As a son of a vicar, it is probably not wise to make biblical analogies but the reporting of recent weather and my latest tentative foray into twitter (@martinRSPB) has forced my hand. But through hyperbole I want to make a serious point about our response to the recent storms and floods.
Being in Oxford this week has exposed me to some of the chaos that the recent weather has brought - homes flooded, roads closed and colourful descriptions of lengthy journeys. But it was easy for me - I escaped the hullabaloo of the Oxford Farming Conferences for a few hours yesterday to get across to our Otmoor reserve (see below). As I travelled across, it was so wet it felt like Oxfordshire was sinking. But it was good to see floodplains (Cherwell Valley and Upper Ray Valley) do what they are meant to do and store a lot of water.
Talk about flood defences and budgets has understandably dominated the headlines. In many ways, 2014 is starting the same way that 2013 ended – with the largest sea surges of my lifetime, and damaging storms. It’s too early to take full stock of the damage, but our reserves on the south and west coasts appear to have suffered less damage in the January storms than we saw on the east coast in December and which I saw when visiting over the New Year with my family.
In the midst of the storms, we’ve been watching one place especially closely: Medmerry on the Sussex coast is our newest nature reserve which we took on only three months ago (see here). It will be a fantastic wetland, created by the Environment Agency both for wildlife and to protect the farms, main road and houses around it by absorbing storm energy. We’d hoped it wouldn’t be tested so soon, but it has passed with flying colours, despite facing a storm that would have washed away the previous defences.
Last month, when storms hit the east coast, our work at Titchwell allowed the saltmarsh there to do exactly the same job. This winter’s floods prove again that Britain will need to plan projects like this, to deal with an unstable climate and more severe weather. I remain convinced that climate change is the reason we are seeing increased frequency in extreme weather events. And this requires all parts of society to think about how we adapt to changing climate.
It is clear to me that where we have thought ahead, and invested in our coast and landscape, wildlife-friendly defences have coped very well with the storms. A government advisory body reported last year that flood-defence habitats of this sort would save the country hundreds of millions of pounds. One can only imagine what would be happening to Oxford now if the floodplains were not functioning properly.
Investment in the environment is not only needed to protect against flooding but also guarantee the other free services that nature gives us and, of course, to help recover threatened wildlife. With this in mind, and especially during such massive floods, one can only conclude that the staff and budget cuts we’re seeing at the Environment Agency and Natural England are short-sighted. Even before the Chancellor announced further public spending cuts this week, over 1,500 job losses are expected at the Environment Agency and Natural England will next year be c50-60% of the size it was in 2009. These cuts are bound to have an impact on their ability to deliver their statutory purposes - there are only so many 'efficiency-savings' that you can make before something gets dropped/missed.
These are dedicated people delivering important services. It is not well known, but those in the Environment Agency who normally work on wildlife, waste management, contaminated land and many other areas, also work on and even manage flood protection projects, and are called up for emergency flood response shifts. This blurs the line between frontline flood staff and other parts of the Environment Agency and Natural England. When there are emergencies like this one, all hands are needed, and staff cuts simply leave fewer hands. When the emergency ends, we need staff able to protect our floodplains from unsuitable building, improve storm drains in vulnerable areas and help our countryside adapt to climate change.
So what does the RSPB hope for, after the floods? First, we need good long-term planning and investment in our environment, and a reversal of short-sighted cuts to highly skilled and committed staff – not just to protect against flooding, but for the good of our countryside. Second, we need to avoid any knee-jerk calls for the dredging of rivers, or to build expensive seawalls along unsuitable parts of the coast. Most importantly, we need to look after our landscape: protecting our finest wildlife sites, building fewer homes in floodplains, supporting progressive farming that protects and enhances the environment and making it easier for those that want to restore lost biodiversity.
We can only meet these challenges by ensuring government and its agencies have the capacity for long-term investment in our environment. Cuts to the Environment Agency and Natural England simply expose the natural environment and people to more risk.
What do you think should be our collective response to the current flooding?
It would be great to hear your views.
P.S. It was nice to see lots of red kites at Otmoor but it was also nice to bump into 'RedKite' - a regular commentator on this blog - hard at work trimming hawthorn bushes while protecting brown hairstreak butterfly eggs. I hope you dried out eventually! I was treated to a memorable starling murmuration at the end of my site visit but by then you were long gone...
Driving around the country over the past few days I've seen a lot of flood plains doing what flood plains are meant to do ! and whilst, sadly, many people have been flooded its also clear the EA have been busy, and effectively so, because far fewer people have been flooded than might have been expected.
Its easy to claim its all about money. I don't believe pouring concrete alone is ever going to solve the problem - and as you've demonstrated neither do the flooding experts as more and more 'soft' approaches tentatively poke their heads above the parapet. We've put a lot of effort over the years into moving water off the land - and too often it ends up in someones house. We urgently need to look at the whole landscape not as a food factory but a provider of a range of services, of which flood protection/containment probably virtually matches food in our current urbanised economy. What couldn't we achieve with wetlands and woodlands slowing and catching the water ? With farmers currently devastated by flooding actually paid overtly to catch the water for the rest of us ? In the process what's the potential for restoring the habitat for some our most threatened birds like lowland waders ? For bi-products of timber and wood energy ? For new wilder places for people to walk, especially if they are right next to where they live - and while you were in Oxford, Martin, you could of course have visited an example that has remained a common, never been drained and defended from the Thames in the shape of Port Meadow, no doubt covered in water right now, which otherwise could well have been flooding the streets of the City.
Our collective response I think should be, first of all,to recognise that rivers do flood, it is what nature has designed them to do all over the world, hence our flood meadows.
Secondly we need to recognise the media hype and "nanny society" mentality that unfortunately we all have to live with these days often makes out the situation to be worst than it really is. For example the flooding in 1947 when the melting snow coincided with heavy rain, was far far worse than the current water levels. Thirdly, we have to learn to live and work with nature. Medmerry and other coastal realignments are great examples. Natural salt marsh offers a wonderful way of absorbing wave energy and at little of no cost. Similarly, flood plains, like Otmoor, offer cheap ways of storing/holding up flood water and releasing it slowly.
It seems to me that instead of making more and more people redundant at the Environment Agency and Natural England we would be far better off using their experience and their brain power to look at many more ways of working with nature to alleviate flooding and reversing biodiversity loss. Money should be saved, by reducing expenditure on capital projects.Some will no doubt still be needed but many I am sure many can be cancelled.
Working with nature is the way ahead not against it.
(Good to meet you yesterday Martin, glad the starlings put on a good show.)