Thread by @Andrew9Boswell

THREAD

More on Natural England's licencing system and lack of protection of IUCN rare species

1. @NorfolkCC want to dual the A47 Acle Straight h this is East of Norwich and the last 12 mile stretch to Great Yarmouth

2. Problem for NCC & @HighwaysEngland

A snail ....
1/N

Here's the snail

The Lesser Whirlpool Ramshorn Snail (LWRS)

It is found only in 3 UK sites 👉sac.jncc.gov.uk/species/S4056/

See map⬇️⬇️

2/N

So how do you get rid of a problem like the tiny LWRS snail which might stop you building that road ...

As the road is going to destroy the entire habitat - Broadland drainage ditches

You move the entire colony

Translocation ...

3/N

So first thing to do is a feasibility study

Is it feasible to move an entire population of an IUCN protected species h those pesky little snails - do you can build your road?

Here's the 2015 feasibility study 👉gov.uk/government/upl…

A three year study 2015-2018

4/N

5/N

Now here is how @NaturalEngland and their licencing system fit in

NE provided the licence to do the feasibility study to consultants AECOM

They supported investigating how to move an entire population of those pesky little snails ...

@TonyJuniper

So this raises a lot of questions

The drainage ditches &landscape are a SAC, partly due to the LWRS snails

SACs are protected by 3 sequential steps ⬇️

A - However, the translocation study, itself potentially damaging to an IUCN species started BEFORE any of these tests

6/N

...
B - the Translocation study was driven entirely by economic development concerns and not by conservation concerns

Yet @NaturalEngland happy to sign it off via their licence

@MarianSpain
7/N

C - No Transparency & Democracy

No quasi-judicial decision (eg a decision within the UK Planning system) was taken to initiate the 3 year translocation trial

8/N

D - No Transparency & Democracy AGAIN

No formal political decision, transparent and subject to scrutiny (ie by the Government or by the local Council @NorfolkCC) was taken to initiate the trial

9/N

Transparency was limited to a few self-selected people/groups inc @NaturalEngland deciding they knew what was best ...

Remember we are talking about an @iucn red list species

@TonyJuniper @MarianSpain
10/N

Read the above thread ⬆️⬆️

This is unacceptable and it should not happen again
#georgeeustace
@DefraGovUK

@TonyJuniper
@MarianSpain
@NaturalEngland
11/11

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