A recent House of Commons report is disappointed with the
progress made since the Natural Environment White Paper was published.
It’s been just over a year since the Natural Environment White Paper (NEWP) came out. I welcomed this at the time – it reflected many important points in the independent report
on Britain ’s
ecological network (“Making Space for Nature”) and picked up key messages from
the National Ecosystem Assessment.
Action is taking place on several of the commitments in the
White Paper, and we in the Wildlife Trusts are contributing to many of them, but
are we achieving the step-change in ambition for the environment that we feel
is required?
The House of Commons “Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Committee” (EFRA) has now examined the policies in the White Paper to see how
it has done over the last year and has come up with several key concerns. Find this report here. I welcome the report. It reflects some of the worries I have with
progress over the past year and gives valuable guidance to government on what
needs to happen now.
Overall, I don’t think we as a nation have grasped the basic
point. We depend on the natural
environment for services that are essential to human well-being. Putting a financial value on something that
is “essential” is dubious, but if you did then it is clear these services are
worth billions of pounds to the UK
economy. The NEWP recognised this but government
is not showing the leadership needed in order to ensure that all Whitehall departments
fully value nature’s benefits.
The Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs
(DEFRA) is to be congratulated for the work it has done in this respect but the
report says that stronger leadership is also required from HM Treasury and the
Cabinet Office to effect the necessary culture shift amongst policy makers. All government policy and legislation must be
proofed for consistency with the government aspiration that the value of nature
is fully reflected in decision making.
So far this has not happened. NEWP’s laudable aims have not been
incorporated into policies on transport and planning for instance. This will affect us here in Sussex .
Although much improved over early drafts the new National Planning
Policy Framework does not pay enough attention to NEWP so guidance is now
needed to help planners and developers protect the environment. Without this, government’s laudable
environmental objectives will point us in one direction whilst the push for
development will send us the opposite way.
Sussex , and the
counties around London ,
are the most likely areas to feel this clash.
We need to incorporate the value of nature into everything
we do – basically we need to pay for the essential services that nature
provides. We are all bogged-down in the
idea that looking after the environment is a “cost”, because we don’t work out
the value of the benefit (if we did then we’d realise that benefits can be 100
times the costs). Nevertheless, government
is unlikely to commit more public money to environmental resilience. The report therefore says that DEFRA should
set out how payments can flow from the beneficiaries of ecosystem services to
those who protect and enhance environmental systems. There are few good examples of this so far,
but the National Ecosystem Assessment gives a wealth of evidence to help us
achieve this.
The Natural Environment White Paper was a good step forward
and some progress has been made.
However, we are in danger of resting on our laurels because of one or
two good initiatives. The fundamental
changes are yet to be made.
