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Making a Great 25 Year Plan for the Environment

October 2017

The Government is in full swing drafting a 25 Year Plan for the environment (again). If done properly, with legally binding targets and milestones, we have the potential for the most ambitious but deliverable opportunity for the environment we’ve had in many years. Environmental NGOs have been working together to try and ensure the plan fully delivers for nature.

From a water, aquatic, fish splashing, frogs croaking, otters swimming perspective we are seeking commitment to improving protection and management of the aquatic environment.

This includes:

Ambition - we welcome that salmon are once again swimming up rivers where they have been absent for years, but there is still a long way to go. Less than 20% of our rivers, lakes and groundwaters are at good ecological status. River basin management plans take us some way to improving the quality of our water bodies but we must not rely on them as the sole answer to water quality. The timeline for those plans goes up to 2027 and this is a 25 Year Plan. Let’s build on the plans, and set ambitious targets for water quality into the future. Let’s face the issue of diffuse pollution. Simple changes to planning and land management could have significant benefits and reduce the costs to society of water treatment, flooding and loss of biodiversity.

Monitoring – we are concerned about the potential severity of cuts to environmental monitoring and hence the ability to identify problems, implement solutions and ensure that the polluter pays. Long-term monitoring is important to understanding change. Government bodies need data to make informed decisions, and this data collection requires resources and expertise. Environmental monitoring underpins good investment and apportionment of costs. There should also be a framework to enable the agencies to utilise third party data much more easily.

Integration and multiple benefits – funding often considers individual projects for too much water, too little water and water quality. Yet how we manage water using natural processes can do much more holistically. Re-meandering not only slows water down which reduces flooding, it can also locally increase low flows up to 15% [1]. Similarly, sustainable drainage systems can reduce surface water run-off and improve water quality and biodiversity as well as provide societal benefits; wetlands can be created which remove chemicals and sediment from water before it reaches a water course whilst also providing biodiversity benefit and slowing water down.

Let’s start thinking about managing water, rather than managing floods or drought or chemicals. Funding needs to incentivise delivery of multiple benefits from the inception of a project. It just doesn’t work if bolted on as an afterthought to tick a box. Strong regulation, incentives, new markets and new ways of working are all required.

Natural Capital Accounting – we welcome a natural capital approach but alongside the following stipulations. There is a need to protect the environment because it is the right thing to do. Biodiversity loss is one of our biggest problems and one of the hardest things to monetise, but arguably the most important area to stop loss, protect and enhance. Assigning a monetary value is not always possible and sometimes we should protect the environment even if the pound signs do not add up. We also have to be careful that in putting monetary values on environmental services we do not bias investment towards easy wins, such as flood mitigation and carbon storage. The 25 Year Plan should include a set of biodiversity indicators and targets, separate from natural capital objectives.

Catchment based approach – we need to take a catchment based approach for integrated water management, from source to sea. Adequate monitoring is crucial to identify issues in catchments and understand where the most beneficial interventions will be. Opportunity mapping could help identify not only the issues in a catchment, but also how measures might act upon each other and who might benefit.

The plan needs to apply across Government. Without commitment from other departments such as Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government, DEFRA cannot achieve the Government’s ambition to leave the environment in a better state than it found it, even with the most ambitious plan.

The Government have promised that the 25 Year Plan will be a living document, but let’s make it as good as it can be from the start. We’ve been sharing our thoughts with Government and now there’s the opportunity for you too. Every day in Parliament, nature’s needs are drowned out by other louder voices. Now, with the future of our environment laws at stake, it's #TimeToBeHeard. Please take the time to email your MP.

Hannah Freeman

Senior Government Affairs Officer, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/blueprint/pdf/EUR25551EN_JRC_Blueprint_NWRM.pdf