Last month we published a blog outlining essential amendments to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to ensure that the planning system supports nature’s recovery. This blog highlights the importance of an amendment on protected landscapes legislation in the Bill, which will be key for the UK to meet its 30x30 target.
At the COP15 summit in December, the UK Government agreed to the Global Biodiversity Framework commitment to effectively protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030, known as the ‘30x30’ commitment.
Covering over 25% of land in England, the effective management of protected landscapes is vital for the UK to meet its 30x30 target. However, outdated protected landscapes legislation means that most sites in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) are not considered to be effectively managed for nature, as the Government itself stated in its response to the Glover Landscapes Review.
Amendment 387 implements key recommendations from the Glover Review which includes giving protected landscapes new statutory purposes to recover nature, tackle climate change and improve people’s connection to nature, embedding targets to deliver on all statutory purposes in management plans and requiring other public authorities to further those targets. This blueprint for more effective management of protected landscapes for nature, cultural heritage, climate and people, and the need to legislate to deliver it, was accepted by the Government in their response to the Glover Review (2022).
Lord Randall of Uxbridge, Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, Baroness Willis of Summertown and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville have tabled a clause to update the legislation underpinning protected landscapes. The clause would enable more effective management for nature and a greater contribution to 30x30, along with increased benefits for climate and people, whilst also ensuring that cultural heritage and their natural beauty are conserved and enhanced.
A number of Peers made the case for implementing Glover Review recommendations through amendment of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill during the Lords second reading in January. A subsequent letter to Peers from the Bill Minister, Baroness Scott of Bybrook OBE, suggested that the general biodiversity duty created by the Environment Act 2021 could deliver key Glover recommendations without the need for legislate.
This is not the case – by their very nature, new statutory purposes for nature recovery, climate and access to nature need to be delivered through legislation. In terms of embedding targets in management plans, the general biodiversity duty requires all authorities to give general consideration of biodiversity at a high level every five years or so. It does not provide the sustained focus on targets to deliver protected landscape statutory purposes which the amendment would deliver. The third element of the new clause a requirement on relevant authorities to further protected landscapes statutory purposes, requires legislative backing in order to have effect.
As accepted by the Government as recently as last year, legislation is needed to implement protected landscape reforms. And yet in the Government’s recently published Environmental Improvement Plan, which states that DEFRA will implement proposals driven by the Landscapes Review, there is no reference to legislation, with specific actions focusing instead on updating non-statutory guidance.
In February 2023, over 35 scientists and experts (including Julian Glover and three other panel members from the Glover Review) wrote to the Prime Minister to urge him to support this amendment. With only seven years to go before the 30x30 deadline, the time to legislate is now. The Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill, with its planning, heritage and community focus, provides an appropriate and timely legislative vehicle.
We strongly urge Peers to support this amendment, as it represents an opportunity to deliver the Government’s own promises, to uphold COP15 commitments and to revitalise National Parks and AONBs for nature, natural beauty, cultural heritage, climate and people.