A short post, joining some dots.
Nature is amazing ... and people love it, value it and care about it. In a recent survey of 28,000 citizens of the EU 95% said that protecting the environment is important to the personally and many think more can be done. Here’s coverage of this story and here’s the report.
Nature is in trouble ... and it’s getting worse; far too often politicians ignore the evidence and pitch the environment as a constraint on economic growth.
Sound, stable and rational regulation is good for the environment and provides business with clarity and certainty. We know this – and so do progressive businesses such as CEMEX.
For over three decades we’ve had a legal framework across the European Union that has saved nature and has bought some time by slowing the rates of loss.
We need to do better – but what is inescapably true is that there can be no going backwards.
On Wednesday we found out that the new European Commissioner for the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries is Karmenu Vella (subject to ratification by the European Parliament).
He has a profound and challenging job on his hands – pressed by his boss, Jean Claude Juncker, to facilitate growth and ‘continuing to overhaul the existing environmental legislative framework to make it fit for purpose. In the first part of the mandate ... to carry out an in-depth evaluation of the Birds and Habitats directives and assess the potential for merging them into a more modern piece of legislation’.
This ‘overhaul’ will profoundly affect the natural world here and across the European Union – its outcome is by no means certain and its results will define the state of nature for decades. We believe this is the wrong path for the Commission.
The new Commission has been restructured, placing Mr Vella’s responsibilities in a place that gives priority to deregulation ... he will need to be resolute, to listen to the evidence and hear the call from the people of Europe that their environment matters to them – personally.
Following these announcements, the focus moves to the European Parliament and their scrutiny of the individual Commissioners. Sustainability and effective protection of Europe’s natural environment are a massive gap in the new Commission – this must be tackled. This blog will be following this issue closely and will highlight how you can help.
Our congratulations to Mr Vella on his new role – he carries the hopes and expectations of millions of Europeans that protecting our wildlife and the natural world is not to be downgraded in the pursuit of deregulation, but a defining priority for his mission.
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