I’ve been reflecting about the call made by Professor Dieter Helm, chairman of the Natural Capital Committee, for a 25 year recovery plan for nature.
If we started this year, that would take us to 2040 when I’ll turn 70. Who knows if I’ll still be working then, but developing such a plan would keep me busy and provide a good focus for the rest of my career.
And, it would also take us beyond 2020 – the current date by which the world had committed to halting the loss of biodiversity and beginning its recovery. Don’t get me wrong, I still think we should strive to do whatever we can to meet the 20 Aichi targets – which include preventing species extinctions and ensuring 1/6th of land and 1/10th of sea managed primarily for nature – but it’s good to think in the longer term.
It’s what the Climate Change Act has forced us to do for reducing greenhouse gas emission by setting a 80% reduction target for 2050 but also by setting five year carbon budget periods to keep us heading in the right direction.
And, if you think over a longer time frame, it allows you to believe that we can move mountains. When trapped by the reality of daily fights for nature, it is easy to forget that twenty five years ago in 1990, no-one had heard of the Biodiversity Action Plan, the red kite reintroduction programme had only just begun, farmers were being paid to over-produce, agri-environment schemes were still a quirky experiment, SSSI laws were easily trumped by commercial interests, marine protected areas were a pipedream and the school of environmental economics was in its infancy.
What's more, the nature conservation sector has broadened and matured considerably over the past 25 years. Imagine what we could achieve in the next two and half decades.
I was reminded of all of this when reading Tony Juniper’s excellent new book “What nature does for Britain”. While this is primarily a book about the services that nature gives us for free, it is also a book of hope.
The hope is provided by the countless examples of individuals and organisations who are pioneering new approaches to working with the grain of nature and reaping the reward. Tony offers a collection of great stories about how farmers, water companies, fishermen, energy companies, health-care professionals and, of course, nature conservation organisations are nurturing the provisioning (food and water), supporting (nutrient cycling and pollination), regulating (climate and flood prevention) and cultural services (beauty, health and inspiration) that nature gives us.
As featured in Tony's book, Hope Farm has shown that it is possible to grow food and recover farmland birds (Andy Hay, rspb-images.com)
Tony explains how we have continually shot ourselves in the foot by destroying much of what nature gives us by pursuing short-term private gain. But his stories also show how a different approach to economic policy that reflected the true value nature in decision-making could provide material benefits for all of us.
He debunks the myth that we don’t have the money to invest in nature’s restoration. He argues that over the next fifteen years, about £100 billion will be spent on land and water management through a combination of farm payments, flood prevention works, cleaning up the effects of flood events and investments by water companies to improve water quality. He encourages us to Imagine what would happen if this was invested to optimise the value of land to the public. You could quickly see how this would catapult us towards our 2040 utopian vision of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.
Tony wants us to aspire for a triple A rating for our ecology as well as our economy. His stories give us hope that it is attainable. But, he goes further by presenting a manifesto for nature which he encourages the political parties to embrace in the run up the election. This includes support for the Nature and Wellbeing Act which the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB have been advocating.
Let’s get that Act in law to provide us with a political consensus for the long-term. Not only would it keep me busy for the rest of my working career, I think it would give us the best chance to pass on the natural environment in a healthier state to our children and grandchildren.
I encourage you to read Tony's book.
And once you have, do let me and Tony know what you think.
Martin
I reviewed this and found it a great, forward thinking book that we all need to tap into. However it lacked an element of pragmatic realism which perhaps enables it then to be a populist book without too many hard choices on every other page. It had a welcome amount on agriculture but with a heavy leaning towards high-end organic, conservation grade farming - which is great for wildlife but poor for those in foodbank queues (way too expensive).
The book was a great 'ad' for Wildlife Trusts but sidestepped a number of relevant issues: his support for increasing self sufficiency in food production (NFU would love that) might squeeze wildlife habitat (more land required to produce the yields) Plus organic farming does use chemicals and does all EU regulation produce the objectives we seek? It was OK to talk about angling but no mention of shooting, itself a cultural ecosystem service, and when undertaken well, itself brings beneficial ecosystem service to the wider environment (witness the number of farm shoots that win RSPB's Nature of Farming awards)
We must aim to engage the majority of us who pile into large supermarkets without a care for the impact of our consumption on the environment - or for that sake, our health (that will be the wake-up-call). My review may seem harsh but nature, red in tooth and claw, would recognise that - along with the complexity of 64 million of us crammed on a small island wanting it all: nature's and our affordable welfare.
www.scribd.com/.../Review-of-What-Nature-does-for-Britain-by-Tony-Juniper-in-Countryfile-Mag
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www.robyorke.co.uk
As a professional deliverer I'd suggest that the ball is very much in the court of the politicians and economists - that means Dieter himself ! - because the real barriers are institutional, not physical - and part of the problem lies with our approach to economics - it is so much easier to measure simple things like tonnes of wheat/hectare. I've increasingly felt that economist's struggles with the complex mix of hard and soft values around multi-purpose land use have become a significant factor holding back progress.
Added to that, I think the choices we face are becoming simpler and starker - helped by the NFU which at its conference today will call for all-out farming, sweeping away those pesky green measures that make farmers lives more complicated. With what we know right now we could transform nature in just 10 years - look at some of the achievements up to 2010 - and, by more sophisticated tuning of how we manage the natural environment probably save rather than spend £1 billion a year at least.