Applications are now being accepted for the BES Parliamentary Shadowing Scheme. The scheme offers a fantastic opportunity for early-career ecologists to gain an insight into how ecology and the environment are addressed in policy making by spending two days shadowing a senior policy-maker. In the past, hosts have included Parliamentary-Secretaries of State at Defra, Government Ministers in Wales, Policy Advisors in Scotland and MEPs in Brussels, and previous shadowers have found their placements to be a positive, useful and interesting experience.

The scheme is open to members of the BES in the early stages of their research career. You must have finished your PhD and completed this no more than 12 years ago.

Full details on the scheme, including how to apply are available here. The closing date for applications is Wednesday 29th February.

More natural means of managing flooding are desirable and should be brought foward by the Government in a new White Paper on water. So commented Anne McIntosh MP, Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Commmittee and of the All Party Group on Flood Protection, at a parliamentary event attended by the BES Policy Team yesterday evening. The well-attended meeting was organised by Oliver Pescott, the most recent BES-funded Fellow at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST), to launch the POSTnote he authored on ‘Natural Flood Management’.

Natural flood management (NFM) is defined in the POSTnote as ‘the alteration, restoration or use of landscape features’. One of the four speakers, Dr Paul Quinn, Newcastle University, made it clear that NFM is not about taking a system back to a natural state but working with and engineering natural processes. Dr Quinn presented work in which he had been involved within the town of Belford, in which residents have faced six major flooding events within the course of seven years. During extreme events, huge amounts of rainfall can be observed running off farmland; this can be tackled effectively, Dr Quinn suggested, by ‘catchment systems engineering’, which seeks to ’slow, store and filter’ water. Farm tracks, specially engineered to store water behind them; dams which ‘leak’ slowly to control water flow; and the use of woody debris (’beaver dams’) to perform a similar function can all help to attenuate run-off.

Dr Wendy Kenyon, James Hutton Institute, highlighted the importance of working with land-managers if those wishing to control flooding wished to work with natural processes as stated. Dr Kenyon’s team have conducted a number of semi-structured interviews with farmers, revealing that first and foremost, farmers are concerned with the viability of their businesses. Dr Quinn had presented results showing that 10 – 20 storage ponds could make a significant difference to the peak water flow; Dr Kenyon argued that the presence of this number of ponds on agricultural land could begin to have a significant effect on the farmer’s bottom line and so the viability of this proposal would need to be considered carefully.

It is important to ensure too that farmers are able to access funding to support their efforts to implement NFM. Fifty eight percent of farmers questioned by Dr Kenyon said that they would be encouraged to introduce NFM measures if there was more funding available to do so and if it could be applied for easily. This is significant as under the Common Agricultural Policy, money is already available to support NFM but, according to Dr Kenyon, farmers have not been accessing this as a source of funds. We need, Dr Kenyon suggested, to work with farmers to find out why.

The issue of the scale at which experiments are undertaken and from which conclusions can be drawn is a highly significant one. It became clear through the presentations that there is a great deal of uncertainty concerning the robustness of conclusions which can be drawn about flood attenuation at the catchment-scale through NFM, based on small-scale experiments. Dr Neil McIntrye, Imperial College London, suggested that although strategic tree-planting can have an affect on ameliorating flooding at a local scale, this beneficial effect is likely to be marginal at regional to larger scales. The true benefits of such interventions are only likely to become apparent, Dr McIntyre suggested, once further research has been undertaken to understand catchment-scale interactions.

The case was therefore made for greater investment in field experiments and better modelling to understand the benefits of NFM. Anne McIntosh MP questioned why the science had not yet revealed these benefits, to which the scientists responded that the high cost of studying natural processes over time and the uncertainty created by extrapolating the results from one study site to another, where geomorphology and hydrology may be very different, constrain the ability to draw robust conclusions. Dr Quinn suggested that scientists would do best to measure at an appropriate scale and then build confidence in extrapolating conclusions, for example through better models.

Funding the necessary experiments and modelling approaches, alongside funding NFM interventions will be a challenge. Anne McIntosh suggested that there was little appetite in Government to pass the cost of NFM projects, including efforts to monitor the efficacy of these projects, onto the consumer through higher water bills. Ms McIntosh, and others, suggested that Payments for Ecosystem Services could be one mechanism of paying for NFM, although here the beneficiaries (presumably the consumers) would still need to pay for the NFM interventions implemented by land-managers (the providers of the ecosystem service of flood alleviation).

There should be scope to deliver NFM alongside other services as part of a framework of multi-functional land-use. Speakers did not touch on this to a great extent and it would have been interesting to have heard more from this perspective. Dr Quinn mentioned that buffer strips planted at the sides of agricultural land can slow the flow of run-off, indicating both a biodiversity and a NFM benefit. Dr Quinn also mentioned the need for multiple stakeholders to come together (eg as in Belford), including ecologists, land-managers and residents, to discuss and agree a shared vision for a catchment. South West Water is investing a great deal of money in NFM measures but for water quality reasons (eg reducing sediment load in the watercourse), with consequent benefits for river ecology. However, overall there was little discussion of the ecological benefits, or disbenefits, of NFM approaches.

In opening the meeting, Anne McIntosh informed attendees that in a meeting of the Liaison Committee (involving all Chairs of Parliamentary Select Committees), members had extracted from the Prime Minister an undertaking that a Water Bill would be published early in the next Parliamentary session. The BES will watch with interest to see whether NFM is incorporated into the Bill when drafted.

Applications for the next BES Fellowship at POST are now open and close on Thursday 5th April. If you are in the second or third year of your PhD in ecology at a UK institution, consider applying. Find out more from the BES website.

Professor Charles Godfray, immediate past President of the BES, is to give evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday 14th December as part of the Committee’s inquiry into ‘Greening the Common Agricultural Policy‘.

Professor Godfray will give evidence at 16.00 and the session will be available to watch live on Parliament TV.

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.

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.

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.

On Wednesday, 29 June, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee held a one-off evidence session to explore initial reaction to the Natural Environment White Paper (‘The Natural Choice: securing the value of nature’). Representatives of the National Farmers’ Union, the National Trust, Wildlife and Countryside Link, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Defra attended to face questioning from assembled Committee members on the content of the Paper and improvements which could be made.

You can watch the hearing in the Parliament TV Archive.

Pavan Sukhdev, leader of the TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) study was also present, in Westminster prior to collecting the Institute Medal from the IEEM at a House of Lords reception later that afternoon. Pavan welcomed the inclusion of natural capital in the White Paper, along with plans to provide guidance for business in reporting their impact on natural capital. However, he warned that the results of TEEB should not be used to provide a cost-benefit analysis of nature when making decisions.

Chris Knight, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said that most of businesses consulted by PwC had responded favourably to the White Paper, but had expressed uncertainties over how the commitments outlined would connect with reforms to water regulation (expected in the Water White Paper in December this year) and to planning. Funding for the commitments was also a cause for concern. Greater incentives were needed for businesses to invest in environmentally friendly schemes, he suggested.

Planning reform, and the need for this to enable, not undermine, the commitments in the White Paper, was a topic touched upon by almost all those questioned, as was funding. The National Planning Policy Framework, expected for consultation this month, should include a spatial planning tool, to help farmers balance competing demands on their land, it was suggested.

The National Trust and Wilidlife and Countryside Link both suggested that the White Paper contained no clear funding strategy. An over-reliance on agri-environment schemes is unsustainable, the witnesses suggested during later questioning; instead there needs to be an exploration of what options for leveraging funding are most sensible. Several options were suggested, including biodiversity offsetting, competition between farmers to deliver environmental services, tax reform (such as tax breaks for particular land uses or reduced fertiliser application), or raising money through taxation on timber imports – whilst tracking illegally logged timber and reducing its passage into the UK market. Private sector funding was likely to be vital to the future of nature conservation, all acknowledged.

The NFU called for greater investment in research and development, arguing for more money to be put behind the development of new technology to allow farmers to deliver food production whilst reducing their environmental impacts; sustainable production is possible, they argued. There was also a plea for research into how to make it easier for businesses to invest in the environment.

Finally, witnesses suggested that more work is needed around engaging the public with the natural environment. The National Trust argued that the White Paper did not include enough detail on how the environment could become a mainstream concern for the population of England, assisting in health and education. There was a plea for the need to cut red-tape and beaurocracy around health and safety on school trips, to enable more children to experience the natural world.

Witnesses suggested that the Committee should reconvene in a year’s time to examine progress against the commitments made in the White Paper, and new tools for improving progress if the commitments are not being met.

The inquiry into taxonomy and systematic biology by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee found that the discipline is in crisis and more needs to be done to ensure the future health of the discipline. Following the inquiry the committee recommended that NERC undertake a study to identify opportunities for improving the prospects of the profession. This study has now been published accompanied by a strategy to ensure sustainability of the profession in the long term.

The review was in three main parts; the current status and trends in taxonomy including research into funding sources, the numbers of taxonomists, trends in the numbers, sources of young skilled staff and gaps in taxonomic expertise, future needs in taxonomy including identification of the elements of NERC’s strategy ‘Next Generation Science for Planet Earth’ that will require taxonomic knowledge, elements of taxonomy that could attract research council funding and elements of taxonomic work requiring the most funding for development, and finally an assessment of operational requirements. Accompanying the review a set of strategic recommendations for the future development of taxonomy and systematic in the UK was also published.

The report found that there are around 1100 active taxonomists in the UK, over half of whom are involved in identification of specimens working in industry, government and academia. Surprisingly they found no evidence for an aging skills base within the professional taxonomy sector, however there is some evidence that the skills base is aging in the voluntary sector. Taxonomists involved in descriptive, delimiting and revisionary studies are not being replaced by universities, leading to a decline in overall numbers. Funding for taxonomic studies comes from a variety of sources both national and international including government departments. Worryingly universities are failing to provide suitably trained graduates and postgraduates for jobs in the commercial biostratigraphy and environmental consultancy sectors. Importantly the study found that although voluntary taxonomists are important for the delivery of government policy they cannot replace professionals.

The review led to a list of over 20 recommendations being published which will ensure that the profession of taxonomy will remain sustainable into the future. These include:
1. Development of a UK Taxonomy Co-ordination Committee (TCC) to review the National Strategy in Taxonomy and Systematics, and monitor levels of investment in taxonomy.
2. A study should be undertaken to determine whether the distribution of the UK’s taxonomic collections is the most efficient for today’s needs
3. As part of a co-ordinated global programme major taxonomic organisations should take the responsibility for leading the provision of resources for particular taxa.
4. NERC should continue to support PhD training in taxonomy and assess the consequences of its recent decision to stop supporting taught masters.
5. NERC should explore whether lack of training opportunities is the reason for the difficulty in recruiting trained taxonomists by environmental consultancies and the skill deficit in micropalaeontology.
6. Provision of small grants for volunteer scientists and recognition of their contributions by learned societies and other bodies should be encouraged.
7. The TCC should bring together the UK taxonomic community to list and prioritise time-limited major research programmes or “grand challenges” that would advance UK taxonomy and systematics.
8. NERC and BBSRC (and where relevant MRC) should ensure their support of taxonomy is coordinated and complementary.

‘Landscapes of the Future’ the new Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POSTnote written by the current BES POST fellow Eleanor Kean was launched today. ‘Landscapes of the Future’ focuses on the benefits that we derive from our landscapes, and the increasing pressures facing continued delivery of these benefits.

It has been widely established, following the release of the National Ecosystem Assessment, that we gain a variety of benefits and services from the environment including food, clean water, recreation and protection from natural disaster. However these benefits are threatened by the way in which we use land, often exploiting landscapes for a single purpose, without considering the wider detrimental effects.

Demographic change is increasing the pressure we place on land to provide the ecosystem services on which we rely. This coupled with environmental and climate change, societal attitudes and the policy environment will change the way in which we use land over the coming years. It is important to manage the challenges facing the natural environment through existing policies, and also through innovation and novel techniques.

Eleanor identifies opportunities for future landscape planning to adapt to these pressures, and provide multifunctional landscapes that ease competition between different land uses. Many opportunities have arisen as a result of proposed reforms of the planning system, abolition of regional spatial strategies, and introduction of a new National Planning Policy Framework. The establishment of Ecological Restoration Zones as recommended by the Lawton review ‘Making Space for Nature’ are also likely to play a key part in securing ecosystem services for future generations.

Localism may be expected to affect the way landscapes are managed, and the POSTnote emphasises the importance of allowing communities to access good information about the environment, facilitating local people to make good decisions. Green Infrastructure also has great potential to deliver environmental, social and economic benefits. An integrated approach to land use planning is another key message of the POSTnote which recommends that Government departments work together to achieve desirable environmental, social and economic outcomes.

Eleanor Kean, the current BES-sponsored Fellow at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, will be launching her POSTnote on ‘Landscapes of the Future’ on 8th June. This event will take place in Westminster, London from 10.30am – 12pm.

Many pressures, such as population increase and climate change, will exacerbate competition for land in the next few decades. The UK National Ecosystem Assessment, due to be published at the start of June, is the first assessment of the benefits UK society gains from the natural environment, as well as options to secure delivery into the future. Additionally, the government is expected to publish ambitious plans to protect the natural environment at the start of June in the Natural Environment White Paper. Multifunctional landscapes, which balance competing demands for space, can help adaptation and increase resilience to environmental change. This crosses many sectors and policy areas, but in particular land use planning.

Leading experts in the field will contribute to the discussion, chaired by Barry Gardiner MP.

To attend, please email POST events or call 020 7219 8377.

A full programme will be available from the POST website shortly.