Our Rainham Marshes reserve was at its best yesterday - hooching with waders (lawings and redshanks are having another good year) and children (enjoying some much needed out of classroom learning). It provided a great backdrop for a great conversation with the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove.
Rainham is one of eleven RSPB nature reserves on either side of the Thames and is one of the reasons why the Thames Estuary is celebrated as being internationally important for wildlife and part of the economic powerhouse that is London. The fact that London’s prosperity and environment quality has grown is testament to years of hard work in making smart regulation (especially the Habitat Regulations) and investment work for people and wildlife of the region.
From his media interviews earlier in the week, we knew that Mr Gove was in listening mode, which was probably why we had been set an exam question in advance: “If we want the UK’s approach to environmental protection and enhancement to be seen as the best in the world, what does that mean and what does it look like at a local, national and global level?”
This is the kind of positive question we like. While ultimately success will be judged by our ability to meet or exceed biological targets for species, habitats and sites in compliance with the Convention on Biological Diversity's targets and reflected through various reporting systems, I offered the following proxy indicators of what being the best would mean.
At a global level......fulfilling the promise to designate the Blue Belt of marine protected areas around UK Overseas Territories. On current trajectory, by 2020 we shall have more sea protected than any other nation..mobilising finance to support international conservation efforts by a) ensuring that 20% of the £5.8 billion UK International Climate Finance fund is spent on forestry especially, to help reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation and b) maintaining, bolstering and celebrating the impact of the Darwin Initiative which has benefited wildlife and people in both UK Overseas Territories and developing countries....championing environmental supply chains by a) ensuring all our imports are sourced from sustainable supply chains and then b) promoting the highest environmental standards where we grow our own food..innovative ways of cooperating across the Africa-European flyway to ensure the needs of species that do not respect administrative boundaries (such as our rapidly declining sub-Saharan migratory birds) are met
At a national level......establishing good governance and strong institutions which can give truth to power by, for example, creating the environmental equivalent of the Office of Budget Responsibility...ensuring nature is taken into account in decision-making through a more robust approach to natural capital accounting...making better use of existing public money (for example through reform of farming and land use policy and the £3.1 billion annual UK budget that flows from the EU's Common Agriculture Policy) and exploring how best to harness private investment
At a local level......investing in spatial planning to reflect existing obligations (for example the National Planning Policy Framework’s mandate for the creation of habitat opportunity maps) but also to help reconcile competing needs for housing, infrastructure, energy, recreation, water, farming and nature...statutory agencies, businesses and local communities aligned behind shared visions for local areas and ...exceptional projects that demonstrate how to improve the natural environment in harmony with the needs of people. We’ve shown how to do this for housing, water, farming and fishing. There is an urgent need to make progress in contested landscapes like the uplands.
While Mr Gove is still only in the fourth day of his new job, he is clearly keen to get out, meet people and see places. He also asked the right questions, took notes and listened. These are good signs. We need political leaders to be inquisitive about what is working well and what needs fixing. Then, we hope, they work out how to intervene to make things better.
We shall do what we can to ensure his time as Environment Secretary is a success for nature.
Well done Martin ! Far from wreaking the sort of havoc he might like to, Michael Gove has a very fine line to tread to avoid shedding yet more votes and in particular further stirring the youth vote which will, I suspect, be far more alert to the environment than the mass of older voters.
A great start!