Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460
- 479)
TUESDAY 13 JUNE 2000
MR JOHN
EVERITT AND
MS SARA
HAWKSWELL
Chairman
460. Good morning. If you could identify yourselves
for the record.
(Ms Hawkswell) Sara Hawkswell. I represent
The Wildlife Trusts. I work as the Biodiversity Information Manager
at their UK office.
(Mr Everitt) John Everitt. I also work for The Wildlife
Trusts. I am the Biodiversity Planning Manager at the UK office.
461. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction,
or are you happy to go straight to questions?
(Mr Everitt) We are happy to go straight to questions.
Mr Olner
462. You commended the development of BAPs,
but you also said in your evidence, "... as we move from
the development to the implementation phase, the UK BAP is not
realising its full potential to conserve our threatened species
and habitats". What actions do you think are required to
right that wrong?
(Mr Everitt) We think there are probably three levels
at which we need to look at action now. We need to see the government
giving us a much stronger lead; we need to see the UK Biodiversity
Group giving much stronger management for the process; and we
would like to see local partnerships acting more effectively.
If I can just expand on those a little bit. From government we
would like to see the necessary statutory framework so that the
process is put on some sort of legal footing, and we would like
to see the resources that go alongside that. In this way we can
have continuity for the process and real commitment for the process.
If we can see government looking at all their departments acting
to further the objectives of biodiversity then we can see the
article of the Convention being implemented.
463. You were in when the evidence was being
given by the previous witnesses, how does that patchiness at the
local level portray itself so a national government is going to
solve it?
(Mr Everitt) We have to look at the duty coming further
down on to a local level as well, where we have national priorities
within Species and Habitat Action Plans and public bodies have
a responsibility to further those objectives, and at the same
time we have local considerations which are part of the local
Biodiversity Action Plan process. We would like to see those built
into the statutory framework as well.
464. Is that all that can be given and done
to provide greater coherence and coordination to national and
local BAPs?
(Mr Everitt) No, those are the things we feel government
should be doing. Alongside that I should say we would like to
see the government also recognising the needs of the UK process—in
the sense that we now have devolution and there are some things
we should make sure continue at the UK level. What we would like
to see the UK Biodiversity Group looking at is providing mainly
the coordination, communication and information systems that are
required. One of the biggest problems with proposals at the moment
is the lack of communication and the information systems that
are needed right across the board from the local level right up
to the national level.
465. Could you give the Committee an example
of a problem causing habitats or species to be even more endangered?
(Mr Everitt) A good example would probably be something
like the current agricultural practices, where we see continued
destruction of species and continued destruction of sites. We
would like to see the UK BAP process really addressing some of
the major policy elements that deal with this kind of destruction.
466. That is a huge issue you have opened up.
Apart from what you have just said, with the insufficient coordination
between local and national Biodiversity Action Plans, are there
any other specific problems? I am struggling to get to grips with
something I can say to my constituents, that "This is why
we need to do this because there is a problem".
(Mr Everitt) If I talk a little about the local BAP
process you can see where some of these issues arise. At the moment
we have a situation where there is a real patchwork of local Biodiversity
Action Plans around the country, and those plans are trying to
take account of national priorities and local considerations.
In order to do that, and in order to help deliver some of those
national priorities, they need to interface with people working
at the UK level—species and habitat action groups—and
that system is not working. We are not getting coordination between
the two levels to help delivery. If we take an example of that,
one of the species we are working on is the otter. We have set
up regional groups to try and help that interface between the
national process and the local Biodiversity Action Plan process.
That is one of the species where we have been able to do it, because
we have had an injection of resources.
467. How, because water boards were very generous
in giving lots of money to protect a nice cuddly creature they
use on their advertising?
(Mr Everitt) That has certainly been very helpful.
I think that probably goes away from the fact that we have a lot
of people on the ground doing some very good work in liaison with
landowners and others to try and look at management. There are
species we are working on where we have not had that injection
of funding. The water vole is a good example. We are still seeing
the continued destruction of the water vole and quite substantial
decline. That is a very good example of where we need to see this
coordination working more effectively.
Mr Blunt
468. One of the advantages you have mentioned
of putting BAPs on a statutory footing is continuity. What are
the other ones you missed?
(Mr Everitt) Some of the other things we think are
happening at the moment are we are seeing the process largely
led (if that is the right word) by the voluntary sector. There
is some very good work being done by the statutory agencies and
government departments, but there is a real danger that where
we see organisations, like the Countryside Council for Wales,
saying, "We can't deliver on over half of our BAP priorities",
that the voluntary sector are going to start to get disillusioned
with this sort of commitment from government. We do need to see
some statutory commitment to the process to ensure that we maintain
the partnership angle. Everyone has to have their commitments
into this process. Everyone needs to see what they need to deliver
and what they can deliver—and the voluntary sector, as much
as the statutory sector. We feel it should be the statutory sector
who are leading this process and it not being left to the voluntary
sector to pick it up. That is one of the major considerations.
469. Presumably that then acts as a lever to
get the resources committed?
(Mr Everitt) Certainly, yes. We would like to see
the necessary resources to follow that commitment.
470. How do you envisage a statutory BAP system
would work? On whom would the obligations be placed?
(Mr Everitt) We feel the obligations should be placed
at several levels. Firstly, on the Secretary of State and on the
devolved administrations to maintain a list of vulnerable species
and species of international importance; and also to look across
those lists and see which require Habitats and Species Action
Plans. Secondly, we would then like to see duties on ministers,
government departments and public bodies to further the objectives
within those Action Plans. Thirdly, as our colleagues mentioned
earlier, the local authority duty to produce and implement the
local biodiversity planning process.
471. In that you drew attention to a duty put
on the Secretary of State in terms of vulnerable species and species
of importance. Have we actually focused on a right mix of species
and habitats in BAPs at the moment? Should rather more emphasis
not be being given to the common and the abundant, as opposed
to the current emphasis on the rare and special?
(Ms Hawkswell) I think we have got part of the way
to having the right mix. At a national level we have had a clear
process for actually identifying the priority species and habitats.
We have criteria that we continue to support. Yes, they do focus
in many instances on the particularly vulnerable, the very rare,
the very threatened. There are problems with those lists of species
that are being identified, primarily because of the lack of adequate
data to actually make those decisions. We would agree with those
who criticise some of the lists saying we have species on there
we have now learnt through further work are not as rare as they
thought, and there are some that are missing. That national list
should continue to evolve. The local situation is a bit different.
There is now guidance for those working on local BAPs as to how
to take the national priorities and interpret them locally; and
most, but not all, local BAPs have done that. They have taken
the national priorities and said, "How should we use those?"
There is also guidance on how local priorities should be taken
into account and this is where we start to look at locally scarce,
the locally important species and habitats that have particular
value in the local area even though they are quite abundant, because
they are particularly distinctive and important. There is guidance
on doing that, but if we actually look across the local BAPs,
that are being prepared, that is being used with great variability.
So we have got some local BAPs that have followed that guidance
and others—as someone mentioned earlier—where there
has been a great emphasis on perhaps some of the cuddlier species
that have been selected for those reasons more than some of the
other important species. Again, I think that some of the things
that my colleague mentioned about the co-ordination between the
local and the national level are the reasons we have got those
problems, because those working on local BAPs have had to pick
this up off their own bat through local partnerships and tried
to take it forward. There is no support for them, there is nobody
checking whether the sum of the local BAPs is going to actually
add up to deliver the habitat targets that we have set, for example.
472. Moving on, you suggest that research councils'
funding should be targeted to meet UK BAP priorities. Can you
give examples of the sort of applied science you would like the
Natural Environment Research Council to support and explain its
importance to biodiversity?
(Ms Hawkswell) I think the evidence is in the Biodiversity
Action Plans for both species and habitats. Many of the plans,
and indeed the reporting process that has just been completed,
have identified a lack of understanding of the ecological needs
of a particular species as a problem or lack of methods of monitoring
those species or lack of information about them. They have been
highlighted as particular problems and there are actions in many
national habitat and species action plans, as well as local ones,
to take that forward. There has been a research working group
as part of the Biodiversity Planning process which has looked
at where there are these different research needs and how they
should be brought together. What we would like to see is the work
of NERC and other research institutes picking up on those priorities
and targeting their work towards them. The question should be
if that is their first foremost priority, why are they carrying
out research in other areas that is of a lower priority when we
have got gaps. We have got species that we work on, where we have
gaps in the research and understanding. We cannot manage those
species properly because we do not yet know what the appropriate
management is.
Christine Butler
473. Why is it that the species action plans
are more advanced than the habitat plans?
(Mr Everitt) At the moment, the species action plans
are being delivered by a range of lead partners, which range from
the statutory to the voluntary sector. A lot of those species
action plans have very discrete actions which are very "conservation"
type direct actions.
474. Like the otter?
(Mr Everitt) Yes, indeed, like the otter. We can see
those actions can be implemented fairly easily by a range of agencies
working on the ground at a direct conservation problem. For some
of the broader issues associated with habitats, there are big
policy blockages which need to be overcome before we can get real
delivery of those actions.
475. When you say "policy blockages",
what?
(Mr Everitt) There might be simple things like planning
legislation, there might be problems with guidance. There might
be problems with water regulation, things which need quite a high
level of activity to overcome, rather than someone going out and
managing a site. These are the range of policy blockages that
we would say need overcoming. I would also say that there is a
range of factors associated with the way that habitat groups are
structuring themselves at the moment. We see a number of problems
here. We see that the habitat groups are not really getting to
grips with the remit that is needed to deliver the action plans.
We see in some cases the groups not really having the necessary
authority to undertake and make decisions.
476. How has that come about?
(Mr Everitt) Well, I think it has come about because
they have not been prioritised highly enough within the actions
of those agencies concerned. If some of those agencies really
took the process more seriously then I think they would put the
right level of authority into those groups.
477. What can be done about it?
(Mr Everitt) We would like to see the UK Biodiversity
Group taking responsibility for this and looking at the habitats
groups. We are prepared to work with the process to try and make
this work. We believe we can provide some guidance and help with
the habitat groups to get them set up on the right lines.
478. Is there not a role for science there too?
Should not the links be stronger than they are currently?
(Mr Everitt) Yes. Certainly there are problems with
looking at some of the scientific elements of the plans as my
colleague mentioned. Until we know some of the real issues associated
with the conservation problem, the groups are never going to work
because we will never overcome the issues, we do not know what
they are at this stage. If I can give an example of that, we are
working on the black bog ant at the moment and we do not know—
Chairman
479. What is that?
(Mr Everitt) The black bog ant, and we do not know
the real problems with its ecology.
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