Examination of Witnesses (Questions 126
- 139)
TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000
DR MARK
AVERY, MR
GWYN WILLIAMS
AND MR
ROBIN WYNDE
Chairman
126. Can I welcome you to the Committee for
our second session on UK biodiversity. Could I ask you to identify
yourselves for the record?
(Dr Avery) My name is Mark Avery and I am Director
of Conservation for the RSPB. I am accompanied by two colleagues.
(Mr Williams) Good morning, Chairman.
My name is Gwyn Williams. I am head of Sites and Species Conservation
at the RSPB.
(Mr Wynde) Good morning. My name is Robin Wynde. I
am Biodiversity Policy Officer at the RSPB.
127. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction
or are you happy for us to go straight to questions?
(Dr Avery) Perhaps we may make a brief comment. We
normally do not, Chairman, but there is one point I would like
to make before we start. I think there is a danger that this whole
subject of biodiversity is seen as rather a technical one that
is of interest to scientists, a few conservationists and maybe
some civil servants in DETR. We see the subject as being much
more a quality of life issue of great importance and interest
to ordinary people. Can I give you just one brief example? We
would be very keen to see an expansion of habitats such as lowland
heathland, Thomas Hardy's Egdon Heath, which are of great value
for wildlife. We would see that type of move having great public
benefits outside just wildlife. Government is introducing open
access to that type of land. One of the things that has meant
that we have much less opportunity for access to lowland heath
to enjoy it as ordinary people is that most of it has disappeared.
Eighty per cent of it has been lost in the last century. If we
could recreate that habitat it would be good for wildlife, good
for people. It would allow people to enjoy it, have greater exercise,
it could even have real benefits for the Health Service, opening
up areas like that. It would create jobs and it would create the
type of environment in which people want to live. We know that
the quality of rural environments is important for maintaining
jobs, maintaining communities, and we see biodiversity and conservation
as being part of that whole enterprise, not just a thing for scientists
and nature conservationists.
Mr Benn
128. In your evidence to us you say that the
major threats to habitats are loss through changing of land use,
including development, agricultural intensification, lack of habitat
management, climate change and sea level rise. Could you tell
us which of those you think has done most damage?
(Dr Avery) I think historically loss of habitats through
development and inappropriate development. If I come back to the
example of lowland heathland, some of the biggest losses of that
habitat have been because trees have been planted on that habitat
by public bodies, the Forestry Commission for example. They have
been forced to destroy that habitat because other areas for planting
tees have not been available to them. Heathland has been lost
to agriculture for the same sorts of reasons. But that is looking
backwards. Looking at the current moment I would say that agriculture
is the biggest threat to our biodiversity. With common birds like
skylarks three out of four of them have disappeared in the last
25 years and numbers are still going down. The Government uses
farmland birds as a quality of life sustainability indicator.
That indicator is at its lowest point for the last 25 years and
heading downwards. It is agriculture which is causing the biggest
current losses of biodiversity.
129. The British Trust for Ornithology told
us that in their view the main weaknesses of the Biodiversity
Action Plan process are (i) lack of leadership and (ii) inadequate
funding. Would you agree?
(Dr Avery) On the leadership question we would first
wish to praise Mr Gummer who started this whole process off, and
his successor Mr Meacher, both of whom as Environment Ministers
have given leadership to this process and I think both of them
have done a very good job. They have been very committed. In terms
of whether that is enough, then maybe it is not because if we
are to meet biodiversity targets in this country we need contributions
from the whole of government. We come back to agriculture. The
Environment Minister cannot single-handedly reform agriculture.
One of the problems is that other departments are not as signed
up to the whole process. Perhaps they do not understand it quite
as well as the Environment Department does. Maybe the Prime Minister
should occasionally give more of a lead on biodiversity, show
more enthusiasm for it. That might help a bit to get the word
through. In terms of funding it is clear that, as is always the
case, more funding would help, but again if you come back to agriculture
then what we need to do there is not to put in more money in terms
of meeting biodiversity targets; it is to transfer money from
perverse types of subsidy that harm biodiversity to agri-environment
measures which can help biodiversity and help farmers at the same
time. More money would help but there is a lot that could be done
by shifting money from doing harm to doing good.
130. Why do you think it is that the Species
Action Plans are more advanced than the Habitat Plans?
(Dr Avery) I think there is no doubt that they are.
That is certainly our perspective which is shared widely. They
are a lot simpler. It is easier to go out and help one species,
particularly if it is restricted in range. They are less complicated.
They need fewer of the big policy levers to be influenced in order
to gain success. Having said that, I do not think that is the
only reason why there has been more success. The habitat groups
have not moved forward quite as well partly because I am not sure
they have had the right people in charge of them. There perhaps
has not been the right level of support given to the people leading
those groups. It is a fact that the habitat groups are led by
members of the statutory nature conservation agencies. I would
not wish to criticise them because I think they have got a difficult
job, but sometimes perhaps too junior staff have been chosen and
they maybe have not been given enough time and support to get
on with that difficult task.
131. Are you telling us that if we want to even
up the rate of progress we require (i) better leadership and (ii)
better support?
(Dr Avery) Those two things would help enormously,
yes.
(Mr Williams) This is an area where we need active
and enthusiastic steering groups. It is a question of getting
together partnerships between the statutory and voluntary sectors.
That has been achieved particularly for some groups such as reed
beds, native pine, where the issue is concentrated on conservation
actions which can be delivered primarily by the statutory conservation
agencies. Where it has broken down is in those habitats where
they are dependent more again on influencing economic land use
and engaging with these big sectoral cross-cutting issues where
we do need to engage more with agriculture, with forestry and
beyond.
132. Given what you said about the impact of
agriculture, what more do you think needs to be done to protect
biodiversity outside the existing protected sites which obviously
cover a relatively small amount of the land?
(Dr Avery) The one single thing that would have the
biggest impact would be a further move towards more modulation,
a bigger shift from production subsidies into agri-environment
payments where we know that agri-environment schemes are doing
good. We have got good evidence that they work. They are popular
with farmers. They are actually over-subscribed. The organic conversion
scheme and the countryside stewardship scheme are both over-subscribed
and there is a real danger that unless money is increasingly transferred
in that direction the farming community will become disillusioned
with trying to apply for money to do the environment good year
after year and failing because the money is not there and lose
interest.
Mr Olner: Surely that is commercial.
Chairman
133. You say they have done good. Could you
give us an example of a species that really has benefited from
the agri-environment schemes?
(Dr Avery) Certainly. From our own experience the
cirl bunting, which is a small brown bird, a rather attractive
brown bird when you get to grips with it, is a species that was
found right across southern England 50 or 60 years ago and is
now restricted to a small part of south Devon. In that part of
south Devon over the last 10 to 15 years numbers of cirl buntings
have trebled because of funding through the countryside stewardship
scheme which has been targeted at that species. It has led to
support for farmers who keep extensively managed grassland, grassland
rich in grasshoppers which these birds eat, and to support farmers
who wish to keep to the traditional form of sowing cereals in
the spring which leaves stubble fields over the winter, which
again are full of seeds that this attractive bird eats. That has
worked very much for the benefit of farmers in south Devon who
have received this money and feel that they are (and they actually
are) doing a very good job for biodiversity as well as being paid
for it. There are other examples but that is one of the best ones.
Mrs Ellman
134. You want to see statutory Biodiversity
Action Plans. Do you see any problems with that?
(Dr Avery) We would like to see the whole Biodiversity
Action Plan process put on a statutory basis so that there is
a duty for government as a whole, each government department and
local authorities to further the aims of the Biodiversity Action
Plan. This feeds back to what I was saying earlier, that we have
had leadership from the Environment Ministers but this has to
be a team effort and there are much wider issues which are affecting
biodiversity even more than simply what one government department
on its own can do. We would see it being appropriate that the
Government as a whole should have that duty. We do not really
see any big disadvantages. The disadvantages that have been suggested
are that making this a duty, putting it on a statutory footing,
would alienate some of the people involved. I really do not think
that is the case. We do not see that and certainly from an NGO
perspective we would see it as being helpful, that it would be
clear to government departments, government agencies, what their
duties were. It would make it easier sometimes for us to talk
to them and persuade them of what they ought to be doing.
(Mr Williams) We have been here before with the water
industry in the early 1980s when lots was being done by the industry
to take conservation forward on a voluntary basis. There were
people trying to do the right thing but at the same time lacking
a statutory peg on which to obtain recognition for that work in
resourcing for that work. There is a further duty that was put
through as part of the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act helped
to secure the legitimacy of that work. From thereon it has helped
spread best practice within industry in a way that is appropriate
to their overall functions. In the Greater London Authority Act
as well the authority has a responsibility to prepare Biodiversity
Action Plans so we have a precedent there as well which we think
could be endorsed more widely, and we see this therefore as being
a way of underscoring commitment to the process of securing resources
and of giving impetus to the process.
135. Do you see it from previous experience
as being solely beneficial?
(Mr Williams) We do.
136. What about funding? Your evidence also
mentioned the importance of core funding. What are the major funding
issues here?
(Mr Williams) The core funding issues really are that
the process itself is beginning now to be funded reasonably well,
particularly in England with increases given to English Nature,
although less so, for example, in Wales where CCW is in difficulty.
We are also able to gain funding for, if I can put it this way,
species targeted and habitat targeted recovery projects through
things like the EU Life Nature Scheme, through the Species Recovery
Programme, and landfill tax has been quite important. When it
comes to changing some of the big cross-cutting issues we have
referred to, particularly agriculture, the issue is, do you have
small amounts of recovery money to try and redress that balance
or do you look for re-balancing and re-direction of funds? It
is that bigger goal which is the next step we need to take.
137. Have you any idea how much funding is required?
Is it to do with permanency?
(Dr Avery) I think it would be rash for us to come
up with a figure. As I have already said, the biggest contribution
that could be made would be a major shift in agriculture funding,
not extra funding but a shift and, as in your recent report on
the Rural White Paper where this Committee favoured a move towards
10 per cent modulations within the current spending review period,
that would be a huge amount of money which would be directed towards
environmental goods which would have a big impact on what we are
talking about. We should have a statutory basis for the whole
area of funding, a link, so that with local authorities, for example,
if the plans were put on a statutory basis that would help to
protect the funding for local authority ecologists and experts
whose jobs otherwise tend to be squeezed when money is tight.
(Mr Wynde) We have certainly found that with the local
Biodiversity Action Plans the ones that make the most progress
are those where there has been a co-ordinator employed to take
that process forward and to really galvanise action at a local
level. We are not talking about huge sums of funding there but
funding that can really make a difference to delivering biodiversity
on the ground.
138. What about the funding available for the
National Biodiversity Network? Do they have enough to do that
task?
(Dr Avery) They certainly do not. This is quite a
good example of where there is a clear need for the freeing up
of biodiversity information so that it is available to all sorts
of people. The best way to do that these days is through the Internet,
through the Web. There is a lot of public money spent on collecting
information on biodiversity and even more private effort from
volunteers goes into collecting this information, but much of
the information sits in people's heads or in their notebooks or
on their shelves. Now we have an opportunity to make that information
much more widely available. This would benefit everybody but unfortunately
that means that nobody sees it as their particular job to fund
it. Nowhere in the Government is there a clear place where money
for this should come from. A recent decision by the DETR to provide
a quarter of a million pounds this year is very welcome and that
will give the whole programme a boost, but this really is a long
term project that needs long term funding. Over the next 10 years
or so it will need in the order of £20 million to keep going.
It will limp on with the contributions made by partners which
include the RSPB, but it does need an injection of public funding
and DETR have moved in that direction for which we are all grateful.
Chairman
139. Could you give us a comparison as to how
much money you are putting up compared to the Government?
(Dr Avery) On one of the projects involved in the
NBN which forms the basis for further work the RSPB has spent
over a million pounds over the last three years.
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