Floudering in Falmouth, Futurescapes fun and a farewell to Fiona

Yesterday, I opened the latest Natura 2000 newsletter (providing an update from the European Commission on nature and biodiversity) and my eyes fell again on a graph showing the coverage of protected wildlife sites across the European Union.  The UK is floundering at the bottom of the league table in terms of percentage of national area covered by either Special Areas of Conservation or Special Protection Areas (just 7.2%).  I think this is worth repeating.  We are 27th out of 27 Member States in terms of land protected for wildlife! So - no, we are not gold-plating the implementation of the Nature Directives, Mr Osborne. 

And this prompted me to revisit one of the cases being used to argue that the Habitats Regulations place a "ridiculous cost on British business" - dredging in Falmouth harbour.  If you have not done so, I encourage you read my colleague Tony Whitehad's post on the subject here.  It is clear that there are options to deliver what the port authority wants - opening up the harbour to allow larger ships to dock - whilst protecting the internationally important maerl beds.  I make no comment on the desirability of cruise liners being able to dock in Falmouth, simply that sustainable development is about finding ways to enable economic activity to continue whilst maintaining the natural assets we have.  The Habitats Regulations help make this happen.

Moving on from Falmouth, I am off to Grantham today to meet up with colleagues to discuss latest developments in our Futurescapes programme.  Like other organisations, we are doing our bit to deliver landscape scale conservation.  I am looking forward to seeing how our new magnificent seven dedicated Futurescapes officers are getting on.  These posts have been funded by the Life programme of the European Union in recognition of the contribution that this initiative can offer to the protection of habtiats and species of European importance.  I look forward to hearing about progress and seeing some smiling faces from those colleagues who will be contributing to the successful Nature Improvement Areas announced two weeks ago.

Finally, a word in praise of the fantastic Dame Fiona Reynolds who announced today that she will be leaving her post of Director General of the National Trust in order to be Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.  She's not going just yet - she takes up her University duties in autumn 2013.  Hopefully that gives her enough time to help all of us see off the worst of the Government's proposals for planning reform. I have known Fiona since I joined the environment sector in 1996.  In that time she has played an increasingly important leadership role, first in running CPRE, then turning around the fortunes of the Trust and perhaps most importantly standing up for the protection of special places in last summer's debates about the National Planning Policy Framework.  She'll be missed from the sector, but the environment's loss is academia's gain.