The Welsh government is seeking opinions on two major new proposals for the future of Wales’ environmental policy.

Following the announcement of Welsh Environment Minister John Griffiths in November last year proposing the development of a single body to replace the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency Wales, and the Forestry Commission for Wales, a consultation was launched earlier this month. The intention in creating a single body is to ensure more effective and sustainable management of Wales’ natural resources whilst minimising costs. The consultation will focus on issues including the legal change needed to establish a new body and definition of its overall purpose. Interested parties have the opportunity to submit their reactions to the proposal until May 2nd.

Simultaneously, a consultation is underway into a recently published Green Paper entitled ‘Sustaining a Living Wales’. The paper is a follow up to the government’s strategy ‘A Living Wales’ developed in 2010 and proposes a change in the governance and delivery of environmental management and regulation to an ecosystem-based approach. The consultation, launched at the end of January this year, is designed to assess the degree of support for such a radical change and whether the tools the government proposes are seen to be the right ones.

SAC & SEPA BIENNIAL CONFERENCE (in association with Forest Research, the James Hutton Institute and Scottish Natural Heritage)
3-4 April 2012, Edinburgh
Integrated management of our agricultural and forestry landscapes is essential to the delivery of multiple ecosystem services. However, current understanding of the linkages between different ecosystems and the services they provide is incomplete. The management implemented therefore needs to be flexible to adapt to these uncertainties. The need for implementation at the landscape scale also means integrating management practices across different land-managers.

This conference will seek to present not only the best possible scientific understanding of the complexities associated with the delivery of multiple ecosystem services but also provide a forum to raise and discuss what still needs to be done to have an ecosystem approach recognised and supported by land managers, researchers and policy makers. The conference will be relevant to members of all three of these target audiences.

A range of platform presentations will be made under the four conference themes:
1. How are the linkages between ecosystems and the services they provide currently understood, viewed and valued?

2. What does the delivery of multiple ecosystem services mean at a practical level in terms of management and scale of implementation?

3. How does the governance of landscape-scale management affect the delivery of multiple ecosystem services?

4. How does our thinking, management practices and policies need to adapt?

The keynotes for each of the four themes will be given by Jonathan Pryce from the Scottish Government (Theme 1), Brian Chambers from ADAS (Theme 2), Heidi Wittmer from Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Theme 3) and Tom Crompton from WWF (Theme 4).

Venue, Costs and Accommodation

The Conference will take place in the John McIntyre Conference Centre of the University of Edinburgh on 3-4 April 2012. Details of Costs and Accommodation can be found at www.sac.ac.uk/sacsepaconf.

Interested in discussing the challenges facing Scotland’s biodiversity to 2020 and helping to inform the development of Scotland’s draft Biodiversity Strategy? Come along to a meeting in Edinburgh on 8th – 9th March 2012. BES members can attend for FREE (but must register in advance).

The BES is working with the British Society of Soil Science and the Scottish Government’s Biodiversity Science Group to organise a one-day conference (9th March), an evening lecture, reception and dinner (8th March) at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The meeting will:

•Introduce the science community in Scotland to the revision of Scotland’s Biodiversity Strategy;
•Explore the scale of the challenges facing the implementation of an ecosystem approach in Scotland;
•Provide an opportunity for the science community to find out about the needs of policy-makers;
•Provide an opportunity for networking between the science and policy communities.

The evening reception will celebrate the launch of the BES Scotland Policy Group, a new initiative from the Society that aims to link members of the Society in Scotland who are interested in informing policy development and through this to assist the Society’s policy team in doing the same.

Confirmed speakers for the 9th of March include: Colin Moffatt, Head of Science at Marine Scotland; Ken Norris, biodiversity theme leader at NERC and biodiversity chapter lead in the National Ecosystem Assessment; Helaina Black, James Hutton Institute; and Chris Quine, Forest Research.

Poster abstracts are invited upon registration. We particularly welcome registration by students to this meeting and will be offering a prize for the best poster.

Full details of the programme and how to register are available from the BES website.

The Science Minister, David Willetts MP, yesterday set out the Government’s plans to leverage funding from businesses and industry to support the establishment of new graduate university institutions in England. Mr Willetts, speaking at the think tank Policy Exchange, made it clear that there will be no funding from Government to support these bodies but that ‘private finance and perhaps sponsorship’ will be sought. The Minister invited applications for the opportunity to establish these institutions.

The Minister also outlined plans to increase the number of institutions in England appearing in the top 100 university rankings and plans to increase non-governmental funding to universities by 10%.

Original article by Sean Coughlan: BBC News, 4 January 2012

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.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) is calling for the appointment of a Science Minister at the Scottish Government.

Outlining the rationale for this post, CaSE state that “Science and engineering has an impact, and is affected by a huge range of government activities – so a failure to adequately represent them could lead to Scotland falling behind in the global high-tech race.”

CaSE has written a letter to First Minister Alex Salmond MSP, asking that the SNP Government create a Science Minister role, which, importantly, is not tokenistic but has real power to influence decision-making.

An article on the CaSE blog outlines the current state of science and higher education in Scotland, the challenges the country faces in this regard, and how the absence of a Science Minister compares to the situation in other nations.

CaSE is looking for support from individuals and organisations for its call. Contact the CaSE Director for more information.

Scottish government has announched that eight surveys covering 2,200 square miles will be conducted in Scottish waters in order to collect information on its marine biodiversity. The surveys are in collaboration with Marine Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and will utilise video and acoustic recordings to create underwater maps and improve understanding of marine species and habitats found in Scotland.

The findings will be used to inform future plans for the designation of effective Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s), as well as provide further information on fish stocks and potential sites for renewable energy.

Richard Lochhead MSP Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment said of the new study; “Scotland’s seas provide rich marine habitats and a stunning array of biodiversity. Our waters are home to some of the world’s most precious wildlife, therefore it’s critical that we further our knowledge as much as we can”.

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

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

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

Today’s policy lunchbox organised by the Biochemical Society focussed on opportunities for influencing science policy in the devolved nations post election. A brief presentation led by Hilary Leevers from Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) preceded a discussion about the next steps for science policy work in the devolved nations.
16% of the UK’s population live in the devolved nations. Responsibility for primary, secondary and higher education has been devolved as well as some aspects of health policy and rural affairs policy.

CaSE have campaigned on science and engineering issues, by engaging MP’s, providing information to support policy making, and raising awareness of science as issue which interests voters. In the run up to the election in the devolved nations CaSE campaigned for the political parties in the devolved nations to include measures to promote science and engineering in their manifestoes.
These measures included:
- Appointing/ keeping a chief scientific advisor or science minister
- Increasing the number of Welsh speaking science graduates entering the teaching profession. 25% of schools in Wales teach at least 50% of their lessons in Welsh.
- Improving the science content of devolved nations’ school curricula. In Northern Ireland there is no requirement to teach maths and science post 14.
- Increasing the stability of funding in higher education institutions. Whilst funding for higher education Scotland appears to be fairly stable funding for higher education is increasingly unstable in Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Examining differences in funding for research in science and engineering between England and the devolved nations. Whilst the devolved nations have tended to spend more than England on research through the higher education teaching grant and the quality related research grant both Wales and Northern Ireland lack the critical mass to attract significant amounts of research council funding.

Pre-election CaSE sent out letters to the political parties of the devolved nations to ask them about their science and engineering policies, and analysed their manifestoes. The response to the letters was very good, with only 2 of 14 parties not replying. The Scottish National Party confirmed that the role of Chief Scientific Advisor will be retained after the election, and Welsh labour also pledged to keep their chief scientific advisor, and publish a science strategy for Wales later this year. Scotland is a leader on scientific issues, and many politicians see this as a source of national pride. Allowing the devolved nations to lead could be very productive for science policy.

The discussion that followed focussed on identifying areas of science policy in which success is likely to be achieved, and the lessons that can be learned from the devolved nations.

The devolved nations could act as a source of information for Westminster policy formation. For example the abolition of SATs at KS2 in Wales provides an excellent example of how case studies from the devolved nations could be useful in informing policy in England. A study by the Wellcome Trust showed that when SATs were abolished science subjects were still highly regarded by pupils and teachers several years later, suggesting that abolition of SATs in England is not likely to have a negative effect on science.

Finally the knowledge base built up by CaSE might prove useful if Scotland decide to separate from the union, and will allow us to hypothesise what might happen if this decision is made. It is possible research institutions in Scotland, which are highly reliant on Research Council funding, might loose a large proportion of their finances if the nation decides to leave the union.

The ThinkBIG report, which was released this week, is designed to provide information for local authorities, land managers, farmers and communities as to how they can contribute to the move towards landscape scale conservation outline in the Natural Environment White Paper, which was released earlier this month. ThinkBIG was written jointly by the statutory bodies, NGOs, land owners and farming communities that make up the England Biodiversity Group. The report in support of the move towards landscape scale conservation and ecosystem approach outlined in the recent Natural Environment White Paper provides advice on how to implement these ideas by reviewing case studies of landscape scale conservation and highlighting the lessons learned.

Maintaining and repairing ecosystems needs to be the focus of environmental projects and planning if ecosystem services are to continue benefiting the economy and society. Every sector of society and the economy has a role to play in landscape scale conservation, no matter how small their contribution is perceived to be.

The report gives some excellent examples of how landscape scale conservation can work in practice, demonstrating how each situation is different and requires a slightly different solution. Some of the most interesting and varied include:

Moors for the Future – This is a moorland restoration project in the Peak District and South Pennines, delivering a variety of ecosystem services such as erosion regulation and water regulation, and improving biodiversity of ground nesting birds and plants.

The Victoria Business Improvement District – This is a business led partnership to improve prospects for local wildlife, businesses and communities by expanding and enhancing green infrastructure. The project has reduced pollution, carbon dioxide emissions and flooding whilst simultaneously supporting invertebrate diversity and several bird species.

Cambourne New Town – Landscape scale conservation can also be included in new development projects such as Cambourne New Town which was built on agricultural land in Cambridgeshire. Careful planning has ensured that local residents are able to benefit from being reconnected with nature, whilst creation of new habitats has re-introduced several species that were once extinct in the area.

Although uniform guidelines to implement this sort of project would be hard to construct the report emphasises several fundamental components that must be in place for projects to be successful. These include accurate information on the current state of the environment, partnership and co-ordination between stakeholders and those involved in implementing the project, incentives and regulations, sensible strategies at the appropriate level, and conflict management. Connected and enhanced wildlife sites which are effectively protected and buffered from human activity are most likely to be successful. The success of many of the initiatives outlined in the Natural Environment White Paper will depend on the extent to which these general principles are adhered to.

The document is intended to provide background and supporting information for local authorities, land managers, farmers and communities, and highlights what different groups of people can start doing now to achieve the aims set out in Lawton’s review of protected areas ‘Making Space for Nature’, and the Natural Environment White Paper, including supporting the work of local conservation charities, managing farmland and woodland more sustainably and collaborating with others within local and national government to help ensure the success of environmental projects.