Just a day after the Chancellor announced the latest plans for addressing the economic deficit the Government published (to substantially less media coverage) the latest progress reports on biodiversity indicators.
There are lots of indicators - there are those for the UK and those for England .
Whilst some of the indicators are going in the right direction, too many, particularly those reflecting the state of our sites and species are either stagnating or declining.
For example, the graph below shows the condition of SSSIs in England, our most important wildlife sites. We know that saving nature in a changing climate starts with protecting our finest wildlife site. If you follow the green bars, you'll note that there has been a decline in the area of these sites in favourable condition from 44 per cent in 2003 to 37.5 per cent in April 2014. The trend since 2010 does not look too rosy and the Government's target of reaching 50% in favourable condition by 2020 looks a long way off. You will notice that the area in unfavourable recovering condition has increased significantly. These are sites that have some form of management plan in place. This is encouraging but we need these plans to be effective and they will need to be backed by adequate funding if they are to deliver.
If the dramatic cuts in public spending heralded by the Chancellor's announcements fall in the wrong place it could be at the cost of nature. This is why we are calling for a legal duty in England to restore nature through Nature and Wellbeing Act.
Unless the value of nature is fully accounted in decision-making, we fear the situation will become even worse. The prominence of housing and infrastructure development in the Chancellor’s statement yesterday risks casting a long shadow over the future of many of our finest wildlife sites, such as Lodge Hill (here) in Kent, where housing threatens to destroy the only protected site for nightingales in the UK
These indicators include for the first time the change in status of priority species. I am pleased to note that this is something that RSPB scientists have helped to develop and this was featured in the State of Nature report.
The Government's version is based on the trend for 213 priority species (birds, butterflies, mammals and moths) from across the UK. Overall, from 1970 to 2012 there was a 33% decline in this indicator. However, I'm determined to finish on an optimistic note. The short term trend in this indicator is no significant change, suggesting the decline has slowed. Amongst these priority species some are now on the increase. We know that targeted action for species can turn populations around see here and here.
Successive governments have made strong commitments to saving nature - this is not and never has been a party political issue. And it would be churlish not to recognise the progress that has been made - governments working with progressive land managers and the nature conservation community have had impact across the UK. What we need now though is a decent plan to drive nature's recovery. We think that the Nature and Wellbeing Bill will provide fresh impetus to make this happen. If you agree, please join our campaign here.
What do you think about the Government's biodiversity indicators?
It would be great to hear your views.
The last Labour Government launched and funded the first real drive to improve our SSSIs from nearly 50% unfavourable condition. The graph shows the impact of their efforts - public, private and NGOs sectors combined to deliver a massive achievement in getting our finest sites back on the right track - but, as the graph shows all too clearly, sites were turned from failing to improving - not good condition so that, in 2010, the simple, clear challenge was whether we could turn 'improving' into 'good condition'. The sorry story is all too clear - and the lame (and I think whoever wrote it knew just how lame it was) excuse that 'it takes a long time to restore biodiversity' is quite simply rubbish. Look at reports from NE chief executives over the last few years - and if you find anything about wildlife you've done well because the job is about implementing cuts, nothing to do with biodiversity. Of course, there's no money. Again, rubbish. By far the biggest funding stream to the countryside is the 'green' bits of the payments to farmers - no new money there, just decisions about the balance - a balance which Owen Paterson wanted to push further towards environmental schemes, and which David Cameron stepped in personally to veto in favour of the condition-free payments going to every farmer, and well known to favour the biggest, most intensive (and richest) farmers. Its time to stop joking about the 'greenest Government ever': this is the worst Government of my lifetime and it is even more determined than Margaret Thatcher to destroy the public realm in favour of personal greed and sadly the birds are directly in the firing line.
This Defra document wants a fair amount of reading and evaluation before one can comment in depth. However I do have a few overall comments. The document mainly comprises many graphs generally of the state of habitats and of the state of groups of animals plants and birds, e.g. farmland birds. There is little or no reference to specific species. So for example it is possible,that while a habitat might be shown to have improved, nevertheless it might also have suffered a major decline in certain species. This would not be shown up by this report. Therefore refernce to certain specific species of concern and/or in steep decline e.g. hen harrier and Duke of Burgundy butterfly, together with a list of such species, which could be regularly up dated, would be useful.
The other key point is that a lot of emphasis is, rightly, placed in the Report on protected areas such as SSSIs,however as I understand, SSSIs are designated because they are good EXAMPLES of a type of habitat NOT necessarily for their absolute quality. So on this basis a lot of very valuble wildlife will lie outside of protected areas. Therefore indicators that cover the wider countryside such as farmland birds are of prime importance. These types of indicator seem to show very steep and worrying declines in biodiversity.
Finally, I look forward to the Rally on Tuesday. Having had communication with my Conservative MP, he and other conservatives seem to be laying great emphasis in their replys on how much thet are ALREADY doing for Nature eg £7.5 million has been provded for 12 Nature Improvement Areas, 20,000 acres of woodland are being created, etc. I think we need to be able to explain why this is likely to be insufficient and/or ineffective in stemming biodiversity loss, otherwise they may well claim a Nature and Welfare Bill is not necessary because of what they are already doing in that direction.