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30 Apr 2009 : Column 328WH—continued
As I mentioned earlier, the UN has identified the need for greater attention to be paid to marine conservation and improved management of fisheries. The health of
our seas is inextricably linked to our ability to tackle climate change. Our oceans play a key role in regulating the planet’s climate: they act as a form of heat reservoir, slowing the rate at which temperatures rise and fall; and ocean currents redistribute heat around the planet and are the main source of water vapour to the atmosphere, determining the patterns of droughts and floods. Most importantly, the ocean acts as a major sink for natural and man-made carbon dioxide. The Marine and Coastal Access Bill gives us a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference to marine biodiversity in the UK and the sustainability of our fisheries, and I know that the Minister agrees that it is an opportunity we simply cannot afford to miss.
The 2012 common fisheries policy reforms also offer us a chance to overhaul the management of fisheries, improve sustainability and tackle the decline in our fish stocks. That means looking hard and fast at important issues, such as the number of juvenile fish we discard and the effect that has on stocks. We need to encourage sustainable fishing and sustainable fishing equipment and we must be bold in our ambitions. I am pleased by the tone of the Commission’s new Green Paper on that: it is a good working document from which we could achieve much in the 2012 reforms.
We absolutely must do more on the ground in the UK to reduce the negative impact on biodiversity. While climate change threatens 46 per cent. of habitats in Britain, the loss of set-aside and the effects of development in rural areas have also played a role in the decline of our biodiversity. Rather than setting arbitrary targets that are repeatedly missed, the Government need to address how we build, farm, fish, manage our forests and live so that we might halt the worrying decline in our country’s biodiversity.
During yesterday’s debate on honey bee health I gave the example, which I often mention, of the Berkshire downs, which I have the luck to represent. It is a hauntingly beautiful landscape, even though it is now used almost entirely by only one form of agriculture. When I was a child, and even until quite recently, it was a mixed farming environment. The loss of mixed farming in areas such as the central south of England has had a huge effect on migrating birds and a range of different activities. That is why we talked about it yesterday in relation to the loss of important pollinators, which have to travel much further to find pollen because our farming has changed. We must recognise what we have done to our countryside and incentivise land managers and others to develop farming and land use systems that reflect the needs of the whole population.
We should all keep our minds open to new opportunities that arise for supporting greater biodiversity. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said recently:
“In the same way in which we are now recognising the importance of putting a price on carbon, society needs to recognise the significance of attributing a value to biodiversity.”
Other parts of the world are well ahead of Britain in developing the concept of conservation credits as a way of counterbalancing development. That has the potential to unlock a market-funded mechanism for new biodiversity projects at local, regional or even national level. If we get that right, it would present an exciting opportunity to reverse the recent decline in biodiversity.
While acknowledging the success of the Darwin initiative and what it has done in setting up projects abroad, we must ensure that our language on this whole issue—I am using my words carefully—does not verge on the patronising. The success of the Darwin initiative is that it has supported projects abroad. Many of them are in our own territories, but many are not. That form of support and funding for small projects can have enormous benefit and is a wonderful thing, but we also need to sort out our problems at home. We have serious biodiversity problems in the UK, and the damage done by failing to tackle those problems in an effective and timely manner will far outweigh any good we can achieve abroad.
I finish by quoting Tony Blair, who said:
“Much achieved; much more to do.”
I am not sure that I agree with him on what he said that about, but if he was talking about the Darwin initiative, I fully agree.
2.58 pm
Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab): In the 200th anniversary year of the birth of one of our greatest scientists, writers and seers, it is appropriate that we should not only appreciate and understand Charles Darwin’s unsurpassed contribution to many of the areas that we are talking about, but talk about the initiative that bears his name and has been one of the entirely unheralded successes of this country and of DEFRA over the past 16 years.
In “On the Origin of Species” Charles Darwin was very clear about what he regarded as the inevitability of advanced societies, with technology, resources and the ability to travel, occupying the lands of less advanced societies, driving them out and eventually exterminating their livelihoods and actual existence. One of the caveats he put on that idea was the extent to which human intelligence and understanding might reverse that inevitability. The Darwin initiative is, in many ways, following in the footsteps of that perception and understanding.
The initiative takes funding and projects that are not large in funding terms, but may be large in effect and influence to countries that, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, are biodiversity rich but resource poor. In its life, the initiative has covered almost 650 projects in almost 150 countries, so it really is a worldwide initiative. Understanding of the importance of biodiversity is often absent, but biodiversity, like climate change, does not stop at national borders: we are all poorer for the loss of biodiversity and we are all richer by its maintenance and enhancement. The true global scope of the Darwin initiative underlines that understanding of the emergency in terms of ensuring that biodiversity across the world is maintained.
Biodiversity is not just about preserving species, although it is often discussed in those terms. An interesting observation is that, including those species that we have identified so that we can put them on the endangered list, we as a human race have identified some 1.75 million species, yet it is generally reckoned that across the world there are some 13 million species, although that may be a substantially conservative estimate. It is possible that, every day, we exterminate a number of species that we will never, ever know about because we have not discovered them yet, and so have not even decided whether they
should be protected, placed on the endangered list, or made the subject of other measures that are used in relation to known species.
We have already heard about the dangers of species extermination, which continues throughout the world. Species are exterminated because we are consuming for our own purposes the environments that support biodiversity—the forests, wetlands, bogs, reefs and coastal areas. Supporting biodiversity is not just about maintaining a few remnants of species in zoos so we can look at them there; it is about maintaining the habitat and environment where those species can flourish. When those habitats are maintained, as Darwin observed, we cannot simply shut them off from the human world. We have to ensure, as far as we can, that those environments exist sustainably with the humans that live in and around them, and that the net result of the human occupation of those areas enhances their biodiversity and does not crush it.
It is good that the Darwin initiative has been concentrating on projects with partners to develop sustainable conservative networks that work with the indigenous people in many parts of the world, as opposed to working against them, to maintain enhanced biodiversity in those areas. A little while ago I plucked out the following example of a Darwin initiative programme: a sustainable conservation network for primates in Ecuador to protect and preserve the habitat of the critically endangered brown-headed spider monkey, which has been attacked particularly—again, as Darwin predicted—by development and resource exploitation. The project was all about developing a comprehensive strategy for the protection of that monkey, for example, through habitat monitoring and development, and by working for the sustainable livelihoods of local communities within those habitats. Local people in those areas are now fully active as para-biologists: they are leading habitat surveys and training others to do the same, and they are monitoring and reporting on the spider monkey. The spider monkey has become part of their society and is not something to be placed on the margins. That is exactly the right route for the funding, some £73 million of which has so far been allocated through the Darwin initiative. The funding allocation this year is £7 million.
The Darwin initiative was set in train after the Earth summit, alongside the signing of the biodiversity convention, which talks about how humans can live sustainably in their world with the species and habitats that exist together with them. The biodiversity convention and the Darwin initiative have developed hand in hand. In 2007, the Darwin initiative was extended to cover the convention on international trade in endangered species and the convention on migratory species, particularly in respect of ocean-going birds, which are not really the property or the concern of any one country but which have international significance that the convention underpins.
The Darwin initiative is a credit to the UK and, although it never gets a headline in the newspapers and is never the subject of heated debate in the main Chamber, it is nevertheless essential. It is a credit to the UK that the programme has been sustained and maintained over its 16 years of life. It also underlines what we have heard about, and will hear about, what we are doing closer to home to promote biodiversity.
It is important that in the upcoming Marine and Coastal Access Bill we ensure that marine conservation zones off our coasts are properly designed in law, properly established and properly resourced for their maintenance and development. Just as I have emphasised that it is necessary to world biodiversity for the natural environment to exist sustainably alongside its human occupants, it is important that those marine conservation zones be carefully considered. Thought should be given to how the sea bed and the underwater environment can be maintained and sustained, and perhaps extended, in relation to human activities on and above the surface. That means looking at other imperatives, such as the development of offshore energy and how shipping should operate within those zones. We should examine whether there are circumstances in which some of those zones can—for example, by the establishment of what are effectively marine reefs—enhance the marine life in those areas, which will be protected from fishing and exploitation, dredging and other activities that have often been a scourge of our coast and have impoverished the marine diversity at our own back door.
Finally, in commending the Darwin initiative, I want to raise three issues. So far, the money has—almost uniquely in what might be seen as a Government programme—been unquestionably well spent: it has been tightly and carefully spent in a well organised way. However, the initiative is always oversubscribed and it is now extending its scope to take in other key issues that go hand in hand with the convention on biological diversity. It will come as no great surprise, therefore, when I say that one of the best memorials that we could have to one of the greatest British scientists and, indeed, British men of the past 500 years—incidentally, Charles Darwin had a rather poor view of our other greatest British person, saying that he had attempted to read some of his plays, but found them unutterably dull and had not continued—would be to secure, increase and enhance the funding for the Darwin initiative over the next 16 years. In that way, the initiative’s work will be able to occupy a wider canvas and ensure that Britain makes a contribution of lasting and sustainable significance to world biodiversity action.
3.11 pm
Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): It is a pleasure and a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), who has a long record of interest, expertise and campaigning on these issues. As he has said, these issues are not often in the mainstream of parliamentary debate, and it is good that they are being debated today, especially as no other debate of such interest or significance is taking place at the moment—everyone will be watching. When we look back at the record, we will see that the House has been debating some serious long-term issues relating to how we preserve the environment.
I am not one of my party’s Front-Bench environmental spokespeople, and I am substituting somewhat belatedly for colleagues who are—I speak on science. I want to take this opportunity to praise the work, intentions and operation of the Darwin initiative. The initiative is sponsored by DEFRA, which has a big and often controversial science budget. I want to ask a few questions about the science of some of the issues that we are discussing to bring a slightly different perspective.
Having said that, I do not disagree with anything that the Minister or the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) have said. The hon. Member for Newbury has a particularly beautiful constituency, and I am sure that the Minister’s constituency of Ogmore is just as beautiful in its own way—even if it does not have huge amounts of biodiversity, it certainly has a great deal of diversity. In every hon. Member’s constituency, there are important species that need protecting—animal species, rather than species of voters, that is.
In the last Parliament, I served on the then Select Committee on Science and Technology inquiry into the use of science and research in developmental aid in the developing world, which briefly covered some of the issues that come under the Darwin initiative, although my visit to Malawi concentrated on the use of science and technology in fighting the scourge of human infectious diseases. I want to probe the Minister in general terms later about a couple of the issues raised by the Committee’s report. However, I do not intend to repeat the toll of species that are under threat around the world, because hon. Members have already set out the figures.
Given that we are talking about the Darwin initiative, it is important to reiterate the significance of Darwin. This is the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On the Origin of Species”, and Darwin’s work is important in many ways. Evolution is the truth—it is the explanation for the diversity of life on earth. It is called a theory, but a theory is something that has been subject to experiment and that evidence has supported; the theory of evolution is not a theory in the sense that it has not been proven, but that is often misunderstood. In his theory of evolution, Darwin undermined the established view, which it was brave to do. The theory is a symbol of the importance of independent scientific inquiry. If also reflects the way in which he worked—the fastidiousness of his scientific method, which involved collecting evidence to test and retest a proposition.
It is important to note that some people have argued—foolishly and sometimes not in all seriousness—that the loss of biodiversity is what evolution is about. They say, “Species die out. That’s evolution—survival of the fittest.” However, that is not what we are talking about. Evolution works through natural selection, but what we are seeing in the loss of species is unnatural selection. We are seeing not natural competition, but man-made competition, which is caused among other things by man’s importation of invasive, non-indigenous species. When Darwin talks about evolution and changes, with some species dying out or turning into other species, he is talking about something that happens over eons rather than over the microscopically short time scales that we see today as a result of the man-made problems facing the natural world.
I am pleased that research is a component of the Darwin initiative and that research projects receive funding. I hope that all the projects that are funded—this is public funding—include an operational research component that allows them to be properly evaluated. I also hope that any formal research that is funded is published, whether or not it gives the answer that people want, and even if it gives a negative result. Will the Minister let us know—if not now, later—whether a condition for receiving funding is that formal research is published in
a peer-reviewed journal? Will he tell us whether the evaluation—whether it is mere evaluation or formal operational research looking at whether what has been done works, so that we know what to fund more of and what not to fund—is published in a way that benefits Parliament and those involved in deciding what to fund?
The Darwin initiative is based on the UK’s expertise in academia and on non-governmental organisations’ core of expertise and energy. Darwin initiative funding does not fund everything, unlike some Department for International Development funding, so NGOs have to fundraise and work hard both to find collaborators to do the work and to keep the issues on the agenda. As we speak, we face the possibility of the loss of human life on a huge scale, if the worst fears about pandemic flu are realised. Although the chronic loss of human life to infectious disease will always be with us, it is nevertheless important that the issues that we are discussing are kept on the agenda.
It is important to recognise that international collaboration is needed to preserve biodiversity, and I was pleased that the Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Newbury, talked about the need for the proper international control of fish stocks, which requires common policies. In the EU, that means an EU common fisheries policy. We can argue about whether such a policy is the right one from an environmental point of view and a British point of view, although it is important that we do not become so nationalistic and interested in Britain’s national interest that we lose sight of the main issue. However, I hope that it will become increasingly obvious to those who are sceptical about European co-operation that we must work internationally on certain issues, because marine life does not respect boundaries. We would do that best by getting stuck into negotiations, rather than by complaining from the outside.
We must also recognise that the impact of climate change makes the sort of projects funded by the Darwin initiative programme even more critical. Accelerating climate change is a huge threat to biodiversity because of two impacts, one direct and one indirect: first, there is change in habitat by desertification; and, secondly, there is the requirement to convert more land to farmland to meet food security needs, which, in turn, are affected by climate change and other factors. This country must come up with a strategy, with our international partners, to tackle those impacts. The challenge for all parties, including Opposition parties, is to think about the role that new technology in agriculture can play, and how to get a balance between using new technology in agriculture, including genetic modification, which should not be treated as a “burn the witch” issue, and recognising that there can be a threat to biodiversity from introducing such new biological entities. However, the instinctive knee-jerk complaint against genetically modified entities is not justified, given that new strains created by conventional breeding programmes must also, I believe, be tested and carefully researched for their impact on biodiversity when they are introduced.
We must increase yields in agriculture. That will mean new technologies, or, if we do not increase yields, it will mean ploughing over—in the metaphorical sense—more land that is natural habitat, to cultivate it. Parliament must recognise that. My party has always been sceptical about genetic modification. I think—I say this from the
Front Bench—that there is debate about whether we should change our approach on that, keeping it precautionary but not necessarily being so hostile, and recognising that there is a real requirement to think about the matter. However, we must not lose sight of the potential dangers, and we must be fair to the developing world. We cannot recognise that it is short of the food that it needs and offer it technology, but then say that we will never import produce that comes from that technology, because the countries in question will not accept the technology if they feel that it will damage their export markets.
I have a few questions for the Minister about the Darwin initiative. One is about the performance of recipient countries, or rather the projects in those countries and the extent to which the projects appear not to be working, because there is a failure to meet targets. Is that a factor in deciding whether to put in more funding, until the policy or priorities of the Governments in question are changed? Secondly, I refer to recommendations in the Environmental Audit Committee’s 2008 report entitled “Halting biodiversity loss”. To what extent have the Government accepted and implemented all the recommendations in that report, such as adopting what the Committee described as
“a truly joined-up approach to environmental protection”
in the UK overseas territories and Crown dependencies,
“by bringing together all relevant departments including the FCO...DfID, Defra...and the governments of the UKOTs”?
I also wonder whether the Government are making
“better use of the Inter-Departmental Group on biodiversity to provide more oversight and support for the development and implementation of effective environmental protection policy in the UKOTs,”
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