Thread by @RSPBEngland

🌍Explainer! On #EnvironmentAct targets

Yesterday we made a formal complaint that @DefraGovUK missed its own legal deadline for publishing #EnvironmentAct targets in England.

These are important targets that will help set ambition for and drive nature’s recovery.

BUT ... 🧵

... we also had quite a few issues with the draft targets @DefraGovUK proposed in the consultation (read via link 👇).

Here’s a couple we are really concerned about … and there’s a reason we’re sharing this with you …

consult.defra.gov.uk/natural-enviro…

The point here is that most of what bothers us is in the detail, and we want our supporters to know what this is so you can judge UK Government rhetoric against the reality of actual proposals. Warm words are great, but we need action! So …

First - as it stands, there is NO proposed #EnvironmentAct target for improving the condition of protected sites on land, such as SSSIs, SPAs and SACs. These include, for instance, some of our best woodlands, wetlands, heaths and moors across the country.

And these are not in great condition - for SSSI's in 2021 62% were in unfavourable condition by @NaturalEngland's calculation …

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

And as SSSI's underpin SACs and SPAs, the same condition can be extended to these.

It's pretty poor – it means they are not doing the job nature needs. And yet these SHOULD be the backbone of any plan to restore nature in England – they are the best of what we have left for nature and yet the majority are in a sorry state

The UK Government accepts this in the targets consultation. But it says it will be dealt with when Defra responds to the Nature Recovery Green paper. But there’s no sign of that happening, and there are no new nature laws on the agenda for this Parliament.

And the clock is ticking - we have 8 years left to restore 30% of land by 2030 as per UK Gov ambitions.

So that’s the first thing that concerns us, the second one is this ...

The Env Act consultation suggests a target to a) halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 b) increase species abundance by at least 10% by 2042, compared to 2030 levels.

So, while we welcome the ambitious target for 2030 (see our blog 👇) there’s a hitch …

community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/natu…

That first target is just to HALT the decline by 2030. Which means wildlife abundance could continue to decline over the next 8 years. Which at 2% average decline per year (the number given in the consultation doc) means allowing a further decline of up to 15%.

So why on earth set 2030 as the baseline for a future increase of 10% to 2042.

That could mean, potentially, legally binding the UK Government to a lower species abundance in 2042 than today!

This means potentially fewer butterflies in hedgerows and less birdsong in our woods

Of course, Gov would say this is a minimum etc, but why not set some actual ambition?

Why not set 2022 as the baseline (which is a known) and go for a much bigger percentage increase for 2042?

"At least 10%" - is that the best we can do?

And then cost it into the mechanisms by which this will be achieved, such as ensuring good protected site condition, and properly funding nature through an ambitious Environment Land Management Scheme - given 71% of our land is farmland.

These are a couple of things to look out for when @DefraGovUK publish its targets. And one of the ways of measuring the warm words from UK Government against the reality of what's on the table.

Don't get us wrong, the fact that we have an Environment Act is great. But for it to support delivery of "the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth" it's going to have some meaningful targets and big numbers in it and then drive the means to deliver these

We ask all our supporters to keep asking questions about the details and keep the pressure up. We can help with these explainers and get our experts to provide analysis ... but we want to help give you the power to help hold the UK Government to account as well.

Read our full response to the Environment Act targets consultation here:

rspb.org.uk/globalassets/d…