APPENDIX 16
Memorandum from English Nature
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Practical options for action, and price signals,
are essential for public awareness on sustainability to translate
into behavioural change.
All Government departments should produce a
sustainability strategy covering their policy and operations,
supported by staff training. These should include environmental
risk awareness.
The Department for Education and Skills should
produce a departmental Sustainable Development strategy covering
its policy and operations, as the basis for a national strategy
for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).
The ODPM's "Living Spaces" report
commits to a review of links between environmental and social
exclusion, and this will provide an important opportunity to improve
cross-Government understanding of sustainability issues.
The new Sustainable Development Unit at IDeA
has a vital role in promoting awareness of sustainable development
across local government.
There is a job market gap for ecological field
skills, resulting from the lack of field work in relevant high
school and tertiary curricula.
The multitude of community-based environmental
projects underway around the country provide excellent examples
of how to engage public interest and raise awareness through practical
activities. A national strategy for ESD should identify ways to
support links between such projects and local schools, colleges
and other formal education.
2. ABOUT ENGLISH
NATURE
English Nature is the statutory body that champions
the conservation and enhancement of the wildlife and natural features
of England. In fulfilling our statutory duties we:
— establish and manage National Nature
Reserves;
— notify and safeguard Sites of Special
Scientific Interest (SSSIs);
— advise Government departments and
a wide range of other public and non-statutory bodies on effective
policies for nature conservation;
— disseminate guidance and advice about
nature conservation;
— promote research relevant to nature
conservation.
We do this by:
— advising—Government,
other agencies, local authorities, interest groups, business,
communities, individuals;
— regulating—activities
affecting the special nature conservation sites in England;
— enabling—others to manage
land for nature conservation, through grants, projects and information,
— advocating—nature conservation
for all and biodiversity as a key test of sustainable development.
Through the Joint Nature Conservation Committee,
English Nature works with sister organisations in Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland to advise Government on UK and international
conservation issues.
3. INTRODUCTION
We welcome this inquiry, and the opportunity
to give evidence. We are currently increasing our work on re-connecting
people and nature, with particular emphases on understanding the
links between health (physical and psychological) and contact
with nature and the outdoors, improving access to greenspace in
cities and to nature reserves, and helping to combat social exclusion.
We are also undertaking a Nature On-Line project to improve the
information available through our web-site for public information
and educational use, supported by capital modernisation funding
from the Treasury. Our understanding of sustainable development
is set out in the position statement attached as Annex 1.
4. Public and Government Understanding of
Sustainable Development and Engagement with it.
Our experience is that some sections of the
public are strongly committed to environmental values (some five
million people subscribe to nature conservation organisations),
most are broadly sympathetic, and some are indifferent. One of
the challenges for nature conservation and other environmental
organisations, including English Nature, is to use people's interest
in charismatic birds, flowers and other species and natural scenic
beauty as a gateway to increase understanding of the wider sustainable
development context. Some good practice examples are outlined
in section 7 below; an account of educational activities at our
Castle Dene National Nature Reserve, adjacent to socially deprived
communities on Teeside, is attached as Annex 2.
Public engagement in sustainable development
relies on the availability of practical sustainability options,
even more than the need for public education. For instance, as
supplies of organic food became easily available and price differentials
reduced, purchases of organic food grew steeply; people espoused
the values that organic accreditation represents (healthy natural
food production), and their behaviour responded readily to practical
availability. Likewise, when local or doorstep recycling facilities
are provided, they are well-used. Cost incentives are also important
on the practical level: notably the effectiveness of the recent
Irish 9p tax on plastic bags.
Understanding among central and local government
policy-makers and public sector practitioners is patchy, and potentially
a greater obstacle to achieving the Government's sustainable development
aims. The "A Better Quality of Life" UK Sustainable
Development Strategy (DETR 1999), which sets a comprehensive range
of indicators and is supported by annual reports tracking progress
on the indicators, provides a good foundation. It must be underpinned
participation in the Sustainable Development in Government process,
with all departments by producing sustainable development strategies
and annual reports covering their contributions towards implementing
the UK strategy across the full range of indicators. Better cross-government
understanding of the importance of reducing environmental risks
is particularly needed, as the recent Cabinet Office Strategy
Unit report on risk management emphasises.
At present, only the Department for Environment
and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and Department for Trade and Industry
(DTI) have produced sustainable development strategies which cover
their policy and operations. DEFRA has now embarked on a training
programme for staff which should be considered a good example;
it is being taken around all Directorates and out into regional
offices. Without a sustainable development or corporate social
responsibility programme, an organisation will not be able to
monitor, measure or manage its impacts, nor will it be able to
develop awareness raising programmes for its staff.
Even where we have seen some innovative ideas,
such as the Treasury request for sustainable development reports
as part of bids for the Comprehensive Spending Review 2002, the
process was heavily criticised for lack of transparency; a more
open process for CSR 2004 could play a valuable awareness-raising
role across Government.
We recommend that the Department for Education
and Skills (DfES) should produce a sustainable development strategy
covering the range of its policy responsibility and operations,
and help the agencies it sponsors do likewise. This will provide
a sound basis for a comprehensive understanding of how sustainable
development fits into the full range of education objectives and
programmes.
We have particular concerns about the need for
sustainable development strategies for the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister, Department for Transport, Department of Health,
and Ministry of Defence, all responsible for activities with immense
environmental and social impacts. For the Department of Health,
this means extending its current work on "Realising the Health
Dividend" which looks at how its operations can be managed
to realise broad public and environmental health benefits for
its staff and the communities where hospitals are located (e.g.,
green travel plans, purchasing policies supporting local small
businesses). Within the Home Office, we would highlight the important
sustainable development role of the Active Communities Unit in
the Home Office, which has cross-cutting responsibility for community
and voluntary activity, but so far has relatively little engagement
with the environmental voluntary sector.
We believe that the review of links between
social and environmental exclusion promised in the ODPM's recent
Living Spaces report will provide an important opportunity to
improve cross-Government understanding of sustainable development.
At local level, Local Agenda 21 initiatives
following up the Earth Summit in 1991 stimulated much valuable
activity among local authorities working with community and business
partners. Although local authorities have been required as part
of Best Value to produce Agenda 21 plans, there has been no quality
assurance of these, nor are they necessarily accompanied by ongoing
training strategies for council officers, members and local partners.
Despite explicit mention of sustainable development objectives
in government guidance on the new community strategies that local
authorities are now required to produce, there are concerns that
lack of environmental and sustainability awareness among councils,
other statutory agencies and the wider voluntary sector is leading
to short-term decisions that worsen long-term sustainability impacts.
Similar concerns apply at regional government level.
We believe that the new Sustainable Development
Unit at IDeA could play a vital role to integrate sustainable
awareness across the range of IDeA's work in promoting best practice
for local government.
As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's "Rainforests
are a Long Way from Here" 2001 research showed, people (in
socially deprived Tower Hamlets) who are uninterested in abstract
environmental issues relate strongly to their local green spaces
and local environmental conditions. In community-based discussions
on regeneration priorities, people start by raising "crime
and grime" issues about the local street and public space
environment; when asked to suggest "quick win" solutions,
surprisingly often they say "We could make this patch of
derelict ground into a community garden safe for local kids to
play." Practical "action learning" local involvement
seems the most powerful tool for fostering real understanding
of both sustainable development and citizenship.
At the regional scale, English Nature's Northumbria
Team has recently been involved in using a sustainability appraisal
exercise for a local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) as an opportunity
to involve a range of statutory stakeholders including the Regional
Development Agency, the North East Government Office, and the
Regional Assembly alongside the LBAP partnership, which included
local authority and voluntary and community representatives. The
exercise was facilitated by Forum for the Future, which is currently
writing up the report. So far as we are aware, this is the first
use of sustainability appraisal of an LBAP as a focus for stakeholder
involvement and awareness raising—including helping biodiversity
practitioners make links to social and economic objectives. We
believe this is an approach that could form a useful basis for
promoting understanding of sustainable development in the context
of community strategies and regional planning.
5. A NATIONAL
STRATEGY FOR
ESD
As outlined above, we see a DfES departmental
sustainable development strategy as a foundation for a national
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) strategy. This should
identify the barriers to understanding of sustainability at all
levels, and the changes needed to deliver improved awareness through
schools and formal education, public awareness campaigns, and
decision-maker education. We endorse the vision set out in the
"Public Understanding and Education" chapter of Working
with the Grain of Nature: A Biodiversity Strategy for England
(DEFRA 2002) as the nature conservation input towards such
an ESD strategy.
There are some specific points we would suggest
for incorporation in the schools and formal education part of
a national ESD strategy:
— Fieldwork as a vocational skill:
If sustainable development is to take account of biodiversity,
there needs to be an adequate supply of qualified professionals
able to identify and understand it. Current education does not
deliver a large enough pool of graduates with the required expertise
for us to be able to fill all the posts we advertise. Other public
and private sector employers of ecologists (eg Forestry Commission,
local authorities) report the same problem, despite the popularity
of broad environmental science and environmental management courses.
The British Ecological Society has recently published a report
highlighting the gradual erosion of field work from high school
and university curricula as the cause of this problem
— Practical field activities,
including active involvement in or visits to local nature conservation
and environmental projects and sites, are essential for real understanding
of sustainable development. Funding support is needed for
schools, particularly in poorer and urban areas, to organise such
visits, and for nature conservation organisations to host such
educational visits and particularly to meet safety and risk management
standards. The demand for this means that almost all the Wildspace!
Grants that English Nature administers for the New Opportunities
Fund have included educational objectives and activities (see
section 7 below).
— Inspection of ESD in schools
would put it on a much firmer footing, as for Citizenship. Without
inspection, ESD will continue to be a fringe activity. Inspection
would raise standards and improve the guidance available to teachers.
— We see the Citizenship focus of ESD
as particularly valuable, and would like to see this strengthened.
— We do not argue for ESD to be a curriculum
subject in its own right, but see value in it remaining a cross-cutting
theme included in other subjects across the school curriculum.
At present, we understand that it is being reasonably well captured
as part of the knowledge base for science and geography, and in
citizenship studies. However, we believe that arts, literature
and other cultural curricula do not currently provide enough
guidance nor opportunities for looking at how nature and the environment
are experienced and expressed as inspirational, moral and aesthetic
values throughout history and in all traditions. This is also
important for Citizenship studies.
— We would like to see specific mention
of Biodiversity conservation in ESD guidance. At present
this mentions Stewardship and Diversity among the guiding criteria,
but not Biodiversity. Nor does the DfES mention Biodiversity at
all in any curriculum unit nor scheme of work.
— Sustainable development in the
maritime environment is neglected almost completely by the
national curriculum and suggested schemes of work. This affects
public understanding of crucial issues like the collapse of ocean
fish stocks and food chains (a priority issue at last year's World
Summit on Sustainable Development), how this is affected by consumer
pressure, and impacts on local fishing communities. We believe
the Qualification and Curriculum Authority should include reference
to these fisheries issues in the schemes of work for "Design
and Technology: Food", and "Geography: Coasts and sustainable
development". Likewise the effects of sea-level rise
on coastlines, coastal habitats and flood risk is a related topic
urgently requiring greater public and policymaker awareness.
— Informal and out of school activities
among all age groups, including practical local environmental
projects on nature reserves and community gardening, and citizen
science surveys, are at least as important for sustainable development
understanding as formal learning frameworks.
— Nature conservation is a significant
job market for geography, environmental studies and biological
science graduates, and featured in a recent tabloid newspaper
list of "dream jobs" people aspire to. Reliance on volunteer
"gap year" experience to fill the field skills gap
noted above exerts a discriminatory pressure on employment in
the field, restricting it to those whose families can afford to
support them through a gap year. We would like to see a bursary
scheme to support work experience by new graduates. Ethnic
minorities are particularly under-represented in nature conservation
work at present, and we see a need for a positive action scheme
to encourage interested ethnic minority candidates to compete
on equal terms for available jobs in the field.
6. Government Awareness Raising Programmes
Public awareness campaigns are important, but
will only lead to changes in behaviour if people have practical
ways to act on them. The simpler and more practical the messages,
the more effective they seem to be. If a practical alternative
is unavailable, the message won't be acted on.
— We suspect that the "Are you
doing your bit?" campaign may need to penetrate further and
be more visible. Its messages will also be limited by the extent
to which people have easy access to the options it advocates,
eg doorstep recycling collections.
— Messages that seem effective are
the current "Five a day" healthy eating campaign, "Slim
your Bin", and "Kill your speed, not a child".
Local authority "Travel Awareness" campaigns (eg in
Hertfordshire and Hampshire) have supplemented billboard and leaflet
messages with practical incentives, such as discounts at local
shops for people arriving by public transport or cycle.
— Leicester Environ's "Eco-Feedback"
campaign in the 1990s ran information on, for instance, average
local energy use or rubbish put out for collection, so residents
could see if they were doing better or worse than others, supplemented
by hints on how to improve your household "score".
7. EXAMPLES OF
GOOD SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION
INITIATIVES
Almost all nature conservation organizations
run educational activities, ranging from class visits to informal
community engagement. Many other voluntary and community organizations
are involved in nature-based activities, particularly groups working
with children and vulnerable people, and looking after community
buildings and parks. A national strategy for ESD should identify
ways to support links between such projects and local schools,
colleges and other formal education.
Schools and young people
— Projects to set up gardens and wildlife
areas in school grounds or adjacent space are valuable learning
resources for providing ESD links across the curriculum, including
seeing food chains and webs of life in action. Initiatives like
Learning through Landscapes, Eco-schools, and the HDRA organic
gardening association provide support for these.
— Local Nature Reserves, managed
by local councils, have a particular educational role. We manage
the Wildspace! Grants programme (part of New Opportunities
Fund's Green Spaces and Sustainable Communities programme) which
provides funding to help create and manage nature reserves, particularly
to improve community access and involvement. Providing learning,
training and personal development opportunities is a specific
criterion, and 82% of the grant awarded to date has gone to areas
of high social deprivation, urban and rural. So far, 78 grants
support employment of a Community Liaison Officer, and all these
include educational activities, including community arts. Other
NOF Green Spaces funding similarly supports community and educational
activities in other forms of open space.
— Geological groups such as
the Geologists' Association and locally based RIGS (Regionally
Important Geological/geomorphological Sites) groups have a strong
focus on educational involvement, demonstrating through events,
guided walks and interpretation material, how the earth's history
can be read from rocks and fossils, and how rocks have been used
for industry and as building stone. "Town trails" examining
stone used in buildings and linking these to local quarries etc
are increasingly popular.
— At The Lizard National Nature
Reserve (NNR), English Nature's site manager runs training days
for local teachers, equipping them to understand and use the nature
reserve and information resources about it for class visits and
to support lesson plans. Activities run by the Education Officer
at English Nature's Castle Eden Dene NNR are outlined in Annex
2.
Lifelong and informal learning
— Accreditation schemes able to link
skills and knowledge gained from voluntary environmental and community
work to recognised qualifications should be given greater publicity
and support by the DfES. Help and simple guidance need to be accessible
to community activists, imposing minimal extra demands. Learning
and Skills Councils should support this, helping make links with
national networks like Open College Network, Workers Educational
Association, School for Social Entrepreneurs, relevant National
Training Organisation or other accreditation bodies. Accreditation
should always be a voluntary option made available to those who
want it, not required.
— Practical community-based training
courses on putting sustainability into practice are run around
the country by BTCV, Groundwork and the permaculture training
network, and usually link to practical local environmental and
social enterprise projects.
— "Citizen science"
surveys both provide valuable data, and show the extent of popular
interest in nature. For instance, the UK Phenology project, has
in two years signed up 18,600 active recorders while the RSPB's
annual Big Garden Birdwatch attracts 262,000 returns. A recent
issue of Ecos, the British Association for Nature Conservation
(Vol 23:3/4) reviews current citizen science projects and shows
how they link with wider educational, youth and social interests.
February 2003
Annex 1
English Nature's Position Statement on
Sustainable development
WHAT IS
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?
Sustainable development is "development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs" (after Brundtland).
It seeks to achieve a better quality of life for everyone, now
and in the future, while protecting and where possible enhancing
the environment. This requires an integrated approach to deliver
social progress and economic growth and maintain the quality of
our natural environment.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
AND NATURE
CONSERVATION
The natural environment can only support human
life, health and well-being if its own resources are healthy and
if it can continue to assimilate wastes and support a wealth of
biodiversity—our heritage of natural features, wild plants
and animals and their natural communities. The Government's nature
conservation policy seeks to sustain and enrich the UK's characteristic
biodiversity and fulfil international commitments under the EU
Birds and Habitats Directives, the Ramsar Convention and the Convention
on Biological Diversity. Biodiversity is a key test of sustainable
development because it enhances quality of life, provides natural
assets from which economic benefits can be derived and indicates
an environment in good health. English Nature's policy is to ensure
choices are available that meet social, economic and environmental
needs without undermining the quality of the natural environment.
ACHIEVING ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
Environmental sustainability means maintaining
the environment's natural qualities and characteristics and its
capacity to fulfil its full range of functions, including the
maintenance of biodiversity. This requires the highest level of
protection for wildlife and natural features which are important
and irreplaceable within practical timescales (eg lowland peatlands,
traditional hay meadows, ancient semi-natural woodlands, and glacial
landforms). Other natural assets, which could be created elsewhere
within the same Natural Area* (eg other types of woodland), need
to be maintained or enhanced to secure the total stock of England's
natural assets above minimum levels. Where the amount of such
assets is already below the minimum threshold, action is needed
to restore habitats and species to viable levels and to achieve
the UK Biodiversity Action Plan habitats and species targets.
Designated sites represent the best of England's
biodiversity and natural features, but they do not encompass all
that is irreplaceable and cannot by themselves maintain and enhance
natural assets. Natural Areas provide a framework for appraisal
and evaluation to describe what is important and why, and for
setting objectives to protect our characteristic biodiversity
and geological heritage. The overall objective must be to maintain
and, where possible, enhance the total stock of natural assets
within each Natural Area for the benefit of people now and
in the future.
English Nature's policy is to:
— Oppose development and land use which
adversely and irreversibly affect irreplaceable natural assets.
— Secure sustainable management
of designated sites and target action elsewhere to maintain
and enhance the natural assets within each Natural Area.
— Work with Government and others to
identify and report on a range of sustainability indicators which
establish biodiversity as a key test of environmental sustainability
and take account of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan targets.
— Promote strategic environmental
assessment and policy appraisal of all local, regional,
national and European strategies, policies and programmes.
— Establish clear objectives and
targets for each key economic sector which eliminate environmentally
unsustainable activities.
— Promote the precautionary principle
to minimise risk of potentially significant adverse environmental
impacts.
— Support pricing mechanisms
which internalise environmental costs and incorporate the polluter
pays principle.
— Support the use of economic instruments,
standards and regulations to stimulate action to safeguard
and enhance environmental quality.
— Promote natural resource accounting
to monitor the impact of human activity on the environment, allowing
national economic accounts to be understood in this context.
— Promote demand management
to ensure that development is focused on real needs and is of
appropriate type and location.
— Promote participation and transparency
in decision-making, and provide public information to help
an increasingly informed and educated society to make choices
that favour long-term sustainability.
The next steps
Sustainability requires integration of the social,
economic and environmental strands of sustainable development
into strategies, policies and programmes at all levels. The EU
Biodiversity Strategy and Article 6 of the Amsterdam Treaty provide
the basis for such integration at the European level. Urgent action
is needed to ensure radical reform of the Common Agricultural
and Fisheries Policies. Regional Economic Strategies should be
subject to sustainability appraisal and implemented within the
context of Regional Planning Guidance. Sectoral sustainability
strategies are needed for all key economic sectors. English Nature's
sector analyses indicate the necessary changes in policies and
practices of key economic sectors where more environmentally sustainable
approaches are needed to bring long term wildlife gain. We will
use sector analyses to inform our work with strategic allies and
key players, and to develop biodiversity tests of sustainability
for each sector so that we and others can monitor progress towards
more sustainable approaches.
* A Natural Area is a geographical unit derived
from the characteristic wildlife, underlying geology, soils, land
use and culture of the different parts of England.
Revision information: Originally published
November 1993; Reviewed and reprinted April 1999.
Annex 2
Educational activities at Castle Eden Dene National
Nature Reserve, County Durham
Castle Eden Dene National Nature Reserve (NNR)
is on the south side of Peterlee in County Durham. Built as a
New Town in the 1950s, Peterlee was deliberately sited next to
the Dene (a wooded valley) so that residents could benefit from
it as a healthy recreational facilitity. The surrounding communities
now experience high unemployment and associated social problems.
English Nature has employed an Education Officer based there for
the past 11 years.
At Castle Eden Dene NNR, we take a two-pronged
approach to education for sustainability. Most of our work is
with local primary schools, with some 2,500 children a year visiting
the reserve in school groups. We also run informal learning events
for adults and families, which are opportunities to convey messages
directly to the parents. These engage another 1,000 people a year.
Most of our educational sessions are based on
the functioning of an ancient woodland, with some sessions based
on freshwater pond ecology. We mainly focus on aspects of the
national curriculum for Science, and touch on mathematics, art,
geography, English, and other subjects.
Sustainability is not a simple concept to communicate
to a young audience. We use examples from nature, and relate them
back to the home environment.
Recycling of waste plays an important
part in any ecosystem. By looking at the way autumn leaves are
broken down by fungi and minibeasts, we can bring in the importance
of home and garden composting to relieve pressure on landfill
sites. A simple activity like sorting rubbish after a picnic lunch
can show the huge amount of plastic that is thrown. The other
"rubbish" left over, the children recycle into our compost
bins or wormery.
We use the "food pyramids"
game devised by Royal Society for Preservation of Birds to show
the dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides. The game involves
children in making a food pyramid with lots of plants at the base,
leading through fewer caterpillars, two blue tits and one sparrowhawk.
By introducing a small amount of poison to each leaf, we can show
how this becomes concentrated at the top of the food chain—a
position we also occupy.
Informal public awareness raising events on
the NNR include:
— Horse extraction of timber,
in areas where using heavy machinery would cause too much damage.
While the horses are working, we have demonstrations of sustainable
uses of timber and information displays showing why we leave much
fallen and felled timber to rot—both as compost for the
woodland soil and as an important habitat for many of the fungi
and invertebrate species on the reserve.
— Tree planting has often been
a public event and an opportunity to educate people as to the
importance of trees, woodlands, and replacing trees that need
to be cut down.
We also use negative images to get sustainability
messages across. For instance:
— Fly-tipping is not pleasant,
but many people come out and help when we have a "Spring
Clean" on the reserve. Frequent participants in these clean-ups
include children's groups such as cubs, scouts and the Duke of
Edinburgh Awards scheme.
— Pollution of the stream that
runs through the reserve is a frequent event, and the number of
local people who ring both us and the Environment Agency if they
spot an incident signals increasing concern. An incident where
the stream ran purple after an indicator dye, luckily harmless,
leaked from a local factory got a huge public reaction.
|
