APPENDIX 12
Memorandum from Plantlife International
INTRODUCTION
Plantlife is the UK's only national membership
charity dedicated exclusively to conserving all forms of plant
life in their natural habitats. It has approximately 12,000 members
and owns 22 nature reserves with a total land holding of 3,900
acres. Plantlife is "Lead Partner" for 77 species under
the Government's Biodiversity Initiative. Conservation of these
is delivered through a recovery programme called Back from
the Brink. The programme implements Species Action Plans for
plants through survey, research, practical action and advice,
in partnership with other key players. Plantlife involves its
members as volunteers (called Flora Guardians) in delivering
many aspects of this work; at present over 200 people contribute
towards Back from the Brink in this way. Plantlife also
acts as the secretariat for Planta Europa, the European
network of organisations and individuals working for plant conservation
and botanical research.
Plantlife responds regularly to policy consultations
in England, Wales and Scotland and offers evidence where necessary
on issues that directly affect plants and the places where they
grow. The charity is particularly active in the areas of invasive
non native species, plant crime and wildlife legislation. Plantlife
is a member of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime
(PAW) and contributes to projects and training across the UK.
What is the scale and impact of wildlife crime?
Few plants are endangered by illegal collection
and existing legislation is sufficient, although increased vigilance/education
of police wildlife crime officers to encourage enforcement is
still a problem. Plants targeted for illegal collection include
spring bulbs and mosses, while illegal collection of other plants
and fungi is less well known. One of the main problems is with
detection and monitoring the scale of the problem. The solution
partly requires higher prioritisation for action in the police
force, through police operational orders for example, as the success
to date of Operation Artemis (2004) is showing.
There is still a lack of case law and prosecutions
are rare, although recent changes to wildlife legislation, including
the increase in penalty, may help if enforcement actually takes
place. It has unfortunately been the case that even if caught
and fined, wildlife crime can still pay because of the imbalance
between fine levels and profit. In addition, an ongoing case of
illegal moss collection in Scotland has demonstrated that plant
crime can be a small part of a much larger network of criminal
activity.
While ongoing training through PAW for police
officers, to which Plantlife contributes, is resulting in effective
action, policing of wildlife crime is more effective in some areas
than others, resulting in a lottery in terms of investigation
and prosecution. This is compounded by problems in getting wildlife
crime cases to court related to time pressures and insufficient
knowledge within the judiciary. There is an urgent need for co-ordinated
campaigns that are properly planned and resourced that can break
through current restrictions of lack of prioritisation, lack of
time resource and lack of knowledge within the court system to
bring about successful prosecutions.
Is the framework of national and European law
and of international regulation robust enough to deal with wildlife
crime effectively?
Most plants are endangered by habitat destruction
and the existing legislation fails to provide sufficient protection
to the places where threatened plants grow, although changes in
legislation with the Countryside and Rights Of Way Act 2000 in
England and Wales and the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003
with the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 have increased
the power of enforcement by introducing custodial sentences and
increasing the level of fines. However, habitat crime must be
tackled before it actually occurs and this requires investment
in relationship building with land owners plus awareness raising
of the issues with penalties. Once habitat has been adversely
affected by damaging activity, it is often too late to be able
to do anything more than make an example of the case. This was
very well illustrated by the prosecution in December 2003 of a
company following damage to an SSSI in Cornwall and its rare mosses
and liverworts.[9]
Wildlife crime involving habitat damage is one particular area
where education and awareness raising is crucial and is one of
the most effective preventative measures that can be put in place.
There is in addition a need for wildlife crime
specialists both in the judiciary and in the police force through
wildlife crime officers who understand the issues and have sufficient
knowledge of EU, UK and national law to be able to bring cases
to court successfully. This lack of specialist knowledge at local
level is hampering prosecutions for wildlife crime.
Do responsible bodies who deal with this type
of crime have sufficient resources and powers to do so? Do they
treat wildlife crime with proper and due gravity?
The second biggest threat to biodiversity, after
habitat destruction, is invasive non native species and these
remain inadequately addressed in legislation. We gave our full
support to the review of non native species commissioned by Defra
(2003) and we await with interest, the outcome of the recent Government
consultation on this issue, in England, Wales and Scotland. We
would like to see this issue tackled with some urgency as the
costs of invasive species control and eradication rise exponentially
with time while rare species disappear and habitats are degraded.
We strongly welcomed the legislation to ban the sale of the most
invasive plants in Scotland and would like to see similar measures
in England and Wales alongside a duty to control invasive non
native species in all three countries (see below). Just as non
native invasive species need to be tacked in a coherent manner
throughout England, Wales and Scotland, they similarly would be
better tackled in Northern Ireland from an all Ireland perspective.
In terms of species crime and the illegal collection
of plants and fungi in particular, there is an urgent need for
education and awareness raising. There are generally low levels
of awareness of wildlife crime issues and people do not realise
what is illegal, where licences are needed, or what they can do
to help combat these crimes. There need to be co-ordinated campaigns,
hung on relevant themes, like illegal moss collection for example,
that can highlight what damage illegal collection can do, why
it is illegal and what people can do to make sure it doesn't happen.
The PAW initiative Stolen from the wild illustrates a useful example
of this (see Appendix 1).
One of the answers to species crime is setting
up a kite mark for products that have been sustainably collected.
At the moment, consumers and retailers rely on the word of their
supplier on the source of products and have no way of verifying
if that product has been legally and sustainably sourced. Taking
forward Target 12 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation[10]
will help in this regard and will help the public and retailers
support sustainably managed plant products while highlighting
areas of illegal and unsustainable collection.
Is there sufficient dialogue and co-operation
across Government and amongst the various bodies responsible for
dealing with this type of crime?
Since the passage of the Nature Conservation
(Scotland) Act 2004, England, Wales and Northern Ireland now lag
behind Scotland in terms of legal measures available to combat
problem invasive species. One of the most effective tools in stopping
the spread of non native invasive species into the wild is a ban
on sale of the most invasive species and the new legislation in
Scotland now provides as framework for this to happen. However,
there remains in all three countries a lack of political commitment
to introduce a duty to control and this will continue to cause
problems in controlling and eradicating non native invasive plants.
It is possible that the Water Framework Directive may provide
some impetus to controlling invasive aquatic species where these
cause a loss of ecological status but the agencies responsible
for compliance remain without effective legislative back-up to
be able to tackle the problem of spread and control effectively.
We would also suggest that there is an urgent need for a new GB
body to take a co-ordinating role in this issue and that without
co-ordination and co-operation across the UK, effective action
to stop the spread and threat of non native invasive species will
be hampered.
June 2004
9 http://www.defra.gov.uk/paw/prosecutions/default.htm#Plants Back
10
Defra, DoE Northern Ireland, National Assembly of Wales and Scottish
Executive (2004) Plant Diversity Challenge: the UK's response
to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. Joint JNCC,
Plantlife International and RBG Kew publication. Back
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