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.

The Government today launched a consultation on what a secure food system in the UK should look like by 2030. After last year’s sudden jump in food and oil prices, as well as growing appreciation of the future impacts of climate change, food security has rocketed back onto the political agenda.

Interestingly, and perhaps not widely appreciated, is that the UK currently has a very good level of food security: we produce 60-65% of our own food, and import a further 20% from Europe. Britain is thus more food secure today than it was in the 1930s or 1950s.

Nevertheless, the Government argues that forward-planning is essential as the world will have another 3 billion people to feed by 2050, so preparations need to be made to produce more using less water and less oil. Livestock production in particular is a major source of global emissions, producing more emissions than the world transport sector.

As well as launching the consultation process, Defra has also published a scorecard-style assessment of the current state of the UK’s food supply. This food security assessment focuses on six areas, including global availability, UK food chain resilience and household food security, assessing the current situation and the likely situation in 5-10 years time. Whilst global fish stocks were assessed as “very unfavourable”, with little sign of improvement, areas such as the diversity of the UK’s suppliers of fresh fruit and vegetables was deemed “favourable” and set to improve even more.

For further details on the consultation, please click here.

At the ‘Lakes for Living, Lakes for Life’ conference being held on the shores of Lake Windermere this week, the Environment Agency has announced that it will assess the 730 most important lakes in England & Wales which need to meet the high standards of the Water Framework Directive.

Whilst river water quality has improved dramatically over the past 20 years, lakes have often continued to deteriorate in the face of more complex environmental challenges. Numerous iconic lakes are threatened by a range of problems. Pesticides and fertilisers from farming are contributing to regular blue-green algal blooms in the Lake District, which prevent people from going into the water. Meanwhile introduced species, such as the New Zealand Pigmyweed, have escaped into lakes like Windermere and are now out-competing many native species. Climate change is also forecast to bring severe problems, with more intense storms creating the potential for increased soil and pollution to be washed off the land into our lakes.

The Environment agency is currently developing plans to improve the condition of lakes and rivers across England and Wales. Under the Water Framework Directive, plans must be approved by the end of 2009 outlining how all our water bodies will be restored to health. Currently 85% of our lakes are failing to meet ‘Good Ecological Status’ (GES).

The draft plans published by the Environment Agency in December 2008 suggested that we would only aim to achieve a 4% increase in GES in rivers, while there is no planned improvement at all for lakes, estuaries and coastal waters. The Environment Agency and Defra have acknowledged that this is an unacceptably weak level of ambition, and that more must be done. They are asking for public input as to how this will be achieved.

Consultation is therefore now under way, and runs until the 22nd June 2009. If you would like to participate in this very important consultation, which will dictate freshwater management until 2015 and beyond, please visit the environment agency website.

A coalition of environmental NGOs have also launched a very useful website which will feed into the consultation. Visit the Our Rivers website.

The Our Rivers campaign has recently been launched by the WWF, RSPB, Angling Trust and the Association of Rivers Trusts and is calling on the Government to be more ambitious if it is to deliver the positive change needed to protect Britain’s rivers.

The campaign’s website features an interactive map of the UK’s rivers allowing users to highlight the issues facing their local waterway. It enables people to submit their views and to campaign at a local level.

Supporting the campaign is TV conservationist and RSPB vice president Chris Packham : ‘Our rivers are under pressure from so many sources, yet their health is vitally important to us all. Clean, healthy rivers, teeming with life are what we all want to see and what the Our Rivers campaign is all about.

The Environment Agency (EA) will decide the fate of every river in the country through one of eleven river basin management plans which are currently in public consultation. The plans are a requirement of the Water Framework Directive, which broadly, demands an improvement in the ‘ecological status’ of waters by 2015. Final plans will be signed off by the Secretary of State at the end of the year.

The consultation taking place across the country has been criticised for failing to engage many of those who hold vital information about our rivers: anglers who have fished the same stretch for years, community groups who look after their local river and those who rely on the river for their business.

The launch of Our Rivers aims to address this concern by providing a far more straightforward way for people to pass on their unique local knowledge to the EA. The content of the management plans must be informed by those who know and care about their rivers; those who live and work on them.

The consultation ends on 22 June; comments made on the Our Rivers website will feed directly into the EA consultation.

The European Commission today launched its next attempt to reform the much-maligned Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The last round of reform was only completed in 2002, but as the EU itself acknowledges in today’s Green Paper, many of Europe’s fish stocks remain in a parlous state- 88% of stocks are over-fished (against a global average of 25%) and 30% are ‘outside safe biological limits’, i.e. they cannot reproduce at normal rate because the parenting population is too depleted.

The Commission’s analysis places the blame for over-fishing firmly on the problem of fleet overcapacity, arguing that ‘a number of fishing fleets are two-three times the size needed to catch the available fish’. Fleet capacity across the EU has been falling at an annual rate of around 2-3%, but any capacity reductions have been lost due to the fact that technological improvements make fishing boats 2-3% more efficient every year.

The Commission is also frank in its recognition of the political pressure which sees its scientifically-derived quota proposals overruled by EU Environment Ministers every year.

The scale of the problem is now such that the Commission has decided to bring forward the reform process. It is only legally bound to review some parts of the CFP by 2012, but in the face of falling stock numbers and chronic overcapacity, it feels compelled to launch the full reform process now.

The green paper therefore also includes various proposals on how to achieve sustainable European fisheries. Most notable is the proposal to increase the use of transferable quotas. This system, used with some success abroad, would see fishermen ‘own’ the right to fish for a number of years, thereby encouraging them to fish in a more sustainable manner to protect their own long-term economic interests.

The Commission is now actively seeking views and submissions on its reform proposals. The consultation documents can be viewed here. Submissions will be accepted until 31 December 2009.

The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee has announced a new inquiry into ‘Putting Science and Engineering at the Heart of Government Policy’. The Committee is seeking evidence on, amongst other things:

• whether there should be a Department for Science
• strengths and weaknesses of how Government currently formulates science policy
• whether the views of the science and engineering community are, or should be, central to the formulation of government policy
• engaging the public and increasing public confidence in science and engineering policy
• the role of GO-Science, DIUS and other Government departments, charities, learned societies, Regional Development Agencies, industry and other stakeholders in determining UK science and engineering policy
• how government science and engineering policy should be scrutinised.

The BES is planning to respond to this consultation, by the deadline of Monday 12 January. If you would like to contribute to this response, e-mail Policy@BritishEcologicalSociety.org, by, at the latest, Friday 12 December.

The Royal Society has launched a new study on ‘Biological Approaches to Enhance Food Crop Production’. The study aims to provide a balanced assessment of the challenges to world food-crop production, the different biological approaches that could be used to enhance supplies and their likely consequences and impacts.

The Society is seeking the views of agriculturalists, bioscientists, academics, policy-makers, industrialists and other interested parties to inform the study. Organisations and individuals are invited to contribute to the study by responding to the call for evidence by Monday 06 October 2008. Evidence should be submitted to Sarah Mee at the Royal Society (sarah.mee@royalsociety.org).

The working group leading the study will report on its findings in summer 2009.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has today launched a new strategy for the UK’s Capital, aimed at better preparing the city and its people for the challenges of climate change. The strategy is claimed as a first for a world city.

Measures outlined in the strategy include measures to ‘green’ London; including the use and design of green spaces, green roofs and tree-planting to reduce water run-off and flooding, and greater preparedness for extreme weather events expected under climate change, specifically flooding, drought and heatwaves. There are plans to increase public awareness of flood risk in the capital, alongside a promotion, and compulsory introduction, of water metering to reduce water consumption.

Launching the strategy, the Mayor commented: “the range of weather conditions facing London…could seriously threaten our quality of life…and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world’s leading cities”. The Mayor’s manifesto included an ambitious target to cut London’s carbon emissions by 60% by 2025.

Organisations are invited to comment on the first draft of the strategy. As a result of these comments, a second draft will be published for public consultation in 2009.

Access the Mayor’s website with official press release and the draft strategy