In recent months, The Wildlife Trusts have been encouraged by the increasing interest of the private sector in nature’s recovery. In February this year, we embarked on a partnership with leading insurance company, Aviva, who donated £38 million towards a 100-year partnership to recover some of the lost temperate rainforests of the British Isles. This significant investment to help tackle the climate and nature crises is an indication of the shift in attitude of some of the large companies towards the role of the natural world in addressing societal issues, with huge economic ramifications.
However, private sector investment must go hand-in-hand with ambitious government action. During COP15 last December – which was hailed as a critical summit for nature in light of global declines in habitat and wildlife – the UK Government helped to set a number of much-needed targets for our natural world. The resulting agreement, a Global Biodiversity Framework, outlines 23 ambitious goals deemed critical to reversing global biodiversity loss and ecosystem decline. The framework includes targets to effectively protect 30% of land, inland waters, coasts and oceans for nature, to mobilise $200 billion per year in biodiversity-related funding from public and private sources, and to halve the risk posed by pesticides, by 2030.
These targets represent a significant stepping stone on the journey towards addressing the interlinked nature and climate crises – and so we were pleased to have the opportunity to discuss progress with Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Thérèse Coffey during our recent event.
Is the UK making progress towards meeting its COP15 targets?
We know that none of England’s rivers, lakes and estuaries are currently in a healthy condition. Just last month, the status of the River Wye was downgraded from “unfavourable-improving” to “unfavourable-declining”.
This week, the UK Government designated the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in UK waters. This is great news for the protection of our marine environment. However, these three special sites will cover just 0.4% of English seas – we need to see far greater ambition.
On land, crucial habitats like peatlands and saltmarsh are experiencing a cocktail of threats and are facing high levels of degradation, fuelling the nature and climate crises.
Overall, just 3.2% of England’s land and 8% of England’s waters are effectively protected and managed for nature – falling far short of the 30% ambition.
When questioned at the event about the condition of our protected areas, Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey recognised that these special places will require serious attention if they are to play a role in nature’s recovery. Indeed, with 62% of England’s Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) not in favorable condition, there’s clearly a huge amount of work to be done.
The Secretary of State went on to identify habitat creation as a key priority. However, when questioned about the fundamental role that beavers can play in nature’s recovery as ‘nature engineers’ that drive the restoration of healthy wetland ecosystems, the Secretary of State was less enthusiastic, dismissing their importance. The licensing of beaver reintroduction was first promised by this Government 2017, and again in 2021. However, progress continues to stall, with no strategy in place for beavers to return to the wild.
Nature-based solutions, such as reintroducing beavers, present a fantastic opportunity to restore critical habitats, increase carbon storage, and provide ecosystem services to the people of the UK. This Government is dragging its feet with this easy yet highly effective solution at a time when we need action more urgently than ever.
The targets agreed at COP15 are meaningless if not underpinned by an ambitious drive towards implementation – something we are yet to see from this Government. It goes without saying that there are many competing priorities when it comes to tackling the increasingly severe nature and climate crises. However, this Government has demonstrated a repeated unwillingness to give nature the huge boost it needs – or to let nature help.
