The climate and ecological emergencies are among the greatest challenges of our time.
The Federal Policy Committee’s Natural Environment Working Group is developing new policy proposals to help make sure that the Liberal Democrat plan for protecting and restoring nature is agenda-setting and ambitious. We would love to hear your ideas.
First of all, we want to hear what our long term vision for nature should be. We have a policy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, but what is the equivalent for nature? What is the most ambitious pathway possible for reducing our impact on nature internationally, restoring the natural environment in England, and ensuring that individuals and communities can benefit from a healthy environment?
Farming and land management will be key to delivery. Now that we have left the EU, we will need to develop a nature-friendly replacement for the Common Agricultural Policy that recognises the huge changes and challenges that farmers are facing, and genuinely supports a fast and effective transition to sustainable farming. We want a scheme that gives our hard-pressed farmers and rural communities the support and prosperity they deserve, whilst also making farming work for nature.
We also want to put our fishing communities on a sustainable financial and environmental footing. Like farming, we have the opportunity to replace the Common Fisheries Policy with a new approach which benefits coastal communities and our seas, not just the big trawlers with the deepest pockets.
We also want to enhance the UK’s waterways. We want to end the national scandal of water companies dumping sewage into our waterways with impunity and ensure that all of our water is safe for nature and for humans to enjoy.
Our current approach to the economy is also in need of a major rethink. We want to put the environment at the heart of decision making across government and for it to be reflected in how we measure economic success. Sustainability must be at the heart of everything we do, rather than simple financial metrics.
We also want to make our planning system work for nature, not for developers profits. We are working on joint proposals with the Federal Policy Committee’s Homes and Planning working group to put the environment at the heart of planning. We want to make sure every new development improves nature and that everyone has access to green space.
The ecological emergency is intrinsically linked with the climate emergency. We will need to develop a complimentary set of nature policies to tackle climate change, building on our proposals in 2019. We will need to go beyond just planting more trees and look more widely at how we best capture and manage carbon.
You can find the consultation paper here. The deadline for responses is the 18th March.
We will also be hosting a consultation event at this year’s Spring Conference on Friday 11th March between 16:35 and 17:40, where we will discuss our proposals.
* Richard Benwell is an environmental campaigner for climate and nature and was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Wantage at the 2019 General Election. He is currently chief executive of a charity focused on improving environmental law and policy.
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7 Comments
Thanks Richard. This is a really important issue that is too often relegated to the background when talking about the environment. Tackling climate change is vital and the urgency with which we have to do it can mean people talk in big broad terms about equivalent carbon emissions to be saved by doing x, y and z without always giving full credit to the need to factor in the ecology/biodiversity crisis too.
A thriving. balanced, ecosystem is vital to keep climate change under control, and we neglect it at our peril. This isn’t a fringe subject for fans of bird watching.
I’ll be interested to read the consultation, but my first thoughts are that I am glad you are wanting to work with farmers. A lot of environmental campaigning treats farmers as the enemy, or an inconvenience, which is unfair. Even if you do think we need to revolutionise land use in the UK, we need to work with farmers and the communities that rely on them.
It’s simple: don’t waste taxpayers’ money on bureaucratic, dodgy and ineffective land management schemes, encourage organic food production instead. It could give a desperately-needed fillip to British agriculture; and It’s better for people and better for the planet, win-win.
On water quality.
If we seriously want to stop water companies from pumping untreated sewage into rivers could we not prevent water companies from paying a dividend to their shareholders within, say, 18 months of any discharge of untreated sewage.
Surely that would encourage them to invest in their infrastructure.
A really thorough consultation paper. However there appears to be some missing text at 3 Managing the Land for Nature 3.9 , 2nd bullet point, paragraph about decline of birds on farmland. Stops mid-sentence at end of paragraph.
It is essential that we encourage re-wilding, ie returning less productive land to nature, ideally on a landscape scale, as many nature reserves are just islands in a wildlife desert.
Financial assistance should be provided for this. The book ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree explains what can be achieved, and has been at the Knepp estate.
Now that we have left the EU, we will need to develop a nature-friendly replacement for the Common Agricultural Policy
That’s already been done with the Agriculture Act 2020. It now needs implementing in a sensible manner without burdening farmers with more bureaucracy.
‘We have an Agriculture Act – but let’s not relax now’ [November 2020]:
https://www.sustainweb.org/blogs/nov20-new-agriculture-act2020/
‘Landmark Agriculture Act spells new era for British food and farming’ [November 2020]:
https://www.devonlive.com/news/uk-world-news/landmark-agriculture-act-spells-new-4691095
Getting the policy right to replace the CAP is not straightforward. There is a strong risk of repeating Gove’s mistake or even doubling down on it. Although we are allowed under WTO rules to spend as much as we like on agri-environmental schemes, they must be at cost. It is explicit in WTO rules that they cannot be used to deliver income support to the farming industry. Without income support, farms will need to get very big and unencumbered by obstacles to mechanisation to make any profit.
The compact under the CAP was that as farmers we received support through the Basic Payment Scheme, which kept sufficient farmers on the land to deliver the environmental schemes under Pillar 2. This was a messy compromise, but it complied with our WTO treaty obligation and didn’t work that badly. As the government are now discovering, they can only offer break even rates for their new ELMS schemes and the farmers, facing a melt down in incomes, are thoroughly underwhelmed. I hope we are not going to fall into the same trap.