UK failing to protect biodiversity at home and overseas, say MPs

Britain must do more than preserve 'islands in landscape' and has 'moral duty' to protect biodiversity in far flung territories
John Vidal and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Monday November 10 2008 14.25 GMT

The government will miss its targets to stop the demise of wildlife in Britain unless it invests money in conservation and looks beyond protecting a few special sites, says a report from the environmental audit committee.
The parliamentary watchdog criticised several government departments which it said paid scant regard to wildlife when planning housing or business developments. The Communities, Local Government, Transport and Business and Enterprise departments were all named for failing to properly consider the environmental impacts of their work.
"It is critically important that all levels of government ensure that all policies are reviewed to align them with an ecosystems approach," it said. "We are concerned that a number of policies indicate the continued failure of departments to consider biodiversity impacts."
The committee called for a new approach to conservation and backed plans announced by the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, to carry out a nationwide "ecosystems assessment" to inform policy decisions.
Tory MP Tim Yeo, who chairs the committee, said: "England is a much poorer place than it was 50 years ago with the widespread decline of many of our most important, and loved, habitats and species. We have lost some 97% of our flower-rich meadows and there are now half the number of farmland birds that there were 50 years ago.
"The continued deterioration of the natural environment has clear economic implications as it directly underpins many things that we take for granted such as pollination, flood protection and clean air. It is no longer enough to rely on protected areas to preserve nature, as increasingly these have become islands in the landscape," he said.
Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of Natural England, the government official advisers on ecology, said: "All the evidence points to the fact that the quality and extent of our natural environment will continue to decline unless current policies and land management practices are changed. Failure to respond will have enormously damaging implications for our wildlife, our landscapes, our health and our quality of life."
The committee criticised government for not helping protect biodiversity in Britain's far flung overseas territories, which include islands such as Ascension, the Pitcairns, South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha. The MPs said these remote islands were home to 240 globally threatened species, 74 of them critically endangered but there was a "dire lack of funds and information" for conservation in the territories.
Previous calls to action had been ignored by the government, the MPs complained, demanding a survey of the state of habitats and a joined-up approach across Whitehall.
"The government has a clear moral and legal duty to help protect the biodiversity of the UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, where it is the eleventh hour for many species. We are extremely concerned that recommendations that we have made in the past that would have helped to protect the environment of the overseas territories have been ignored," the report concluded.
"With leadership, and a relatively small sum of money, the incredible biodiversity found in our overseas territories can be safeguarded into the future.
James Cooper, head of government affairs at the Woodland Trust urged Defra to look beyond protected sites and do more in the countryside to encourage positive land management for wildlife as well as preventing loss.
"This means a need to champion biodiversity across government — not just within Defra, encouraging green infrastructure as part of any new developments and ensuring that the planning system is up to the job of protecting and enhancing biodiversity, which at the moment it fails to do."
Friends of the Earth biodiversity campaigner Paul De Zylva said: "MPs acknowledge the economic case for protecting our rich and varied wildlife, but ministers are all too ready to let roads and runways trample over our natural heritage. UK government policies are also threatening the amazing natural diversity of countries around the world."