RSPB statement on Number 10’s 10-point plan

Mark 4 Comments

In response to the Prime Minister’s 10-Point Plan, Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB, said:

“We are facing a nature and climate emergency, so must take this opportunity to build back better. While we welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement of new money, new national park designations and new landscape plans, in truth this barely scratches the surface of what is needed.

Of course, more national parks and AONBs are welcome, but in contrast to the Government’s claims, only 5% of the UK is currently well managed for nature. Designating more land for nature looks good on paper, but this won’t make any real impact if landscapes remain as poorly managed for nature as many are now.

We estimate that at least £1 billion of annual investment is needed to restore our habitats on land and sea, which would create new jobs as part of a green economic recovery, lock up carbon and help revive our world.

While we are moving in the right direction, there is a long way to go before the reality on the ground matches the Government’s promises for nature.”

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4 Replies to “RSPB statement on Number 10’s 10-point plan”

  1. Well said Becky Speight. This Government is almost about as remote from the reality of conserving nature as it is possible to be. They have an understanding gap about as wide as the Atlantic. It is what happens “on the ground” that matters and there the situation gets worse for nature. Making it illegal to burn our moorland peatlands would be a good start.
    The Government puts out these almost meaningless statements. They are not far different from Trump and his denial of the US election result.

  2. There is this myth in government that National Parks are somehow better for nature. I suppose some are simply because of building restrictions but and it is a very big but they are not and cannot be proper nature reserves or the equivalent thereof. Some of our upland NRs are little more than nature deserts or at least much depleted nature particularly areas of grouse moor in the North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales, Peak District and Cairngorms. We must not let this woeful and nature ignorant government get away with claiming NPs as places that are conserved for nature because they are almost as poor as the government is a preserving wildlife by their very nature.

  3. Noone ever got £1 billion by demanding it, and the prospects are even poorer when the Government has the valid excuse of Covid. But conservation might just as well be saying that we can save a £ billion by better management of the environment – look at the sums – £3.5 billion on agriculture, £800m on flood defence and £1 billion on annual losses from flooding, a house builder CEO getting a £100 million bonus, much of it indirectly funded by Government. Right now the EA is planning to spend £100m on an obsolescent hard flood defence scheme at Oxford – what could that money do re-engineering the Thames Floodplain as a natural (and nature rich) defence system ? Conservationists rightly say that the environment needs to be at the heart of economics – but the sector has rejected the Government’s own Natural Capital Committee to the extent that you’ll search long and hard to find it mentioned in ‘Natures Home’. To me it looks like 1st world war generalship – hopeless frontal attacks – the only difference being that today there is an alternative.

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