Nature Improvement Areas are a new idea that came out of the report by Prof Sir John Lawton‘s group in 2010.
From its strapped resources Defra has found £7.5m to invest in a slightly different type of nature conservation initiative – an area based, Big Society approach. No that isn’t a typo – a paltry £7.5m. Still, one has to be pleased with any tangible signs of interest in nature conservation these days.
This is, in Defra’s words, what NIAs are:
Although the characteristics of Nature Improvement Areas will vary across the country according to what is possible and what is needed, these will be places where:
- opportunities to deliver ecological networks, both in terms of large area scale and valuable benefits accruing to wildlife and people, are particularly high;
- a shared vision exists among a wide partnership including statutory and voluntary sectors;
- significant enhancements of the network can be achieved over large areas by enlarging and enhancing existing wildlife sites, improving ecological connectivity and/or creating new sites;
- the surrounding land use is better integrated with the management of the ecological network; wildlife habitats and underpinning ecosystem processes are restored, helping to mitigate climate change impacts; and
- people are inspired by their enhanced experience of the outside world.
Here is what was said about them:
Independent – includes quotes from the Wildlife Trust’s Paul Wilkinson and myself.
Independent – a leader on the subject too.
CLA – in favour providing they don’t get in the way of the economy
NFU – NIA partnerships must talk to farmers – no mention of farmers having to talk to NIAs. Clearly worried that money might be shifted from ELS to this type of approach since NFU talking about wider countryside approach.
National Trust – involved in many of them and welcomes them as a ‘tentative first step’
Butterfly Conservation – like them
RSPB – like them, is involved in nine of the 12 and is leading 2 of them
Wildlife Trusts – like them, is involved in 11 of them but makes the point that this concept should be supported by the planning framework and we need an awful lot more of them. Good points!
The 12 project areas are (from Natural England website):
Birmingham and Black Country Living Landscapes NIA – close to Caroline Spelman’s constituency
Dearne Valley Green Heart NIA
Greater Thames Marshes NIA – close to where Boris wants to build an airport – well done!
Meres and Mosses of the Marches NIA
Morecambe Bay Limestone & Wetlands NIA
Nene Valley NIA – close to where I live
The Dark Peak: Public and Private Lands Partnership NIA – let’s hope birds of prey will benefit
I will come back to NIAs but I commend this blog by Charles Cowap for an interesting, thoughtful take on ths subject.
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Another ‘designation’ then? Only a non-statutory and competitive one – so by definition only ever likely to be a partial approach to establishing ecological networks. They also sound as if they are closely modelled on ‘Biosphere Reserves’ – although the ‘reserve’ bit in that may be a misnomer.
Roger – welcome and thank you for your comment.
Mark,
here is my take on NIAs http://wp.me/p17KDu-bQ. This may or may not reflect the Grasslands Trust position on NIAs!
NIA are not a designation, statutory or otherwise. In that sense I don’t think they are equivalent to MABs which were set up under a UNESCO programme with the aim of encouraging information exchange and best practice development.
If you believe the Defra blurb NIAs are actually going to achieve real change by increasing the area and quality of land supporting priority habitats and species, increasing connectivity and so on.
What they have set out is obviously laudable; how they are going to do this in the face of juggernauts like the NPPF and the (Sustainable) Intensification of Agriculture debate, is the big question for me.
Miles – many thanks and come back tomorrow for some more views on this from me. You may not want to come back on Wednesday for some views on pigeons and raptors as I know you try hard to avoid the birdy blogs!
I read them all Mark…it’s just some take longer to read than others.
Good comments at Indy, particularly from
“FWKirkham: This is peanuts! In fact its probably less than the population as a whole spends in a year on peanuts to fill garden bird feeders”
Yes, £7.5M is peanuts. Viewed in the context of the damage of NPPF and HS2, it’s grotesque, and an indication of the contempt Government has for rurality.
I think people will agree that NIA’s are a very sound concept and that they represent a long overdue move towards landscape scale conservation. Many people have made the point that NIA’s will be used a testbed for how we deliver landscape scale conservation in the UK, and there appears to be widespread consensus that this is the way forward. Why then has only £7.5 million been made available to fund an initiative, which on the face of it seems so fundamentally important in terms of shaping future land use policy in the UK?
When compared with the £175 million the Defra spent on EU fines for mishandling the running of the Single Payment scheme for 2007-10 and the £40 million that Natural England spends annually on maintaining an IT system that is widely regarded as being unfit for purpose, £7.5 million to be spent over 3 years it doesn’t seem like a lot does it? I guess it tells us just how committed Defra is to landscape scale conservation.
I like to look on the bright side, but the funding for this is a glass that is a lot less than half full. I did a double take when I read it.
‘Making Space for Nature’ seemed like it could have been the start of something new and different, but £7.5m is derisory.
It feels a bit odd – it is a lot of noise for a very very small amount of money, which is all occurring at the same time that the Government are reviewing environmental and planning legislation.
I think I would prefer environmental and planning laws not to be ripped up and attention not to be diverted away from the main issue.
It’s not just about the money – which is very,very small indeed – it’s the thinking, and thats what worries me. Is this a conservation cul-de-sac ? The way the sector has dealt with the whole Lawton episode suggests it could be – only through a much broader view will there be real progress, and the secret is, suprisingly, hidden in what NFU says, not the bits about intensifying farming, but about broader values like water, soil, air, diffuse pollution (they don’t actually mention that, of course !). Its combining real ecosystems values that actually make the case if not for ‘pure’ conservation at least for much, much more extensive low intensity/ high public benefit land management. And, as Mark points out, the money is already there – certainly in ELS – but why not, far more significantly, in single farm payment as well ? Ecosystem services have to be more than a conservation/Defra property if we are to make real progress.
Seems like a sop to wildlife,it would have been nice if all 76 applications had received funding.
7.5 million won’t powder a badger’s arse.
As someone else said, big noise over a tiny amount of money. Presumably so that when the NPPF comes through unchanged they can crow about the NIAs as evidence that they really are greenies at heart.
More scale context: £9.3M announced to go to Nissan to build cars