Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 16 MAY 2000
PROFESSOR COLIN
REID AND
PROFESSOR WILLIAM
SUTHERLAND
40. How has that affected you?
(Professor Reid) Me personally? What it has affected
is that now, with local biodiversity action plans there are coordinated
efforts to try to get the different agencies, the different bodies,
involved in the local area to work out. The Tayside plan is still
in process of being drafted but it has local authorities, various
other agencies, coming together to try to produce a workable scheme.
SNH, through its Focus on Firths project which affects the Tay
estuary is again bringing people together. These are the sorts
of initiatives which in the past, when matters were looked at
in a more fragmented way, would not have been coming forward so
well.
41. At the same time as you identify strengths
what weaknesses do you see within the system which would give
you concern?
(Professor Reid) The weakness is that although the
general policy is recognised, to some extent one worries that
this is just lip service rather than real commitment to it which
may be partly a matter of presentation as much as a reflection
of the reality. In relation to specific areas, there are weaknesses
in relation to marine and coastal conservation. An issue which
perhaps underlies a lot of this is a weakness perhaps in relation
to reporting and accountability. The Environmental Audit Select
Committee is looking at this just now and also the UK Round Table
on Sustainable Development in its latest report,[1]
which I received only yesterday, is commenting on the need for
clear mechanisms for a response to biodiversity plans, accountability
for making sure they are put into practice.
42. What about you, Professor Sutherland? What
are your views on both the strengths and weaknesses? Do you agree
with Professor Reid?
(Professor Sutherland) Very much so. The strengths
are that it is objective led and has resulted in much more rigorous
thinking about priorities.
43. Have you as an individual become part of
that process? Can you identify that there is a network between
national and local areas where you perhaps function?
(Professor Sutherland) I live in an area called the
Brecklands, a dry heathy area in East Anglia and in that area
there is a particular bird, the stone curlew, which is a very
rare species and as a result of the species action plans the fate
of that species has been turned round. It was declining and it
has now been increasing. Farmers welcome it, it is a species which
people hear people in the village talking about, it is a species
which has very much benefited from this process.
44. Is that within the areas of protection or
is it outwith the areas?
(Professor Sutherland) That is largely on agricultural
land. It is largely as a result of agri-environment schemes and
conservation policies.
45. Do you see any need for there to be an improvement
upon that in terms of the areas outside the specified areas?
(Professor Sutherland) In general, yes, there are
calls for enormous changes in the wider countryside.
46. How would you see that being done in a practical
sense?
(Professor Sutherland) A number of different ways.
The obvious way is through agri-environment schemes and the recent
changes have been very welcome, but there are lots of other possibilities.
There are possibilities such as the mechanism of cross-compliance
whereby you only provide subsidies to those individuals who adhere
to some minimum environmental conditions. So for example in the
uplands that could be the absence of over-grazing, in arable areas
that could be for people who have unsprayed headlands around their
fields and you would only provide subsidies to those individuals
who have achieved those minimum standards. Another possibility
is greater calculating of costs because at the moment we do not
work out what the costs are of water extraction, of nitrate run-off,
of soil run-off, these sorts of aspects on the wider community.
If we could calculate those costs and incorporate those within
our decision making, that would have considerable benefits.
Chairman
47. That is a bit like trying to measure how
long a piece of string is, is it not?
(Professor Sutherland) We can provide some sort of
estimates but by the fact that we do not pass on those costs,
we do not pass on the costs of water abstraction to those individuals
who are using the water, the wider environmental consequences,
or in terms of over-grazing in the uplands, that has all sorts
of consequences such as eutrophication, such as soil erosion,
such as reduction in water storage capacity so there is greater
water run-off.
48. I understand the argument. What I was not
quite sure about was whether you were asking to be able to measure
things which are extremely difficult to measure and even if you
can measure them, putting a price on them is even more difficult.
(Professor Sutherland) I agree that providing an exact
measure would not be easy. To attempt to estimate those and incorporate
those within policy, would be quite a sensible thing to do.
Mr Brake
49. Do you agree with our previous witnesses
that biodiversity action plans should include both the rare but
also the very common in terms of species?
(Professor Sutherland) Yes, I do. There are species
which are particularly unusual, which are of obvious global concern.
I would agree with the previous speakers that there is widespread
concern over the decline in farmland birds they talked about.
There are one million members of the RSPB and most of those members
are particularly concerned about the common species which they
see in their gardens, which they see on their country walks. For
them one of the great priorities is to ensure that those species
are protected. From a habitat point of view, I approve of the
selection but I should think we want to put a great emphasis on
those habitats for which the United Kingdom has special responsibility.
There are areas which are particularly special in the United Kingdom
such as the offshore islands which have endemic species and sub-species
and often with immense sea birds colonies. The coastal habitats
with the seabird communities and the wintering waders, the oceanic
habitats, the Caledonian forests, the New Forest, the large limestone
pavements, these are habitats for which Britain is particularly
important and we should place particular emphasis on those.
(Professor Reid) That is right. One of the flaws in
recent years has been perhaps some excess concentration on the
designated sites, on a few protected species. In a sense if you
get the policy right in the broad sense you do not need designated
areas other than as an accolade, a mark of their particular interests.
They do not need to be specially protected because the policy
mechanisms generally should provide no incentive for people to
undertake damaging activities in those areas.
50. In relation to species, is it possible to
design a programme or a biodiversity action plan which will do
both things, which will address the rare and maintain the common
species?
(Professor Reid) The action plan is inevitably going
to be at different levels, requiring very strong focus and concentration
on some issues. Other aspects of it will be to provide the stronger
background against which individual special areas can survive.
You do not want to have special areas which protect species as
isolated islands on their own. Birds, other species, do not stay
within the boundaries of a protected area, of the protected habitat,
they go outwith and you need to be thinking about the wider context.
That also raises the issue of exactly how you draw the boundary
of protected sites. Should the law make clear allowance for buffer
zones to allow species some protection outwith the core areas?
51. Would you like to see buffer zones provided?
(Professor Reid) It would be helpful if they could
be. It would make clear that when you are designating a site it
is not just focusing on the features of the particular site. Areas
around it should be acceptable within the boundaries even though
they themselves may not meet the strict scientific criteria.
52. Are you satisfied that the changes announced
by the Agriculture Minister in December last year will be adequate
to address the problems posed for biodiversity by agricultural
practices?
(Professor Reid) I have not studied the changes in
detail. Perhaps one of the difficulties with the whole agricultural
issue is the sheer complexity. I find it is very hard, unless
you are going to devote huge amounts of time, to get a very clear
grasp of exactly how all the different bits and pieces of the
agricultural scheme fit together. I noticed that last year a committee
of the House of Lords[2]
said that expenditure on environmental aspects would have to grow
by three to four times to reach the average across the European
Union. I am not in a position to say whether the current changes
are enough for that. One particular issue is that a lot of the
agri-environment investment is very much based on particular schemes.
I feel that at times the farmer who has looked after his land
over the years feels very hard done by in that he did not follow
all the schemes to go towards more intensive agriculture, so now
he does not benefit, when the people who did that can follow all
the schemes to move back. Making sure that the general atmosphere
of support is there for people who are just doing a good job consistently
is quite important. How do you achieve that? I have no easy answers
because it probably means total changes to agricultural markets
and so on. Farmers feel hard done by in that way.
(Professor Sutherland) I agree with that
and I very much welcome the changes which have been announced,
though I think everyone believes that we need to be looking towards
a reform of the entire system. The current system is not good
for the consumers, it is not good for the environment, it is not
good for the farmers, it is not good for rural employment. Rather
than tinkering with the system, what we need to be reviewing in
the long term is a more fundamental rethink. Having said that
I welcome it, the one concern I have is that it is not clear whether
or not it is going to be audited or whether or not it is subject
to comprehensive review to see whether or not it is going to be
successful. That is an important issue which I should like to
see people consider. One of the concerns is that very hasty habitat
creation schemes can actually end up causing more damage, for
example through processes of destroying existing hedgerows, taking
in stock from somewhere in Europe rather than natively grown trees
and ending up having a negligible benefit or even a deteriorating
condition.
Chairman
53. Are there specific examples of those sorts
of things within southern England?
(Professor Sutherland) There are lots of examples.
There are tree planting schemes on wet meadows which are enormously
more interesting. That is quite a common phenomenon.
(Professor Reid) When the set-aside schemes were brought
in first, they were thought to have advantage for nature conservation
but because some of the rules required mowing at the wrong time
of year for certain species, they ended up not producing anything
like the benefits they could with minor tweaking.
Mrs Ellman
54. Professor Reid, in your written evidence
you say that various bodies are required to have regard to delivering
diversity but actually do very little. Who were you thinking about
there?
(Professor Reid) I did not have any particular villains
in mind. I am very much aware that to the public eye you see the
bad performance, the things like Twyford Down, attracting an awful
lot of publicity. What you do not see is the instances where a
road is in fact fully diverted, the route takes account of conservation
issues. The danger is that although the balancing obligations
are there, there is not necessarily the accountability, the audit
mechanisms to make sure that the bodies are in fact taking the
environmental considerations into account. I am very much aware
there is a real danger of creating an overload for public authorities
if they have to report endlessly that they are taking account
of this, taking account of that, but there may be opportunities
in relation to the wider issue of sustainable development, to
make sure that biodiversity is an explicit element of that. One
of my colleagues was recently giving evidence to the Environmental
Audit Select Committee which is looking at the issue of accountability.
This is one of the crucial ways of making sure that biodiversity
is included in the mechanisms, not necessarily has a dedicated
mechanism itself but is clearly part of what is being done to
make sure that bodies take account of their environmental duties.
55. Who should be putting in place and assessing
those audit systems?
(Professor Reid) There are various possibilities.
You could create a special environmental biodiversity audit team.
The National Audit Office could have a role in this, for example
I believe in Canada the National Audit Office explicitly has a
look at sustainable development and so on. There are clearly opportunities
for parliamentary committees as one of the mechanisms, perhaps
building on possible reporting mechanisms. At present most statutory
bodies have to provide an annual report to Parliament. That tends
to be related more to the general policy and the financial aspects.
You could put in an environmental sustainable development element
of that. The answer to what is best, depends very much on the
overall scheme. If the greening government initiatives with Cabinet
committees or green ministers take off that could be a route reviewed
by Parliament or there are other ways.
(Professor Sutherland) I very much agree. I should
like to add the fact that the Convention on Biological Diversity
stresses the need for sustainability and I think that is quite
a difficult thing to achieve, but that has not really been tackled
yet and other European governments are perhaps tackling that a
bit more seriously.
Chairman
56. Can you give us a specific one which is
doing better?
(Professor Sutherland) The Netherlands for example
is very much tackling that. They are looking at the relationship
between land use practices, such as forestry, and water use and
agriculture and environmental change and looking at the links
between different habitats. For example, the links between terrestrial
land habitats and aquatic habitats. Really what we should be doing
is looking for much more connection between all the different
components of government in order to try to achieve that wider
objective.
Mrs Ellman
57. Who should be responsible for bringing that
connection and ensuring it is implemented?
(Professor Sutherland) You are the experts on government.
You know how these things work. I should kind of hope that there
will be a wide responsibility for that. I can see that you can
have one individual responsible but in many ways one would hope
that the benefits were so great for so many different classes,
they are beneficial from an economic point of view, from a social
point of view from an environmental point of view, that one would
hope that all aspects of government would take this more seriously.
58. What difference do you think the Countryside
and Rights of Way Bill will make to implementing more effective
biodiversity policies?
(Professor Reid) It has a potential, where it applies,
to be very effective. It is certainly filling a lot of the perceived
gaps in relation to protection of sites of special scientific
interest and so on, creating stronger penalties, particularly
the mechanism for achieving more positive management of sites,
short of compulsory purchase which authorities have been very
reluctant to make use of in the past. The general obligation on
authorities to have regard to conserving and enhancing biodiversity
in sites is again a step forward, though it suffers perhaps from
the weakness that it is concentrated on the designated sites rather
than the wider area. There is always a danger that the more you
strengthen the protection for the designated areas, the more people
then think that is okay, biodiversity is covered and the wider
countryside gets left behind.
(Professor Sutherland) Similarly, from what I have
seen of it, I have been very impressed. It seems to have a nice
carrot and stick towards site protection and I think that is very
encouraging. I think people always have some niggles. It excludes
the wider countryside to some extent and also another little niggle
I would have is that we have a serious problem with people destroying
limestone pavement for rockeries. It is very welcome in that it
is increasing the penalties for doing so, but that will just mean
people will take it from Ireland where the limestone pavement
is even more important. I would just ban the sale of weathered
limestone. It only comes from limestone pavement; that is the
only place it can come from. In general I think it is a very good
Bill.
Chairman
59. Is limestone actually disappearing within
this country now? It has been terrible over the past 20 years
and before. I want to know whether it is still disappearing today.
(Professor Sutherland) It has been tightened up a
lot and now there is a certain amount of illegal extraction taking
place. The condition has proved enormously helpful but one of
the consequences of that is that people just buy it from elsewhere.
Our limestone pavements are wonderful but the limestone pavements
in Ireland are even better, they are absolutely fantastic. They
are some of the most important habitats in Ireland so it is just
being taken from there.
1 Note by witness: Indicators of Sustainable
Development (May 2000) at p14. Back
2
Note by witness: House of Lords Select Committee on the
European Communities, 22nd Report of 1998-99- Biodiversity in
the European Union (Final Report): International Issues, at para
23. Back
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