I have just had two very contrasting days (one in the field, one in meetings) but with a common theme - floods.
On Wednesday, I was with our local team in the unseasonably warm January sunshine at the Suffolk coast. The principle reason for my visit was to see the habitat creation that we've done at one of our sites - Hollesley. Two years on from creating a large scrape, the team has recorded excellent results for breeding waders and, as I saw for myself, record numbers of wintering waders and wildfowl.
As the weather was good, we managed to get on to Havergate Island to see first hand what we had done in response to the 2013 tidal surge. As many of you will know, the RSPB bought Havergate in 1948 when the avocets returned to breed. Yet, by the mid 1990s, the avocet population was displaced by gulls and now the site is internationally important for its lesser black backed gulls. We've known for a long time that the site is vulnerable to sea-level rise, and like its neighbouring island Orford Ness, Havergate was fully flooded by the tidal surge that hit the East Anglian coast in December 2013. Although the infrastructure on the island was badly effected, wildlife populations have bounced back. What's more, it seems that the amount of seawater that Havergate and Orford Ness absorbed took some of the pressure off the mainland and has been cited as one of the reasons why the village of Orford (shown below) was not badly hit by the surge. It's yet another case study that reinforces the role that land managed for nature can play in reducing flood risk.
Yesterday, was a different day as the RSPB was one of a diverse group of organisations who met Environment Minister Rory Stewart to discuss flood risk. While the immediate focus rightly remains on dealing with the ongoing misery many are facing from existing or recent floods, it’s clear a national discussion has started and a growing consensus is forming that we need a radical rethink about flood prevention.
I sat in the meeting the Minister alongside reps from insurance companies, architects, engineers, and charities representing flood victims and social equality. Despite our different perspectives, we shared a simple message: we want to work together to find new ways to avoid the trauma that flood affected communities have suffered. This means making use of all the tools at our disposal and delivering best value for money through projects that deliver multiple benefits. Included within this will be proper consideration of the role that land use and management through the whole catchment has in increasing or alleviating flood risk.
This is why I welcome the news (see here) that the new Cumbrian Floods Partnership will look at upstream options for reducing the intensity of water flows. There is a growing body of evidence on this subject (for example see here) and we have our own experience to share. It may not provide the silver bullet to deal with all flooding but it certainly has a role to play.
The RSPB is keen to support the Cumbrian group as well as contribute our views to the proposed National Flood Resilience Review to be led by Oliver Letwin. I am glad that a cross-departmental approach is being adopted for the national review, and I trust that the reviews will also align closely with the 25 year plans for nature and food and farming as well as the Committee on Climate Change's climate change risk assessment - due this summer (see here). We need coherent and consistent policies that reconcile competing needs.
While I was meeting the Minister, the two annual Oxford farming conferences were in full swing (see here and here). Given the encouraging tone of much of the public and political debate over the last month, it was disappointing to read reports that the Secretary of State told the Oxford Farming Conference that farmers will be allowed to take measures that could place homes at greater risk of flooding (see here). She said, "subject to parliamentary approval, we will also allow farmers across the country to maintain ditches up to 1.5km long from April, so they can dredge and clear debris and manage the land to stop it getting waterlogged. This follows the successful pilots we started two years ago. We will also soon announce proposals to give internal drainage boards and other groups more power to maintain local watercourses."
The measures are designed to protect farmland, yet we know that there can be perverse consequences from dredging (see here) and while they may work for individual farm businesses they could be at odds with effective flood risk management and with the public interest.
Clearly, there needs to be a fundamental reform of farming policy so it genuinely supports businesses to become resilient and sustainable - exactly the type of strategy that a 25 year plan on food and farming should outline. It was therefore great to hear that a session which colleagues from the RSPB hosted at the Real Oxford Farming Conference today was highlighting exactly the sort of innovative businesses that benefit both the environment and people (see here) . I know from my own conversations that many farmers want the certainty that public policy will support agriculture that is forward looking and that works with the grain of nature.
Short-term fixes are not good enough – we need a strategy for land management that enables people, nature and progressive business to adapt and survive in the face of major environmental change.
It is very timely that you bring up the 2013 tidal surge, Martin. Because there was no disaster the success of a determined plan which included recognising that farmland might have to be sacrificed to protect communities has been almost forgotten. But the terrible disaster along the east coast in 1953 dwarfs anything we are seeing now. And, in complete contradiction to the current Government's dogma that wildlife must always lose if the economy or people are involved, managed retreat is creating fantastic habitat which also holds back the flood - and the engineering profession surely deserves our thanks for the way so many of its members have enthusiastically tailored their plans to help wildlife.
Surely we can do the same in land ? But it will take some hard decisions and the Government's equivocal position need resolving through a really broad alliance stretching from flood victims through the insurance industry to nature conservation, with at the heart the recognition that whilst farming is vitally important it simply is not the one and only be all and end all of the countryside.