And now we know what the UK Government wants to achieve for wildlife. A clear set of measurable targets by which we can judge how well they are doing. Am very pleased.
I know, the money may not be in place yet, and there appears to be a general feeling that voluntary approaches will suffice, but these targets/measurable outcomes/impact measures - whatever you want to call them - do matter. These will tell us over time whether the Government is any good at saving nature.
From that White Paper...
"By 2020 we want to achieve an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife." OK that souds good, but what exactly do you mean?
"Over time, we plan to have 90% of priority wildlife habitats in recovering or favourable condition." Right, that includes all types of sites including local wildlife sites, so that sounds pretty good.
"We will work to achieve more, bigger, better and less-fragmented areas for wildlife, including no net loss of priority habitat and an increase of at least 200,000 ha in the overall extent of priority habitats." Did all government departments really agree to this expansion target - am impressed!
"At least 50% of SSSIs will be in favourable condition, while maintaining at least 95% in favourable or recovering condition." Hmm - a tiny improvement on the high point of 44.51% in favourable condition in November 2008, and maintenance of the original 95%. Here's hoping that they still want to get the other half of our finest wildlife sites into good condition.
"And, in line with commitments made at Nagoya, at least 17% of England will be managed effectively in order to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem services." This is larger area than our current designated sites and reserves, plus local wildlife sites, but less than the area of our protected landscapes. As it’s for active management, it is quite ambitious (but then it is a Nagoya commitment).
"At least 15% of degraded ecosystems that are important for climate change mitigation and adaptation will be restored." This sounds as though it could be useful, but I've no idea how they plan to measure it.
And, as for saving species? Oh, nothing. Yet. Maybe in the England Biodiversity Strategy in a couple of weeks.
But the picture is emerging and this feels like an ambition worth fighting for.
There is an interesting lack of mention of species not just here but in the replacement for planning guidance, the National Planning Policy Framework. I guess for many species having habitats in good condition will help but clearly not in many other cases. Perhaps they are running scared of measuring success or failure by the decline in farmland birds. The National Planning Policy Framework does mention identifying suitable indicators for monitoring biodiversity as part of Local Plan policies.
It does mean a lot of monitoring of priority habitats though and that would need a major increase in support for Local Wildlife Site projects. Clearly the opposite is happening at present. Your right that they think it's a job for volunteers but as usual they fail to understand that you need to have some paid professional support to organise and train volunteers as well as collating and checking information. Just having a site in a grant aided management scheme doesn't guarantee good condition. I know locally we could do a grand job with much of this but without funding it won't happen unless we find skilled professionals who can spare a good few days a week without financial reward.
There lots to like in the White Paper but the underlying message is that the Government will not be providing much financial support for wildlife conservation except through HLS. I'm off to find a box which I can think out of because, even despite this, there's some good stuff to latch onto.