Owen Paterson is paid for being the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
On Saturday morning I was listening to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme and one of the items was about Paterson’s remarks to The Times about biodiversity offsetting. It seemed that Paterson had used woodland as an example of how biodiversity off-setting might work and had suggested that if one had to lose ancient woodland then the offsetting approach would make this acceptable if enough new woodland were planted in mitigation.
This seemed such a perfect example of how biodiversity off-setting would not work that I wondered whether Paterson really had said this. And therefore, because my wi-fi had gone on the blink, I bought a copy of The Times to check what had been said. It seems that the person paid to defend our environment really did say something along the lines of what the BBC had said. According to the front page headline our ‘Ancient woods face axe in drive for homes’ and Paterson had opined that developers could be allowed to destroy ancient woodland if they agree to plant 100 trees for each one felled.
Paterson is keen that off-setting should become mandatory so that a market comes into existence that will get all those new trees planted.
I am a bit surprised that even Paterson walked into this subject in this way. It would be difficult to pick a habitat where it is more difficult to imagine off-setting working well than ancient woodland. Has Paterson ever walked in an ancient wood, I wonder?
Ancient woodland is woodland that is at least 400 years old. There are several sites close to where I live that are precious and rich in biodiversity. Ancient woodland is like fine claret and cannot be replaced by a binge on the Beaujolais nouveau of newly planted woodland. Well, it can, if you wait for a few hundred years. According to The Times, Paterson admitted that it would be impossible to re-create mature habitats in time for them to be enjoyed by present generations and also admitted that the ‘offset’ might be as much as an hour’s drive away from the destroyed site.
The Times leader on the subject says that the Government is right to propose lifting the total prohibition on building on ancient woodlands because Britain needs to face up to its severe housing crisis. The Times leader writer apparently lives in a world where houses desperately need to be built on those very areas where the remnants of ancient forests still remain and praises Paterson for his pragmatism.
Luckily we have NGOs that will fight for our hitherto-protected wildlife. The Woodland Trust said that offsetting ‘could help to pay for tree-planting projects elsewhere’ and that ‘It is critical that any habitats created to compensate for loss are placed within the local area that suffered the original impact.’. The Woodland Trust also said that ‘offsetting should only be a last resort’ when all other avenues have been explored.
The Eagles sang about The Last Resort thus:
Some rich men came and raped the land.
Nobody caught ‘em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus people bought ‘em
And they called it paradise
The place to be
And watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea
The Woodland Trust homepage asks ‘Are you the next champion for woods and trees?’ – that’s a very good question but shouldn’t it be ‘we’ not ‘you’ – that’s what we are all wondering. I can’t imagine ever giving my money to the Woodland Trust.
Owen Paterson is paid, by your taxes, for being the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
I am having wi-fi issues at the moment. Ee ‘supply’ my broadband.
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I too wondered of what I heard was true, it being such an appallingly crass idea. It seems that this government knows the cost of everything and the real value of nothing at all. What they are proposing here is vandalism of the utterly worst kind. Replace the absolutely irreplaceable with broad leaf ( one hopes!) plantation it would be a laughable example of our Ministers ignorance were it not such a scandalously criminal proposal. A prime example as to why conservationists should never vote for this shower.
The wheels are in place already to stop this mess. Please sign the petition – http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-ancient-woodlands
But remember this is exactly the petition the government is trying to ban from taking place. Free speech is not what they want. It is called a dictatorship. You don’t count until they want to bribe you to vote next year. Keep smiling!!
I too was shocked to hear such a patently stupid suggestion from someone who must (one would hope) have known that ancient woodland cannot be ‘off-set/replaced’ by new planting – even on a 1:100 ratio. We do have a housing shortage in Britain. We do need new development in our towns and villages to tackle that problem but there are still many thousands of acres of consented land that house builders are sitting on as land-banks waiting for the upturn. And there are many brown-field and indeed greenfield sites that would be suitable for development which do not endanger ancient woodland. Some habitats should be sacrosanct and ancient woodland, along with wetlands should be protected from this stupid man and his greedy friends. He is not so much a Secretary of State as a publicly funded lobbyist for the development industry.
The worry is Patterson isn’t as ignorant as most on the countryside and such unique habitats, which to my mind already means he gets my ‘Environmental thug’ of the year. Follows his equally dismal record of 2013 and cements this Conservative party as the worst ever on our natural environment. The real worry is whether the majority of the public values the environment as little and whether the environmental NGO’s {including the NT!} can do anything to stop the slide.
I think the wildlife NGOs should very publicly invite Peterson to actually walk through an ancient woodland to educate him. He wouldn’t turn up, of course.
Some of the woodlands are older than our ancient monuments and cathedrals and just as precious – perhaps they should be knocked down and built on first.
Found your comments about the Woodland Trust interesting.
News flash
St Paul’s cathedral & Albert hall to be demolished to make way for expensive unsustainable ‘investment’ homes. Children to make10x life size giant Lego replicas a somewhere near Slough
The basic point that needs reiterating is this. Ancient woodlands contain an array of rare and specialist species that cannot be replaced in suitable timescales by the planting of new woodlands, which do not contain these species. To offset, should mean to provide these elsewhere. This is not what is being offered. The ancient woodland example is simple habitat destruction, with no suitable offset being offered. The matter would be different if it was a replaceable habitat, such as scrub and such approaches are already part of the suite of options available to developers.
I cannot really add more to what has been said except to reinforce how ill informed this Minister is. He is not an idiot he does represent a rural constituency.
This suggests he knows exactly what he is saying and he really does not value our environment over short term gains from development. I thought Ridley was bad enough but Paterson is fast earning the title of the worst Minister for the Environment EVER.
Roll on the next General Election!
The foundation of conservative thought is that the environment is a collection of resources given by God for Man to exploit, ideally within a feudal management structure. Once you get this, it all makes sense.
Patterson’s contempt for all things environmental and environmentalists does remind of Nicholas Ridley, so it is appropriate that their is a family connection. No doubt he and Matt Ridley are of one mind when it comes to climate change.
Phil – maybe Matt is the mind and Paterson the mouth?
Perhaps we could put forward a wholesome Martin Bell type candidate who understands the true value of nature and place to unseat this highly unpleasant character at the next general election…then he can be packed off to somewhere like Dubai where his ugly moneycentric philosophy would be more welcome…
Mark? 😉
Now that is a stunningly good idea. I wonder who we could persuade to stand? Mark, are you up for it? Otherwise, how about someone like Ray Mears (he was good and green on Desert Island Discs this morning)!
Unfortunately North Shropshire is one of those places where Tory votes are weighed, not counted. The hegemony is such that last year, in the two local authority divisions in Whitchurch, both Tories were unopposed.
When I lived in Tilstock, in the ’80s, there were no signposts, and only three surnames, in Whixall.
Mark – time to dust off the cream suit?
Hi Mark
I, like you, was staggered to hear and then read about Owen Paterson’s views yesterday regarding the replacement of ancient woodland with new trees (just trees, not woodland), and I appreciate you succinctly summarising this idiotic approach in today’s blog. I naively used to think that conservatives had a little more understanding of the wider countryside and the issues it faces, compared to labour and lib dem views, but how wrong was I? It’s unbelievable that apparently intelligent (obviously ambitious) politicians can be so wrong and so ill-informed about such significant issues. Again, I also couldn’t quite believe the Woodland Trust’s line on this, that they appear to be buying-into the off-setting agenda – shameful!
I read your blog daily (for the last year or so) and I really appreciate the effort and work you do; thanks.
Regards, Jon
I should like the portion of my taxes which pays OP’s salary to go to a woodland charity instead. What a shame we can’t choose how our money is spent.
Kate
“Our” money is that bit left over once tax has been deducted. The tax was never “our’s” from the moment it was earned.
I like the ideol of hypothecation but it is rarely feasible – imagine the fuss at RSPB if it were possible and everyone thought like Dennis! But maybe we would have some hen harriers …
The idea that artificial woodland can be recreated in even ‘a few hundred years’ is wishful thinking. The 400 year threshold for woods being considered ‘ancient’ is not because that is how long it takes to develop a characteristic ancient woodland flora but because woods for which we have evidence of their existence back to the 1600s are considered to have been naturally established as planting of woodland was not common before that time (though they are of course very likely to have been managed in one way or another). Many ancient woodlands show evidence of having existed back to at least the early Middle Ages and it is possible that many have been continuously forested all the way back to the primaeval forest. To suggest, as Paterson did that this is something that can be replaced with instant woodland – ‘just add water’ – is unbelievably crass. It is also worth pointing out that in addition to the biodiversity aspect, the cultural and archaeological significance of ancient woodland would also be impossible to recreate by planting out a few hundred hectares with saplings somewhere ‘within a couple of hours travel by car’.
To be fair, the consultation document on the offsetting scheme did suggest that ancient woodland might be an example of a habitat type for which offsetting would not work but if the Secretary of State is either unaware of this or chooses to disregard it with the attitude that anything goes where development is concerned, then this further undermines whatever minimal confidence there may have remained with the proposal.
Why am I not shocked by Rambo’s comments? ‘Cos BO is a turkey, and not just at Christmas, that’s ‘cos why.
Among other things, we is being softened up for HS2, which will drive through many ancient woodland sites. Apparently there are people who want to get to Birmingham a few minutes faster than presently possible, and they are more important than the rest of us.
Next time you see that red mist coming down when you think about Rambo, think also of Lord Adonis, who thinks HS2 is a terrifically good wheeze. A Blur gubmint appointee, he was elevated to the HoL without ever being elected.
Filbert – surely it is those leaving Brum who need the quick exit?
That one has been done to death already – but I have to agree. I went to a couple of stakeholder meetings at Aston last winter and the run in and out from M42 via A34 was possibly the most depressing time I have spent in the jamjar for many a year.
Apart from the fact that ancient mature woodland cannot be replaced overnight, there is also no logic to this proposal. I understand Mr Patterson is stating that we are running out of space for housing so need to deforest areas to make way? If this is the case and we have no room, how do we plan to fit 100 trees into our limited space from which we took one? Are we planning on turning areas of farmland back into forests? I think not… Why can we not consider building up if space below is an issue? Of course the ultimate solution is population control (hopefully not by marksman as per badger fate!). This government which I am disheartened to admit received my vote are destroying out ‘green and pleasant land’ I look forward to the next election to allow me to cleanse my sins and deliver my vote to a more deserving party.
Mark, I wonder why Prime Ministers give Ministerial jobs to people who are least capable of carrying out those posts? I do not understand politics. Perhaps Mr. Cameron should ask Michael Meacher how the Environment should be managed? After all, our Environment affects the well being of both wildlife and ourselves. Our Environment is NOT an optional extra if we can afford it. We cannot afford our environment to worsen. When we improve our environment for ourselves the knock-on effect is to improve the effects for wildlife. To destroy habitats that have gained many species and replace those habitats with a new habitat is to remove history. Only an uneducated government would even contemplate such a move. With regard to the idea that building houses will improve the recession, the recession started because people could not afford to keep up the repayments on their mortgages. Building more houses will make the situation worse, not better. When are we going to get decision makers who know what they are doing?
It would be less worrying if we could be certain these are just the views of the current minister (is he knave or fool? Or both). Ministers come and go (possibly the best feature of a democratic system) but the officials who dreamed this bollocks up will still be there. Given that particular ministry’s history (and that of its predecessors) of an increasingly anti-environment agenda over the last 20 years, we ought to be very worried indeed.
I like David McGrath’s St Paul’s/Albert Hall analogy – a useful tool to highlight the significance of AW, both ecological and cultural, to those who may not understand the true importance of this debate. But both St Paul’s and the Albert Hall are mere human artifacts and could actually be recreated exactly at another location if the will and the cash was there (personally, I wouldn’t bother with the Albert Hall). Not so ancient woodland which is genuinely irreplaceable.
And as for the Woodland Trust. Same question – fools or knaves?
‘Gob-smacked’ or seriously, are we, all of us who have fought the conservation corner really all that surprised?
Where have I heard the phrase …. “only in exceptional cases” …. that’s what Natural England have said about not Dedicating all 83 publically owned National NATURE Reserves as Open Access. After signing the 38 degree petition recommended by John M please consider signing the another 38 degrees petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-rethink-national-nature-reserves-as-open-access
Did someone say demolish Westminster for social housing or was it St Paul’s? Don’t give them any more ideas because they’d have no qualms about selling the family silver that much is already obvious. Bricks and mortar can be replaced / mitigated for, but natural ecosystems and microhabitats?
Let’s hope that there is rebellion in the ranks again.
Off-setting confuses me a little bit, as some one touched on in the comments. If there is a suitable bit of land, presumably grazing or arable not doing anything that can be planted up with trees for example, then why can they not build there?
I think you’re being a bit harsh on the WT, there, Mark; I don’t think they are divesting themselves of their objectives to defend ancient (or any) woods.
It might not be an official policy statement but at the Environment Audit Committee meeting I think Frances (Woodland Trust) said – when asked of her what an appropriate replacement ratio might be – that 10,000 trees should be planted for each that’s lost (though it might have been 1000 – either way you could hear the silence in the room!). I’m pretty sure the ‘team’ of ‘defenders’ at the meeting did also say that Ancient Coodland should not be offset.
Nothing directly about Rambo’s comments on the WT website, but plenty of prominent warnings of destruction of ancient woods for HS2 and the proposed Gwent levels M4, alongside an over-emphasis (IMHO) on tree planting as though it was the same as conservation (which – again IMHO – it almost always isn’t).
Hopefully there is now….any absence of comment was not because they don’t care but because the key person was unavoidably offline
For once Mark, I have to disagree:
“Ancient woodland is like fine claret and cannot be replaced by a binge on the Beaujolais nouveau of newly planted woodland. Well, it can, if you wait for a few hundred years. ”
Don’t think it can – ancient woodland can NEVER be replaced by a plantation, EVER. That’s why they’re referred to as plantations not woodland (a plantation might turn into woodland but it will only be secondary woodland even in 400 years). And think ancient woodland also means land not having been turned over to agriculture etc. for several hundred years? Have to check Rackham etc. for proper definitions but I’m sure it has to have arisen naturally on undisturbed sites. There’s a whole load of stuff in Rackham’s Woodlands about how when a woodland extends next to an ancient woodland site the ancient woodland species don’t colonise as fast as the trees, if at all.
The great man may well now be phrophesising ‘The Locust Years: part two’.
I was furious enough this morning to see that some twits have planted some red oaks far too close together near where the estate where I live whilst at the same time removing a perfectly good bit of hedgerow (just ‘cos some of the young elms in it were dead doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with it). That’ll be a bit less wildlife for my daughter to enjoy then – bastards! This obsession with fiddling pointlessly with the landscape is spreading even faster than all the new tree diseases. And now we have the man responsible for protecting the countyside endorsing it – aaaargh!
Our Sec of State is clearly as thick of two short planks and hasn’t read Richard Mabey’s ‘The Common Ground’: “a plantation will not do for an ancient wood”!
I couldn’t agree more. All the wildlife associated with ancient woodland simply cannot be replaced. The point about the 400-year figure is that, if it was on the maps then, it was probably there since the last Ice Age. So we’re quite possibly talking 10,000 years! Replace that, Paterson!
Here, we are surrounded by well-meaning types who are constantly “gardening” our surrounding countryside – woe-betide a fallen or dead tree, or a bit of untidy verge. Scrub – habitat of nightingales – is even less tolerated. A sea-change in attitude is needed – but how can it come about?
Jane – I don’t know, but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
I do wonder whether this is a clever ruse. There is no way that Ancient Woodlands can be considered for offsetting – but subsequent protest allows for a compromise where offsetting as it is easily pushes through?
The Woodland Trust under Sue Holden, teamed up with the red Tory thinktank Respublica and Nick Boles, planning minister, to promote Biodiversity Offsetting at an event in June 2011.
I forgot to add, Sue Holden moved onto to work for the Earth Trust, who are recipients of Biodiversity Offsetting money by way of the Environment Bank Ltd.,
Should that be nick boles, planting minister?
I think this is a tactical move. It’s a classic straw man intended to draw attention away from the more subtle, complex debate surrounding offsetting. I don’t believe Paterson is an idiot – he’s an ambitious political animal. The idea of offsetting ancient woodland is just too absurd, and he knows full well how the British public feel about their woods after the FC debacle. What he’s doing is using anchoring to set the debate on offsetting against the extreme example of ancient woodland. Against this position, offsetting generally seems rather acceptable if the ‘bad bits’ – i.e., offsetting ancient woodland – are trimmed off. A compromise to make the government look good and conservationists extreme if they don’t go along with it. What’s more, people are more susceptible to the anchoring effect if they’re mentally depleted. So NGOs, conservationists and the media expend their energy on the straw man, making the position on offsetting generally much more defensible by the government, and less debatable by the opposition. It’s harder to attack a broad idea when the debate has been focussed in on one specific aspect of that idea; the broad idea is acceptable by implication. Straw man.
Clever politics.
Just read Pip Howard’s comment above and it looks like we’ve essentially drawn the same conclusion.
Mark – I may have been a little unfair challenging you on one point of detail without thanking you for raising the subject in the first place. Apologies – I’m clearly suffering from ‘Paterson rage’ and had forgotten my manners.
Perhaps Owen Paterson should go on a couple of courses relevant to his job, so he is able to have at least a fundamental understanding of his subject matter. On the topic of building land availability, I understood that there’s plenty of land banked already. High time Land Value Tax was advanced to encourage more effective land use not to mention the considerable tax revenues this would generate. No chance of the Cons inflicting that on their mates, is there?