At the State of Nature launch there was a panel discussion which was very ably chaired by Sue Armstrong-Brown (now of Green Alliance but a former colleague at RSPB).
One of the questions to the panel was, in a post-Brexit world which EU environmental policies would you Snog, Marry or Avoid. The panel’s answers were rather unmemorable. What do you think?
Here are my answers:
Marry: we should remain completely faithful to the Birds and Habitats Directives. Decent protection for the most important places for wildlife (on a European scale) is an essential bedrock of nature conservation. Our nature is in peril and will be in even more peril if we weaken these aspects of nature protection.
Snog: we need to explore what a new agriculture policy will look like for each part of the UK. We should adapt the existing framework, keep some of the thinking and then move on. (Is that snogging?). Our relationship with the CAP has had good times and bad times and it’s time to learn the lessons from that relationship and make a much better and lasting choice in future.
Avoid: ditch the Biofuels Directive and the RTFO which require our motor fuels to have biofuels in them. This creates a financial incentive to grow energy rather than food and to destroy natural habitats across the world including massive carbon stores such as rainforests.
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Sorry it’s irrelevant, we are not going to get any meaningful level of subsidy after 2020 any way. Politically it’s a non stater so frankly we better get used to it and adjust our businesses to compensate for life post CAP.. Yes there will be an unseemly “dash for the cash” by wildlife groups and other NGOs such as the National Trust, backed up I’d imagine by the sort of tactics used by Greenpeace last week ( data used from the old SPS scheme not the new Basic Payment Scheme but who cares about getting the facts right when you’re bathed in ecologically sunlight and political sainthood ?). Actually after the coming anti farming onslaught I suspect you will be lucky to get one farmer sign up for the crumbs that will be left on the table.