Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560
- 579)
MONDAY 19 JUNE 2000
BARONESS YOUNG,
MR DAVID
ARNOLD-FORSTER,
DR ANDREW
BROWN AND
DR MALCOLM
VINCENT
560. Do you have evidence of the action plans
having been delivered at this stage?
(Baroness Young) On a number of species and habitat
plans we can see on the ground that there are more of the species
in more places, a greater extent of habitats in better condition,
which is going to be the touchstone of success at the end of the
day. There are also some things which need to be done if we are
going to keep that progress up and make it more positive. For
example, the whole process needs to be reinvigorated from time
to time and the report which is going to be produced next year
for the millennium biodiversity report is going to be a useful
opportunity. That report needs to take the plans and the whole
process forward to the next stage rather than simply looking back
and seeing what has happened so far. It needs to reset the priorities,
reinvigorate the process. We also need to make sure that if we
are going to get the plans producing outcomes on the ground, there
must be good coordination at every level, at UK level, at country
level, at four nations level, at local authority level, amongst
business, amongst statutory bodies and the NGOs. The third thing,
if we are going to make sure that it is not just a plan machine
but does actually produce more biodiversity on the ground, is
that the role of the contact points and the lead partners from
each of the habitat species plans is really important. They really
have to be able to drive that forward. We have also got to make
sure that it does not just become a process which is about species
and habitat action plans, but is actually also about policy change.
In the original Biodiversity Action Plan there were the 59 policy
steps which needed to happen and they have been the area where
we have had least success so far and that means that we have to
see the targets and the indicators and all the mechanisms in the
Biodiversity Action Plan integrated into the work of other government
departments and a whole range of bodies and that is the one where
we are not having as much success as we might have.
561. Many of the witnesses we have had to date
have talked about someone having to take on the role of achieving
better coordination between the national and local BAPs. How will
you ensure that better links are established?
(Mr Arnold-Forster) It is really a key role for the
country groups. I would really identify three specific organisations
to get together on that coordination function. The Wildlife Trusts,
who have a key role in terms of links into local wildlife trusts,
local BAP coordinators, local record centres. Second, ourselves.
We can provide the context in terms of the nature conservation
targets at national level, we can provide the keys into information
and so on and we also have our own network of 26 local offices
and links on the ground. The third player is the DETR in their
England role, providing the power and the direction and occasionally
some quite serious prompting from government level. I would see
those three, operating under the umbrella of the England group,
as being crucial in England.
562. English Nature supports establishing broad
habitat management groups to coordinate action on the plans. Will
you take the lead in doing this? If not, who should do that?
(Dr Brown) These groups have essentially been formed
to take forward groups of habitat and species action plans which
are ecologically related. With over 300 species action plans and
45 habitat action plans many people have said it is a good idea
to try to aggregate these and essentially what English Nature
has done is to map species against the habitats and then to take
an overall approach. Many of these action plans have very common
actions in them, whether it is management of a particular kind
of habitat or the same sorts of research requirements for different
species or the same sorts of broad policy changes. By aggregating
these plans and looking at them as a whole, it simplifies the
whole process. We have actually felt that government agencies
should lead these broad habitat groups simply because the kind
of habitat action which is required, the kind of big policy changes
which are required, mean you need quite a high level senior group
and a lot of the actions are dependent on statutory functions
and statutory obligations. English Nature leads on the wetlands
and coastal groups. The Forestry Commission leads on woodlands
and the Environment Agency on open waters. They are able to call
on a broad range of expertise and bring other parties together
into these broad habitat groups.
563. Do you think that the statutory bodies
put senior enough people on these for them to be successful?
(Dr Brown) We certainly need to make sure we have
the right people, a mixture of specialist expertise, but also
a broader policy understanding so that the group can discuss in
depth the requirements to deliver these action plans and go away
and make things happen.
564. What do you consider your greatest success
in terms of the species BAPs?
(Baroness Young) As a broad point, 85 per cent of
all the plans have made some movement towards at least one of
their targets. That is not saying much, but at least it means
they are all live and in play.
Chairman
565. Surely you set a simple target to give
yourself a bit of confidence, do you not?
(Baroness Young) The initial targets in the Biodiversity
Action Plan were achievable. It was important for them to be achievable.
We did not want to frighten the horses really. Getting started
and getting things to happen so that we do actually learn from
success and how to do it is quite important. On habitat action
plans we have a number of successes: reed beds, lowland heathland,
generally the ones where we have been able to attract fairly substantial
sums of money. In the case of reed beds we got life money and
in the case of lowland heathland we got Heritage Lottery Fund
money. Where ownership of land, particularly for recreation or
even for improved management, has been with sympathetic bodies,
nature conservation organisations or statutory bodies, where we
have known how to do it, where we actually know how to make a
habitat better and where we have not needed big policy changes,
these are the sort of conditions which mean that we can get habitats
to improve. Where we have struggled a bit with habitats are things
like grazing marshes and lowland grassland. The salient features
seem to be that not much of it is owned by conservation bodies
or statutory bodies, not much of it is within sites of special
scientific interest, so we have remarkable little leverage on
it. In the case of the grasslands the ownership is very fragmented;
they are all tiny little dots mostly. Both grazing marshland and
lowland grassland do need quite a bit of policy change to be able
to deliver. Those are the ones we have done less well on so far.
The sort of policy change I am talking about is agriculture, drainage,
and we are addressing that through the agri-environment package
and through things like water level management plans, but they
are not going as fast as they should, they are insufficiently
resourced, they are insufficiently ambitious as schemes. On the
remainder of the habitats, for instance the marine habitats, the
marine coastal ones, we have really only just had the plans published
the back end of last year so it is a bit too early to assess those.
On the species plans, some of the birds have done well like cirl
bunting, the small brown anonymous bird, stone curlew, which is
the rather gawky looking bird with big yellow eyes which lives
in the east of the country, the large blue butterfly, the lady's
slipper orchid, which is a particularly good example of where
you can bring a species back by very intense specialist input.
It is a reintroduction of a specially bred species reintroduced
into the wild. It requires very particular management and it has
been a very intensive process. The species action plans which
have done well have done well because they have had a bunch of—
566. You mean they have been cuddly and people
like them.
(Baroness Young) They have been charismatic, they
have galvanised voluntary partnerships, not just with the voluntary
sector, but with business and from a whole range of institutions.
They have been quite well nationally coordinated and the resources
have really been targeted on the priorities within the plan. Where
we have not done well—the red squirrel is the basket case
of the lot though there are other examples like that—it
is because it is in the "too difficult" box. The red
squirrel is a really difficult problem to crack because of the
fact that the greys have virtually taken over. The other reasons
for failure on species action plans is that they can eat up resources.
The lady's slipper orchid is quite an intensive process and it
eats resource. Unless you really resource them well they can struggle.
They are always going to be expensive because they cannot often
be integrated with the broader umbrella of management of habitats
that Dr Brown was outlining. Sometimes the species action plans
which have struggled have been ones where everybody has got so
excited about researching the ecology of the particular species
that we have learned more and more about it but done less and
less about making a difference to it. That is one of the pitfalls
of species action plans.
(Dr Vincent) May I make three points in relation to
the plans? Firstly, just to pick up on what Baroness Young has
said, there is a tendency when you do not quite know what to do
to help the species recover to carry out research and monitoring.
I am afraid that there is just nothing else you can do. You have
to go through that process first. Secondly, in terms of seeing
progress on the ground, you are faced with the simple fact that
these things take a long time to work through. So if you are creating
new reed beds it takes some years for those reedbeds to be turned
into bitterns for example. Thirdly, progress has to be sufficiently
obvious that it rises above the natural fluctuations and changes
which respond to things like weather anyway. These are going on
all the time in terms of species, so that improvements in given
species have to be sufficiently significant to rise above that
natural change. We feel that one of the successes we have on the
process side is in setting up a monitoring system which will actually
flag progress made through the action plans and will highlight
those areas where progress is not being made as quickly as we
think it ought to be. Why not? So we shall be able both to identify
who should be doing more and in some cases under thematic issues
developing which policy areas need to develop more. We have made
quite some progress in those areas.
(Baroness Young) May I comment on one further programme?
Apart from the species which are in the Biodiversity Action Plan
for the UK, English Nature also runs a species recovery programme
which covers some of the Biodiversity Action Plan species but
also some of the species which are very distinctively English.
That is probably one of our most successful programmes. It brought
together a huge range of people who, if you ever want a good day
out, are really great to spend time with because they are incredibly
excited and committed to what they are doing. We now have about
21 species which can genuinely be said to have been brought back
from the brink and be safe now. That is a fairly good test of
whether that kind of partnership operates well.
Mr Donohoe
567. Given all that, and we have heard evidence
previously for and against statutory bodies which have been set
up, what would your answer be to the whole question, given the
need for long-term commitment to the BAPs from a range of bodies,
of putting them on a statutory footing?
(Mr Arnold-Forster) We believe that there should be
some statutory underpinning of the Biodiversity Action Plan process.
That is really for three reasons. First, permanence. This is actually
something which is here to stay, it is not just a whim or the
flavour of the year or the three-year period. Second, clarity
of responsibility. Whilst the statutory underpinning itself may
not define precisely who is responsible, it actually ensures that
somebody is going to sort out who is responsible. A third is actually
a profile for resourcing. I should stress that we do not mean
by that that we want all of the BAP targets and so on to be enshrined
in statute; that would obviously be a nonsense because there is
a dynamic process and many other reasons. We do think that there
should be a duty on local authorities and government departments
to seek or promote conservation of BAP priority habitats and species
and in local authorities that this should come through the preparation
of a local Biodiversity Action Plan and that terminology, should
be enshrined in statute.
Chairman
568. Would you like to see that added to the
Countryside Bill when it goes through the Lords?
(Mr Arnold-Forster) Yes, we would support that form
of amendment to the Countryside Bill. We have briefed in that
regard.
Mr Donohoe
569. It is all very well selecting the ones,
but across the board do you not see that in order for there to
be sustained development in this respect you would need to have
the whole question of all these plans under the statutory instrument?
(Mr Arnold-Forster) No, I would not think that would
be appropriate. Primary legislation is there for something which
is meant to be, hopefully, fixed for some time. We have dynamic
lists. We have lists which actually need things added to them,
targets which will change, targets which will be met, further
targets which will be added. It would be hopelessly bureaucratic
to complicate the legislative process with all of that and in
doing so we would lose support of voluntary partners and we would
actually consume vast amounts of resources which would be better
targeted on delivery on the ground.
570. So the alternative, to improve the whole
question of these plans, is what? What would you see as the alternative
to a statutory footing?
(Mr Arnold-Forster) We would see the statutory duty
being there. With regard to that duty on local authorities and
government departments to seek or promote the conservation of
BAP priority habitats or species, in the case of local authorities
that would be through the preparation of a local Biodiversity
Action Plan, which would be about a four- to five-line clause
as we would see it which would be within the primary legislation.
That would be the statutory component, that would provide enough
of an indication of the permanence, the need for clear responsibility
and accountability and a profile for resourcing to get that further
impetus behind BAP which we should like to see.
Chairman
571. Dr Vincent, do you think the same is necessary
for the rest of the UK?
(Dr Vincent) As a matter of principle, there should
be an effective mechanism which requires public bodies in particular
and certainly encourages the private sector to ensure that the
UK Biodiversity Action Plan is implemented in a timely and effective
way. I can see that could vary in different parts of the United
Kingdom depending on what the needs were in that particular part
of the United Kingdom. I could not give a categoric assurance
that a similar process would work as effectively in Scotland.
I would have a secondary point to make which is that I should
like consideration to be given to the whole UK Biodiversity Action
Plan, having a firm and effective implementation process in the
United Kingdom, not just the habitats and species action plans.
All 59 steps and their successors will need it.
Mr Olner
572. How satisfied are you about the UK's implementation
of the Habitats and Birds Directives?
(Dr Brown) Overall very pleased with the implementation
of the Directives, particularly with respect to the selection
and conservation of the designated sites—the two different
designations under those two Directives. That has been very successful
and the regulations which we use to protect those sites have been
very effective. There are, however, other aspects of the Directives
which need more attention. We have yet to address the issue of
marine Special Protection Areas for birds. There is a big issue
about designated sites beyond the 12-mile limit. The designated
sites also do not deal effectively with wide-ranging species,
very mobile and very widespread species.
573. Would you say there is a bit of a conflict
between the geographical size of the UK and some of the geographical
sizes in Europe in some of the Directives? We are only a small
nation.
(Dr Brown) The Directives are obviously seeking to
establish a coherent network of sites of European significance.
The criteria for selecting the sites are quite different from
the kind of criteria we use for selecting species and habitats
under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. There needs to be some
commonality between them and there are some anomalies where there
are species in the Directive which are not in the UK Biodiversity
Action Plan. We will need to look in due course to see whether
we need to have individual action plans for some of those species.
574. Do you think there may be some benefit
in adding to some of those, variation for the UK alone?
(Dr Brown) There is certainly merit in adjusting the
UK biodiversity action plan list to make sure that we have proper
coverage of species and habitats which are regarded as really
important in a European context. There are real limitations to
the extent to which you can modify the Directives. That is a very
difficult and fraught process because you have to understand the
implications for other Member States and negotiate agreement about
changing the list of habitats and species.
575. So you think we got our arguments wrong
in the first place.
(Dr Brown) No, I do not think we did. If we had had
our way, we might have had a different classification of habitats
because the system of classification in the Directive is something
quite different to our system in the UK.
576. Who advised government what they should
fight for in the Directive and what they should not? Did they
get advice from people like yourselves?
(Dr Brown) Yes, they certainly got advice from the
agencies.
Chairman: It was duff advice, was it not?
Mr Olner
577. You did not give them the right advice.
(Baroness Young) You have to look at the difference
of timescale. The Habitats Directive was going through Europe
almost ten years ago whereas the Biodiversity Action Plan followed
after it and was very much a UK-only product. We have something
which fits the bill for the UK in the Biodiversity Action Plan.
We have something which fits the bill for Europe in the Habitats
Directive. They do not quite meet but they do not really cause
a problem. The overwhelming message for the Habitats and Birds
Directives is that they are such splendid instruments for nature
conservation that even if there is a little bit of mismatch between
the species and the habitats with the Biodiversity Action Plans,
we would rather have that than not have a decent Habitats Directive.
Chairman
578. We have been told we have to list much
larger areas than we have been listing.
(Baroness Young) As a result of the moderation process
we have been involved with the JNCC in looking at increasing the
number of sites. We are delighted.
579. "Moderation" is a bit of a coverup
word, is it not? We got it wrong and we have been told to get
it right.
(Baroness Young) There are several messages from the
moderation process. One is that there is quite a different flavour
within government at the moment compared to the flavour which
was around then. As statutory bodies we were working to that flavour.
Secondly, the process in Europe was remarkably opaque in that
nobody really had a handle on what other Member States were doing
and it was only when they were all brought together that it was
clear that there was a mismatch in terms of the ambition and also
some of the criteria. We are delighted to be in the position now
where we can put forward through the JNCC a considerable number
of extra sites because we do think the Habitats Directive is a
splendid instrument.
(Dr Vincent) The area we are proposing in addition
to what we proposed before is about a 28 per cent increase in
terms of area. Within the area we proposed before quite a lot
of new features have been added. The addition is quite significant
and I absolutely accept that. May I make another point about the
Habitats Directive to address the issue of our implementation
of it and that relates to the article of the Habitats Directive
on the features which make up the fabric of the countryside. I
should say that although we are making good progress in relation
to special areas both under the Habitats and under the Birds Directives,
although a lot remains to be done, we are making not very good
progress at all about the elements of the Habitats Directive which
require you to take action to protect the fabric of the countryside.
The fabric of the countryside supports the special sites in many
ways. It enables the populations of species on those sites to
be maintained. If we do not start doing something about the fabric
of the countryside, then the work which we are doing in relation
to the special sites will be undermined.
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