Conservationists have reacted angrily to plans by Defra to investigate possible measures to keep buzzards from targeting game birds.

According to the RSPB, Defra is considering options including taking buzzards into captivity and destroying nests in order to protect young pheasants and other game birds on shooting estates. A survey by the National Gamekeepers Organisation in 2011 found that 76% of gamekeepers believe buzzards have a harmful effect on pheasant shoots, and Natural England has received numerous requests to license killing of the birds, which are a protected species.

Although buzzard numbers have increased 146% between 1995 and 2009, the RSPB says that this growth is the recovery of buzzard populations from previous persecution which saw the species eradicated from large areas of the UK.

Both destroying nests and taking buzzards into captivity would be illegal under current wildlife laws as the bird is a protected species, and the RSPB have said that removing buzzards is ‘unlikely to reduce predation levels, as another buzzard would quickly take its place’.

The government report says that the impacts of buzzards on pheasant shoots had not been investigated in detail and the extent of the issues were unclear, although there are a number of sites where buzzards could be contributing to game-bird losses with significant economic impacts for shooting estates.

Defra has defended its plans in a series of Tweets, stressing that its research will consider options which ‘protect young pheasants whilst allowing buzzard populations to thrive’.

Original text from BBC news website. An RSPB press release is available on their website and there is plenty of discussion currently happening on Twitter, see @DefraGovUK.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman last week announced the appointment of five members to the recently formed independent Natural Capital Committee.

The members are experts in the fields of natural science and economics, with a considerable range of specialist knowledge and experience:
Professor Ian Batemen of University of East Anglia served as Head of Economics for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and is a Member of Defra Science Advisory Council
Dr Giles Atkinson is Head of the Environmental Economics and Policy Cluster at London School of Economics
Kerry ten Kate is Director of Business and Biodiversity at Forest Trends and is currently working on the Valuing Nature Network
Robert Smale is Director and Founder of Vivid Economics Ltd and has led projects including an analysis of the scope for a Green Investment Bank in the UK
Rosemary Hails has an MBE for services to Environmental Research and is chair of the Natural Capital Initiative (of which the BES is a partner).

The Committee was created as an outcome of last year’s Natural Environment White Paper (The Natural Choice: Securing the Value of Nature) and will provide independent expert advice on the state of England’s natural capital, reporting directly to the Economic Affairs Committee, chaired by Chancellor George Osborne.

The group’s aim is to ensure that the Government has a good understanding of the value of Natural Capital and that the decisions it takes support and improve the UK’s natural assets. By reporting directly to the Chancellor and Economic Affairs Committee – who advise the Government on economic decisions – the Natural Capital Committee has a real opportunity to influence economic policy for the good of the UK’s natural environment.

The Committee is chaired by Professor Dieter Helm, an economist with considerable influence and experience in the field of European economic and environmental policy, and membership will be complete with the appointment of two further members.

Defra together with the Northern Ireland Executive, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government launched the consultation on the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in March. One and a half months are left to submit thoughts on the implementation of the Directive till the end of the consultation on 18th June.

The main goal of MSFD is to achieve and maintain Good Environmental Status (GES) of all EU seas by the end of the decade. GES means that marine ecosystems are protected, restored and their degradation is prevented while used sustainably. The Directive includes 11 descriptors of GES covering a wide-range of aspects from biodiversity through food webs to underwater noise.

Current consultation aims to draft an initial assessment of the state of the UK’s seas, customise general GES criteria to UK seas and propose more detailed measures and indicators of GES. There will be further consultations on measures and monitoring of achieving GES of UK marine environments.

Consultation materials and information on how to take part can be found on the Defra webpage.

Yesterday’s meeting of the Cross Party House of Common’s Agroecology Group discussed the potential for soil management practices to influence the future of farming in the UK. The session was chaired by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and co- hosted by the Food Ethics Council.

Professor Mark Kibblewhite, Chair of Soil Science at Cranfield University, kicked off the session by scene setting the romantic attachment we have with soils – the smell of light rain on dry earth on a warm summer’s evening and then the reality that this smell is the result of a chemical secreted by soil organisms. He then went on to explain how the biological engine of the earth (the soil biology) utilising carbon as its fuel source drives key ecosystem functioning. But this vital resource is under threat with 25% of soils globally showing signs of significant degradation while the increasing pressure of food production and climate change will shrink these soil resources further. Soil contains some 2,500 gigatonnes of carbon which is 3 times that of the biogenic carbon in the atmosphere and yet currently the Government has no published soil strategy in place and is part of a minority group that is blocking the proposed European Soil Framework Directive. Professor Kibblewhite called on the UK Government to work progressively to adopt the EU framework and positively influence Europe in the interests of our own food security. He also identified the progressive sealing of soils through urbanisation as a major threat. The recently published much condensed draft National Planning Policy Framework makes little specific mention of the protection of soils for the delivery of food and other ecosystem services.

Dr Charlie Clutterbuck of the Food Ethics Council discussed the decline in the study and practice of agricultural sciences in the UK and the disconnect between consumer and supply.

Peter Melchett of the Soil Association drew the formal meeting to a close discussing the need to further our research base and understanding of soil processes in relation to management techniques. This is so that soil scientists can provide practical advice for land managers and not assume that this knowledge is built in to the system. He highlighted that the treatment of soils post war has been input driven and that now was the time to look at alternatives. He heavily supported the need for EU-level soil framework legislation.

This meeting was attended by MPs, NGOs and agronomic advisers along with Dr Kathryn Allton, Executive Officer and Mr Dick Thompson, Governance Trustee, of the British Society of Soil Science.

Blog post by Dr Kathryn Allton, Executive Officer, British Society of Soil Science

The Government has announced the formation of a new cross-government unit to improve implementation of the Habitats and Wild Birds Directives. The new ‘Major Infrastructure and Environment Unit’ is designed to help developers ensure that large infrastructure projects promote sustainable development and protect our most valued habitats and species.

The Unit is one of the key recommendations to come out of a recently published Government report which re-evaluates the way the Nature Directives are currently applied in England. This review was undertaken in response to the Treasury’s ‘Red Tape Challenge’, designed to cut unnecessary regulation to improve economic efficiency.

Announcing the review in last year’s Autumn Statement, Chancellor George Osborne suggested that simplifying the implementation of the nature Directives could help save businesses more than £1billion over five years. However, environmental groups raised concerns that the move would significantly weaken nature protection and lead to a presumption in favour of development.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, defended the review, stressing that it was ‘about getting better rules, not weaker ones’ and would be ‘good for the environment and good for business, because…[it makes] it easier for people to do the right thing, by making rules clearer’.

The review report also announces the intention to publish new guidance explaining to developers and regulators in much clearer terms what needs to be done to comply with the nature Directives.

The recommendations are designed to reduce the burden that the Directives currently place on businesses while maintaining and, where possible, enhancing the environment.

The full review report can be found on the Defra website.

Last week saw the joint meeting of the all party parliamentary groups on Biodiversity, UK’s Overseas Territories and Zoos and Aquariums, at which the BES Policy team was fortunate enough to attend. The meeting was chaired by Andrew Rosindell MP who began proceedings by highlighting his pleasure at the well attended event before introducing Eric Blencowe, chair of the Inter-Departmental Group on Biodiversity in the Overseas Territories. Eric Blencowe spoke of the importance of the UK’s overseas territories and highlighted their high priority status for the UK Government in the form of the UK Overseas Territories Biodiversity Strategy. Defra is to lead on an implementation plan on the biodiversity strategy which, among other things, will seek to reduce the impact of invasive species, with the Lionfish (Pterois volitans) problem in Anguilla cited as an example.

Janice Panton of the UK Overseas Territory Association and UK representative of Montserrat then spoke of her delight at a wonderful morning attending the 20 year anniversary of the Darwin Initiative event held at London Zoo, where £8.5M of funding for 33 new Darwin Projects was announced. Mrs Panton went on to state how important the overseas territories were with regards to biodiversity and how “each territory has a unique ecosystem that is often vital to their economy and a loss of biodiversity to an overseas territory is a loss to us all and help and support from the UK Government is hugely welcome”.

Dr Tim Stowe, Director of international operations at the RSPB, highlighted that although some threatened biodiversity has been recovered, the most recent extinction was only eights years previous with the loss of the last remaining individual cultivation of the Saint Helena Olive (Nesiota elliptica). Dr Stowe went on to suggest that “action is required and that action unfortunately requires money, but in the grand scheme of things, the spending on UK’s Overseas Territories is a fraction of the spend on UK biodiversity”.

Peter Convey, of the British Antarctic Survey, was the next to highlight the unique ecosystems of the UK’s overseas territories, specifically those of the two southern polar regions, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and the British Antarctic Territory. Both territories have a high level of marine biodiversity, comparable with many temperate and even tropical areas. And although the terrestrial diversity is low there are high levels of endemism creating an overall unique ecosystem. Mr Convey went on to stress that although human impacts on these ecosystems are low at present, there is a high level of vulnerability, in particular to biological invasions, such as has been highlighted previously on this blog.

Alistair Gammell, the UK director for the PEW environment group then spoke of the need to put pressure “on the street” to put pressure on the Government with regards to the fate of the UK overseas territories biodiversity as the situation is “unknown and unheard by the general public”. Mr Gammell stressed that the UK biodiversity of global importance came from its overseas territories which are all unique, specifically citing Pitcairn as an example where there were more endemic species than people. Mr Gammell ended by suggesting that the UK Government should “look upon the overseas territories as an opportunity and not as a burden as the total investment required would be miniscule”.

Dr Colin Clubbe spoke of the long association between the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the overseas territories. Dr Clubbe described how recently a new species of daisy had been found on the Falkland Islands and he predicted many more new species would be described in the coming years. Dr Clubbe went on to point out that there was “no technical reason why a plant species should go extinct”. He gave the example of the St. Helena Boxwood, which was considered to be effectively extinct in the wild, has been “brought back” by growing individuals and harvesting seeds in greenhouses at Kew.

Rob Thomas of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland then spoke to reiterate much of what had been said before and went on to suggest that the three groups present that day had “not three hats but one with many overlapping issues” and that “biodiversity should be woven into everything related to the forthcoming FCO white paper”. Finally, Rachel Jones of the Zoological Society of London described the “astonishing state of the Chagos Marine Reserve where the ecosystem is operating in a near natural state” and that the biodiversity is “off the scale”. 10 endemic species have so far been identified but only 3 per cent of the area has actually been visited and so there are likely to be many more.

The event on an extremely positive networking note with business cards being thrown around like confetti with many promises of future action.

The Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, today announced the creation of 12 new Nature Improvement Areas (NIA) across England. NIAs were a flagship policy contained in last year’s Natural Environment White Paper “The Natural Choice”, which set out aims to improve the quality of the natural environment across England, halt the decline in habitats and species, and strengthen the connection between people and nature. Defra launched a competition to fund an initial 12 NIAs in July 2011, judged by a panel led by Professor Sir John Lawton. 76 applications were received and 15 applicants were invited to give presentations to the panel before 12 were selected to receive Government funding. The successful partnerships will begin work in April 2012 each receiving a share of the £7.5 million fund over 2012-2015, provided by the Defra family.

At the announcement of the new wildlife havens, Mrs Spelman said: “Each of these projects has something different to offer – from the urban areas of Birmingham and the Black Country to the rivers and woods of North Devon; from marshes, coalfields and wetlands to woodland and arable chalkland and grassland. The exciting wildlife projects are the result of different organisations all working together with a common purpose – to safeguard our wildlife for generations to come”.

The 12 NIAs will be:
•Birmingham and the Black Country Living Landscape: includes urban, wetland, river and heath habitats. It will create heathland on brownfield sites and 40 hectares of new native woodland;
•Dark Peak: includes moorland and woodland in the Peak District National Park. It will restore habitats such as upland heathland and create 210 hectares of native woodland;
•Dearne Valley Green Heart: is mostly on farmland and former mining settlements with woodland and wetland. It will restore the River Don floodplain and create new wetlands and woodlands
•Greater Thames Marshes: includes agricultural marsh and urban habitats. It will create and enhance grazing marsh, salt marsh and mudflat habitats;
•Humberhead Levels: straddling Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, it is mainly wetland, lowland and peat habitats. It will create or restore at least 1,427 hectares of wetland habitat;
•Marlborough Downs: this is predominantly a farmer-led partnership looking to restore chalk and grassland habitats and increase the numbers of farmland birds as well as creating a network of traditional clay-lined dewponds to act as wildlife havens;
•Meres and Mosses of the Marches: incorporates wetlands, peat bogs and ponds in Cheshire. It will aim to reduce diffuse pollution by working with farmers, improve peatlands and restore wildlife areas around the River Perry;
•Morecambe Bay Limestones and Wetlands: the most northerly NIA, this consists of limestone, wetland and grassland habitats. It will restore coast and freshwater wetlands and create 200 hectares of woodland, planting 10,000 native trees and develop habitat for six species;
•Nene Valley: within the River Nene regional park, this project will work with farmers to restore habitats and restore tributaries and reaches of the River Nene;
•Northern Devon: this incorporates river, woodland and grassland. The project will recreate and restore 1,000 hectares of priority habitat and restore the River Torridge so that it can support the critically endangered freshwater pearl mussel;
•South Downs Way Ahead: encompasses key chalk sites of the South Downs National Park. The NIA will restore 1,000 hectares of chalk grassland and encourage the return of the Duke of Burgundy butterfly and several species of farmland birds; and
•Wild Purbeck: is a variety of river, wetland, heath and woodland habitat as well as the largest onshore oil field in Western Europe. This NIA will introduce livestock to manage heathland , restore wetland and create or restore 15 ponds as well as creating 120 hectares of new woodland and a new seven hectare saline lagoon.

Full story available on the Defra website.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced a review of the implementation of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives in the UK. Following the announcement of the review by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement to the House of Commons, Defra have released details of the scope of the consultation, which will publish conclusions by the date of the 2012 budget, in March.

The purpose of the review is to assess: ‘the Habitats and Wild Bird Directives as currently implemented in England by the Habitats Regulations and Offshore Marine Conservation Regulations, focussing in particular on those obligations that affect the authorisation process for proposed development, with a view to reducing the burdens on businesses while maintaining the integrity of the purpose of the directives.’

The Habitats and Birds Directives are therefore presented as barriers to economic growth. Two of the areas of focus for the review include:
- Whether the approach taken by competent authorities is appropriate, particularly in relation to risk, or whether the requirements of the legislation are applied too or insufficiently rigorously; and whether competent authorities and statutory conservation advisers could explore more creative solutions; and
- Whether NE and JNCC’s approach to the provision of advice to competent authorities is appropriate, or takes an excessively or insufficiently precautionary approach.

The Government intends to examine other European Member States for examples of best practice in implementing the Directives and where the UK could learn from others’ experience in terms of applying the Directives whilst avoiding excessive burdens to business.

Wildlife and Countryside Link, of which the BES is a member, are in the process of establishing a taskforce to feed into the Review, with the aim of reporting by January 2012.

Today is the first day of a plenary meeting to discuss and decide upon the formation of the Integovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), convened by the UN Environment Programme. Representatives from the United Nations, and observers from NGOs and other bodies, have assembled in Nairobi, Kenya, to consider how IPBES will operate and, amongst other decisions, determine where the IPBES secretariat will be located.

On the eve of the meeting, Prof. Bob Watson, Defra’s Chief Scientific Adviser, gave an interview to the Independent newspaper, in which he outlined his hopes for IPBES. Prof. Watson suggested that the only way in which IPBES can function effectively will be if developing nations have ownership over any in-country ecosystem assessments which are conducted, and if these are conducted by scientists from that nation – similar to the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. “If they think that this is just the white world, the developed world, telling them what to do, that’ll be the end of it.”

The BES, together with the UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group (UK BRAG) organised a session at the BES Annual Meeting in Sheffield last month which introduced the IPBES to the assembled ecologists. Dr Andrew Stott, Defra’s representative to IPBES from the civil service, outlined the role of IPBES, as agreed at a meeting in Busan, South Korea, in 2010. A copy of Dr Stott’s presentation is available from the BES website.

As outlined by Dr Stott, IPBES will:

- Generate new knowledge: identifying information needed for policy; catalysing research and surveying
- Conduct regular and timely assessments: at global, regional and sub-regional scales; and on thematic and ‘new topics identified by science’.
- Provide support for policy formulation, through promoting access to policy-relevant tools and methods;
- Have a capacity building function: identifying needs; supporting the highest priority needs; catalysing funding.

IPBES is intended as an ‘IPCC for biodiversity’; a credible, scientifically independent body which is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive (similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

At the plenary meeting over the next few days decisions will be made about how the IPBES is structured; whether, for example, a scientific advisory group is formed which can advise the Plenary – the IPBES decision-making body- on scientific and technical aspects of the work programme and which can approve specific scientific procedures related to how ecosystem assessments are conducted. A further meeting in Nairobi, in March/ April 2012, will see delegates decide on further aspects of how the IPBES will work, including its work programme.

As IPBES develops, there are likely to be opportunities for ecologists and others to get involved with the conduct of assessments and with capacity building, although questions remain about how to incentivise scientists to take part in these activities (for example, through university reward structures such as the Research Excellence Framework). Ecologists and others in the UK who would like to find out more about IPBES and who would like to remain fully engaged with the development of the Platform, can join the UK Stakeholder Group, maintained by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

An incredibly diverse and busy programme of sessions at the BES Annual Meeting this year means that I am only now able to find the time to report on Prof. Bill Sutherland’s Monday afternoon plenary; ‘Twelve months in Ecology’. Since Bill’s talk, we have also seen a fantastic plenary from Professor Jules Pretty, University of Essex – discussing the importance of social capital in ensuring ’sustainable intensification’ of agriculture – which you can now read about on the BES Annual Meeting blog. We have also had a fantastic, and packed, session on ‘What next for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and IPBES?’, which I hope to find the time to report on tomorrow.

But for now, back to Prof. Sutherland’s review of the past year and some of the major changes which have taken place in policy impinging upon – or informed by – ecological science. One recurring theme which has come across in the sessions I have attended this year (apart from soil, which seems to have been a hot topic at this meeting) is that the past few months have seen a ‘paradigm’ shift in how the UK Government considers biodiversity and ecosystem services. First the Lawton Review of England’s protected area network, then the National Ecosystem Assessment, and latterly the Natural Environment White Paper: late 2010 and 2011 to date have seen the publication of some potentially highly significant reports and policy papers likely to have a major effect on the direction of environment policy for some time to come. But, Prof. Sutherland highlighted, the most important test – implementation – is still to come and there are some signs that the good intentions propounded in the White Paper will not be carried through easily into other areas of Government policy.

Bill’s talk was inspired by a visit to a conservation biology conference, where despite the blanket coverage of the ‘deepwater horizon’ oil spill in newsagents outside the conference centre, very little mention was made of the significance of this news within the meeting sessions. The BES, and other learned societies, Bill argued, must consider issues of importance and signficance within wider society. Hence his whistlestop tour through the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Nagoya conference in October 2010, and subsequent ‘Aichi Targets’ and strategic plan for tackling biodiversity loss worldwide; his examination of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2010 – a cause for pessimism, Bill suggested, not to mention the policy documents which have come out of the UK this year. Badger culling and the sale of national nature reserves and the Government’s U-turn over the sale of the Forestry Commission estate were also mentioned.

Bill urged members of the BES to engage with policy-makers as these and other issues are taken forward. Sound science is needed in policy debate and Bill urged the Society to engage even more clearly and in an even more relevant fashion with policy development. Issues which members should be aware of in the future, rising up the agenda, Bill suggested, are Arctic exploration for oil – and what the opening up of the Arctic may mean for biodiversity – reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (suggesting a possible shift back to a focus on food production, away from recent rhetoric on the incorporation of ecosystem services), REDD+, an increase in the use of biodiversity offsetting in the UK and the formation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Bill started on a note of pessimism, but finished optimistically, highlighting good news around recent species recovery, with peregrines breeding in London, salmon returning to many rivers, otters now found in every county in England and the near eradication of the ruddy duck as examples. Bill also suggested that there has been a shift in recent months towards policy-makers using evidence as a basis for a decisions to a greater extent.

Whilst I agree with much of what Bill had to say, and don’t think that his optimism is misplaced, I would say that the recent National Planning Policy Framework and Red Tape Challenge suggest that there is much more that ecologists and those who care about the environment must do before we can consider Government really ‘get’ the importance and significance of biodiversity. The NPPF was an opportunity for the Government to demonstrate that it had really taken the sentiments within the White Paper on board, and were prepared to integrate environmental concerns across all areas of decision making. There is little evidence that this is in fact the case, with a presumption in favour of sustainable development (economic growth is the major driver) throughout the document. The Red Tape Challenge too could pose a serious threat to environmental protection and should not simply be dismissed, as discussed elsewhere on this blog.

Prof. Sutherland’s talk was a useful clarion call for action on the part of the the BES and I for one hope that this will galvanise interest and engagement with policy issues amongst the membership.