Biodiversity
78. An important area of Defra's work is its commitment
to halt the loss of biodiversity. The Government's Biodiversity
Strategy, launched in 2002, represents the "bringing
together of England's key contributions to achieving the EU Gothenburg
target to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010".[128]
The Departmental Report states that over half the indicators used
to measure progress of the Strategy were assessed as making positive
progress towards achieving the objective. The other indicators
all showed either no change or an uncertain trend due to a lack
of long-term data or short-term fluctuations in data.[129]
79. We asked the Permanent Secretary how confident
she was that the Department was making progress to halt the loss
of biodiversity by 2010 when the indicators for the Biodiversity
Strategy showed such a mixed picture. She told us that the data
from the indicators did not necessarily give the "full picture".[130]
She believed that encouraging information recently obtained from
the Countryside Agency, on issues such as hedgerow replacements,
as well as the halt in the long-term decline in farmland bird
populations—"a proxy for a great many other things
in the eco system"—showed that the Government was making
progress with its biodiversity commitments.[131]
80. However, the Permanent Secretary told us that
Defra faced two, more general, challenges in terms of its work
on biodiversity. Firstly, the Department still lacked a broad
"end-to-end view of eco systems and the related biodiversity
issues".[132]
She explained that there was no "Domesday Book" to chart
the current biodiversity situation across the whole of the country,
and that such a document would be too expensive to produce.[133]
It was therefore important for the Department to develop an "eco
systems approach" to biodiversity, and she said work in this
area had been commissioned by the Secretary of State.[134]
One aspect of this involved the Department considering how better
to measure outcomes related to biodiversity.[135]
81. Secondly, the Permanent Secretary believed that
the Department needed to be "clearer about why we are concerned
about biodiversity in itself".[136]
At present, she said, the Department did not have "a clear
idea" in its engagements with other Government departments
"about why it is we value things".[137]
She explained:
… we need to know the value of biodiversity,
partly so we can argue more strongly for biodiversity and partly
so we know what are the elements of the natural world that we
really need to protect beyond all others, [for example] the Grand
Bank and cod.[138]
The Permanent Secretary stressed that it was important
the Department began thinking about biodiversity in "a slightly
different way".[139]
82. We welcome the Permanent Secretary's candour
that the Department needs to improve the rigour of its approach
to biodiversity and related issues. A broader understanding of
biodiversity and its value, as well as eco systems, can only improve
the formulation and enactment of Government policy in this important
area. We look forward to seeing evidence of such a new approach
soon.
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