In a desperate attempt to catch up with this momentous week for the future of nature, here are some short updates.
On the Humber, Able UK’s plans for port-related developments went before North Lincolnshire Council last week. This one of those cases where we are not saying that the development is fundamentally flawed – but we are campaigning vigorously to ensure that nature gets a fair deal. The Humber is a world-class wetland and is, as I write, filling up with Arctic migrants that depend on our great coastal wetlands to get them through the winter.
Able UK’s plans will convert an area next to the Humber into storage and port-related development and the challenge is to ensure that measures are included in the development that enable sufficient habitat to be established that can allow birds to roost over the high tide as well as provide additional feeding for them. There is a deal to do. There is an opportunity here to secure agreement and enable a development to proceed alongside effective nature conservation.
Sounds easy? Years of trying to secure this outcome indicate it’s not.
Well – time will tell. But in the mean time our objection to this proposal stands and given that the local authority are minded to approve the application we have no option but to call on the Secretary of State to call it in – and we may well be asking for your support.
Sounds a familiar tale? Well the A11 crosses the East Anglian Brecks has parallels with a good deal for nature only secured in the teeth of an impending public inquiry into proposals to dual the last remaining stretch. The A11, by the way, survived the Comprehensive Spending Review and will now proceed.
Beyond the frantic scene in the UK, the big biodiversity meeting is proceeding in Nagoya – the 10th conference of the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (one of the global initiatives born out of the Rio Earth Summit) is grinding on in Japan. There’s the odd news report popping out about some very significant work timed to coincide with this international gathering – but the UK news agenda has, in large part, been focussed elsewhere. The long anticipated TEEB report (the acronym stands for The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) has been published to a squeak rather than a fanfare. The primary author Pavel Sukdev, is reported to have said he wished he’d called the report 'The Value of Nature' – and he makes a good point.
The latter phase of the conference will see ministers (including the UK’s Caroline Spelman) arriving and it will become clear what the global deal for nature will look like. Then back in the UK we all, Governments, charities, business, industry, communities and individuals will need to turn the alphabet soup of acronyms and international treaties into real progress towards a future rich in wildlife with a thriving and healthy natural environment upon which, ultimately we all depend. Or, if you want it in wonk-speak - halt and reverse the decline of biodiversity.
The choices we, as a society, make will influence the future for nature and that is as true on the Humber as it is in Nagoya.
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