities to deliver UK compliance with targets.
• Implementing the 24 recommendations contained within Sir John Lawton’s “Making Space for Nature” Review should be a priority action going forward. This offers a coherent and effective approach to managing our ecological networks.

The full response is available on the BES website – we welcome your comments.

This week has seen the publication of a comprehensive report on the state of the UK seas, Charting Progress 2, carried out by the UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment community and published by Defra.

There have been “significant improvements” in some areas since 2005. Coastal waters are getting cleaner, fish stocks are improving and species diversity in estuaries is increasing. Fish stocks are improving overall, partly due to reductions in European Union quotas. Furthermore, the proportion of fin-fish stocks harvested sustainably in the UK has risen from 10% in the 1990s to 25% in 2007.

However, this still means that the majority of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels. Declines due to unsustainable harvests are being compounded by warmer waters, which are causing the cold and warm water zooplankton that fish feed on to move north. Climate change is also causing sea levels to rise, with the mean sea level rising by 1.4mm per year in the 20th century, whilst the picture for waterbirds and seabirds is mixed, with waterbird populations being generally healthy, whilst the numbers of some seabirds are falling, particularly in the north.

Whilst pollution from heavy metals is continuing to fall in UK waters, there are still some localised problems such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which, while stabilising nationally, are still found in places at levels that affect wildlife, including harbour porpoises. Litter levels have also doubled between 1994 and 2007.

Marine environment Minister Richard Benyon said: “The report’s findings show that we are moving in the right direction, but there is more work that needs to be done, especially to protect the UK’s seabirds. I am committed to improving our marine environment by delivering the conservation measures in the Marine and Coastal Access Act and hope to see further improvements in the next report as we gain the benefits from Marine Conservation Zones.”

The full report can be found here

The Government also launched consultations yesterday on Marine Act implementation, seeking views on the Marine Policy Statement, Marine Planning System and Marine Licensing. The BES will be responding to these consultations (deadline 13 October) and more information can be found on our website.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has been consulting since December on ‘New Approaches to Biofuels’. Today the Society of Biology submitted its response, to which members of the BES have contributed.

The aim of the Nuffield consultation is to explore the ethical implications of new developments in biofuel production, so-called ’second generation’ biofuels which can be made from woody biomass, from wastes and residues and from marine resources such as algae. A Working Party convened by the Council will consider the potential benefits and disadvantages of advances in biofuel production, along with the ethical, social, legal and economic issues raised. The Working Party will aim to make policy recommendations where appropriate.

In response to the consultation, the Society of Biology made the following key recommendations:

1. Material that can be used as food for people or livestock should not be used as feedstock for biofuels because to do so would adversely affect food security.

2. Non-food crops, waste biomass, algae, and microbes could be used to produce next generation biofuels, but only if comprehensive lifecycle and ecosystem analyses show that sustainable production is possible. For example, intensive monocultures of non-native species (e.g. Miscanthus sp.) may have negative impacts on water quality, biodiversity and landscapes.

3. Land with high biodiversity value should not be used to grow biofuels, nor should their growth ever displace other uses onto such land unless there is clear justification and no viable alternative. Land-use choices should be subject to comparative analysis through an ecosystem approach.

4. Biologists can play a key role in generating new approaches and technologies towards the goal of sustainable biofuel development.

5. It is imperative that adopted biofuels are subjected to full life-cycle analysis for energy efficiency, ecosystem and social impact, and sustainability. Sustainability criteria should be mandated EU-wide. The recent decision in favour of optional recommendations rather than binding criteria is disappointing and very unlikely to succeed in delivering the degree of environmental stewardship so urgently needed.

6. A robust policy to reduce energy use should be a primary objective. The promise of biological and other energy sources should not deter these efforts. Energy saving measures are often more environmentally sustainable, and significantly cheaper than novel fuels and processes. Energy saving and efficiency measures should be implemented vigorously by governments, organisations and individuals.

The full response can be accessed through the ‘Consultation Responses’ section of the BES website.

The Society of Biology is the umbrella body for the biosciences, and was formed by the unification of the Institute of Biology and Biosciences Federation in October 2009.

The BES and Biochemical Society have together prepared a response to the UK Government Office for Science consultation on ‘Guidelines on Scientific Analysis in Policy-Making’. Following on from the dismissal of Prof. David Nutt as Chairman of the Government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in 2009, the BES and Biochemical Society believe that guidelines on how scientific advice should be used, and principles on the treatment of independent scientific advice by ministers and civil-servants are more important than ever.

Key points from the response are:

– The Guidelines should be far more positive about the potential of learned societies to offer networks of expertise and advice to policy-makers. Learned societies such as the BES and Biochemical Society can help to facilitate dialogue between policy-makers and academics.
- Whilst the National Academies, such as the Royal Society, undoubtedly provide a useful source of advice to government, individual learned societies are the experts in their specific areas, and are often able to draw upon a broader constituency. Consulting more widely than the National Academies can play an important role in ensuring an adequate and representative research base.
- The involvement of lay members in science advisory structures as a matter of course could prove useful in identifying issues which may be of broad public concern at an earlier stage and would add value to the output of advisory bodies.
- Government could better draw upon established sources of expert advice by ensuring that in the first instance, further departments have their own Science Advisory Councils and Scientific Advisory Committees; as a priority the Department of Health and Department of Energy and Climate Change.
- Government at the highest level should adopt an explicit framework for the use of public dialogue to inform science and technology related policies.
- The Government should withhold advice provided or the evidence base for a policy only in exceptional circumstances.
- A scientifically-literate civil-service, and a civil-service which includes scientifically trained individuals, is also vital to ensure that policy questions are designed in a way which can be answered by scientists.

All consultation responses and briefing papers produced by the BES can be found on our website, under ‘Our Position’.

The BES Policy Team last night attended a meeting and reception organised by the Chagos Environment Network, highlighting the importance of designating the Chagos Archipelago (otherwise known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, or ‘BIOT’) as a highly protected marine reserve. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office earlier this month announced a consultation on the formation of a Marine Protected Area in Chagos – which closes on 12 February.

Presentations from Professor Carl Lundin (IUCN) and Professor Charles Sheppard (Warwick University) highlighted the pristine marine environment of Chagos, whist Alastair Gammell, Pew Environment Group, encouraged all present to respond robustly to the UK Government’s consultation. Professor Lundin began by comparing the relative numbers of protected areas designated on land and at sea. Over the past 125 years, over 125,000 protected areas have been created on land; a relative success story. At sea however, despite many international commitments to create protected areas (Convention on Biological Diversity: designate 10% of signatories’ Exclusive Economic Zones as protected by 2010; World Parks Congress: designate 20% of the world’s oceans by 2020; OSPAR and the World Congress on Sustainable Development, for example), based on the current trajectory society is on in actually putting these into practice, we will not achieve the CBD targets until 2047 and the World Parks Congress targets until the 2080’s.

All speakers stressed that the Chagos offer an opportunity to achieve something which could not be achieved elsewhere; the conservation of a near-pristine coral reef system, largely removed from stressors such as pollution and over-fishing. Although climate change poses a severe risk to the reefs, the absence of these other stressors mean that the reef is more resilient to change: for example, in the severe coral reef bleaching event in 1998 (caused by the El Nino phenomenon), 50% of corals in Chagos died. However, now many are recovering: a recovery not seen elsewhere (for example in the Seychelles, where 98% of corals were killed through bleaching). Conserving the reefs now could ‘buy thirty years’, in the words of one of the speakers, in which fisheries outside the MPA would be supported, endangered species could find a haven and scientists could conduct vital research.

Introducing a Marine Protected Area in Chagos would allow scientists access to a fantastic resource, offering scope for exploration of the largely unstudied deep sea areas of the archipelago and offering a control site against which interventions to tackle degradation, and climate change, in other reef systems could be assessed. In addition, the Chagos sits on the Southern Equatorial current, so plays a vital role in re-stocking the fisheries and reefs of the Seychelles and Mauritius.

Despite these benefits, final comments from a representative of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office stressed that by no means was the designation of a Marine Protected Area in Chagos certain. He cautioned against the creation of a ‘paper park’, meaning that whatever is put in place must be adequately resourced and policed. The official did not quote a figure for how much this may cost, but acknowledged that greater resource than available in Chagos at the moment would be needed. The FCO consultation quotes a figure of £1 million – already at odds with the figure quoted by Alastair Gammell, during the discussion session, of £2 – 3 million. The legal status of Chagos – which is due to be ceded back to Mauritius when no longer needed for military purposes – and of the Chagossian people, awaiting a verdict from the European Court of Human Rights as to their right to return to their homeland, also create issues which the Government needs to manage extremely sensitively.

Nevertheless, the fact that the UK Government is consulting the scientific community and others about plans for a Marine Protected Area is a very positive step. Much of the content of the consultation came out of a meeting of the Chagos Conservation Network at the Royal Society earlier this year and the presence of officials from both Defra and FCO at the meeting last night was a positive sign. If the whole of Chagos was declared a Marine Protected Area this would increase by tenfold the areas held in MPAs in the Indian Ocean and if, additionally, the Chagos MPA were to be a ‘no-take’ zone, this would double the total area of the world’s oceans treated in this way; a fantastic legacy for the UK Government.