Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500
- 509)
TUESDAY 13 JUNE 2000
MR JOHN
EVERITT AND
MS SARA
HAWKSWELL
500. Just because there would be a stronger
steer from Government, excuse me pursuing the point, but how would
that then encourage others with whom you find it difficult to
get partnership? Do you just say "Yes, you must wake up because
the Government said it is important"?
(Mr Everitt) Well, there is an initiative at the moment
called Are you Doing your Bit—
501. Right.
(Mr Everitt) Which at the moment covers energy, waste
and transport, I think, it does not actually cover biodiversity.
Chairman
502. Why are you complaining about that? Hardly
anyone knows about Doing your Bit anyway, so if we added
something else on to it it still would not make any difference.
(Mr Everitt) I think that is probably a problem with
Doing your Bit rather than what it covers.If it did cover
biodiversity it could perhaps be much more successful.
Mrs Dunwoody
503. More things that were not known about.
(Mr Everitt) That is a possibility but I think we
need to see these schemes pushed much harder and then they will
work. Are you doing your bit has been successful on a small
scale, we think it can go further. It is one of these things that
if we are going to be serious about the process then we have to
pursue them, we have to promote them. We have to use all the media
mechanisms we have to do it rather than do it in a piecemeal fashion
and rather than trying to tag on biodiversity as a last resort.
Mr Benn
504. Are we measuring biodiversity in the right
way currently?
(Ms Hawkswell) I think the current situation is that
the systems do not work well enough.
505. Why not?
(Ms Hawkswell) I referred earlier to the fact that
we have had to base some of the lists, etc., on inadequate information.
The systems are not working for a number of reasons. One that
we believe is fundamentally important that I think has concerned
some people is a lack of understanding of what the actual information
needs are for both the biodiversity planning process but also
a whole range of other biodiversity conservation initiatives.
We do not have a focus for understanding what data is needed and
there is nobody who has ever had a duty or responsibility to have
an overview of that and actually bring people together. Added
to that we have got a lot of problems that the actual data that
is available is often inaccessible, it is in different formats,
it is technically difficult to get hold of. This has also been
an area that has historically been under resourced, as in we come
up with what we need to do it and someone says "Hang on,
had we better not find out where the species are?" so we
tack on a bit of survey work. I think historically we have had
a lot of problems, and our current systems have not worked. I
think the recent initiative to establish the National Biodiversity
Network has started to change that. The Wildlife Trusts have been
involved in trying to establish the National Biodiversity Network
over a number of years now. I think it is starting to provide
those solutions, just in having a clear focus, where there is
somebody who is trying to bring together the different sectors
that are involved, and get that common understanding of the information
that is needed and develop standard approaches to actually collating
and managing the data. That integration and co-ordination work
is very long term, it has to be quite visionary. I think that
is what is causing some of the hold ups in taking that forward.
We certainly learnt from the Biodiversity Planning Process, the
recent review that has been referred to looking at all the progress
on the species action plans, one of the biggest problems that
came out time and time again was still lack of information. I
think that Government needs to give a greater commitment to the
National Biodiversity Network than it has. I am not just talking
about resources, although resources are a pretty fundamental issue
to this area, but also to make a commitment to saying that we
will properly start to co-ordinate our own information gathering
techniques. I can give examples of initiatives that have been
run in different Government Departments.
Chairman
506. I think we need to watch the time now.
(Ms Hawkswell) Sorry. If I can give one example of
problems we have between different Government Departments is in
recent discussions through the National Biodiversity Network with
MAFF, MAFF has declared that they will deal with their own information
needs, they do not want to know about anybody else's information
needs and will set up their own systems, which is exactly the
reverse of everything proposed through the NBN and the Biodiversity
Planning Process.
507. Very briefly, how much money to make the
National Biodiversity Network really work?
(Ms Hawkswell) I think there are a number of dangers
. . .
508. No, just a figure.
(Ms Hawkswell) At the moment it is under development.
There are high development costs because we are dealing with new
technology and new standards. For example, we can give you a figure
for running local record centres which would be providing the
backbone of the National Biodiversity Network and that would be
coming in at about eight million pounds a year to run a full network
of local record centres.
509. Can you finish with one wish that perhaps
we should include in our report for you?
(Mr Everitt) The major problem we feel
at the moment is that biodiversity is not recognised as being
important for our quality of life. It is not being considered
as significant enough alongside health and education, and some
of these other considerations. We would like to see Government
giving biodiversity due consideration alongside these other issues.
Chairman: Right, well, on that note can I thank
you very much indeed.
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