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

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

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

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

Up to 150,000 hectares of state-owned forests and land could be sold to private investors, under a new government strategy to raise funds towards decreasing the Budget deficit. The Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman is expected to announce details of the plans later this week, amidst warnings from conservation organizations and opposition parties that it could be a ‘costly mistake’.

Yesterday Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party, said the plans would be an ‘unforgivable act of environmental vandalism’. She added that: “Rather than asset-stripping our natural heritage, government should be preserving public access to it, and fostering its role in combating climate change and enhancing biodiversity.”.

Currently, the Forestry Commission looks after around 1.85 million hectares of forest, up to half of which could be partly-privatized by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in one of the largest sales of land in British history. Landowners have expressed concerns that the most profitable land could be sold too cheaply for a quick sale. Representatives from both the RSPB and the Woodland Trust have indicated that the sale price for the ancient forests would not match its environmental and social value and that industrialists have no incentive to provide the same level of care as the Forestry Commission. RSPB conservation director, Mark Avery stated: “The future ownership and management of land that has high public value should be carefully considered. The proposed land sales are driven by the need to generate quick cash, but they must not be at the expense of protecting our natural capital, which is irreplaceable.”

However, whilst government ministers hope for up to £250m to be raised at current land values, sources in Whitehall insist that it would not be a complete sell-off of forestry land.

The UK Government this morning launched the first White Paper concerned with the management of the natural environment for 20 years, at a reception at the Jodrell Laboratory, Kew Gardens. The BES was present to hear Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Richard Benyon, Minister for the Natural and Marine Environment, give speeches to launch a consultation seeking the views of the public and private sectors on what the White Paper should contain.

The Secretary of State said that the new Government wished to ’seize the day’, with a fresh impetus to protect the natural environment, highlighting the importance of the environment to the health and wellbeing of the UK’s population. She said that society needs to make faster progress in halting environmental degradation and that making the case for the interdependence between the economy and the natural environment was a fundamental tool to allow this. Ms Spelman said that protection of the natural environment lent itself well to the coalition Government’s ‘Big Society’ agenda, with many community and voluntary groups active in environmental conservation already. She emphasised that her ‘mission personally’ was to link climate change and biodiversity in the policy sphere, later, in questionning, commenting that public understanding of biodiversity lagged 10 – 20 years behind that of society’s appreciation of climate change.

Richard Benyon emphasised that the Defra team wished to use the skills, know-how and expertise of the environmental and conservation communities to inform the development of the White Paper, and encouraged engagement from those in the audience. A small expert panel has been convened to drive the development of the Paper, including Sir Graham Wynne, former CEO of the RSPB, and an Inter-Departmental group of civil servants will work to involve all Government Departments in the formulation of the policy. Discussion groups, some which Richard Benyon hopes to chair himself, will be held around the country to seek the views of interested stakeholders.

During the question and answer session which followed the White Paper was welcomed by the RSPB, NFU and Pondlife, amongst other organisations. In answering a question from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Richard Benyon stated that the White Paper represented the ideal opportunity to carry forward a scheme of ‘Conservation Credits’, first proposed in the Conservative Manifesto (pre-coalition). Defra officials are currently generating ideas for how such a scheme could be implemented in the UK, drawing on experiences internationally.

It was clear that both Defra Ministers are committed to the principle of better valuing the environment as a means to better conserve it. One key challenge will be bringing other Departments, particularly the Treasury, on board with this and making sure that Caroline Spelman’s ambition to ‘put the value of nature at the heart of policy-making’ across the UK is fulfilled.

The BES will be responding to the consultation to inform development of the Natural Environment White Paper (deadline: 30 October). To contribute your views please contact the BES Policy Team.

The Natural Capital Initiative is organising a workshop series on ‘Biodiversity Offsetting’, to inform policy development on an offsetting, or ‘conservation credits’ scheme for the UK. Find out more at the NCI website.

A written parliamentary question tabled by Bob Russell MP to DCLG today received an answer from the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Natural Environment and Fisheries in DEFRA, Richard Benyon MP.

Question: “To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government with reference to page 17 of The Coalition: Our Programme for Government, what plans he has to promote green spaces and wildlife corridors in order to halt the loss of habitat and restore biodiversity.” [348]

Answer: (Richard Benyon) “I have been asked to reply. We look forward to receiving Sir John Lawton’s report, “Making Space for Nature”, later in the summer. Sir John’s update in March reported that to achieve a coherent and resilient ecological network we will need to look beyond existing designated sites and take account of landscape designations, local wildlife sites and green spaces.

The Government are also looking forward to the completion of work currently being carried out by Natural England on the implementation of landscape-scale enhancements to benefit wildlife. This will build on and use the lessons learned from existing work such as the Great Fen, a collaboration between Natural England, Environment Agency, the local Wildlife Trust and district council, which is joining up two national nature reserves through creating 3,700 ha of wetland habitat in Cambridgeshire, which will deliver benefits not only for biodiversity but also for water quality, recreation and local communities.

In addition, this Government will deliver a White Paper, the first since 1990, that will, finally, take an integrated approach to the natural environment in all its aspects. By reflecting nature’s real value in our social and economic decisions we will be able to review and improve the ways in which we both harness and protect it. We are currently considering options and time scales for taking this commitment forward.”

This reaffirms DEFRA’s commitment to publishing a White Paper on the natural environment, as suggested by the Prime Minister before reaching government.