UK government nature plan: all English to live within 15 minutes’ walk of “green space or water”

Sunday, February 5, 2023

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom government released the Environmental Improvement Plan, pledging every English person will have “a green space or water” 15 minutes or less’ walk from their home.

The ‘ambitious’ five-year strategy would also create or expand 25 national reserves, restore wildlife habitats and rivers, use millions of pounds to create a Species Survival Fund, set waste disposal regulations, revitalize air quality, invest in sustainable agriculture, and declare environmental policy a pillar of the government’s decisions.

The Plan is to recover or establish a minimum of 2,000 square miles for wild animals and recover 400 miles of inland waterways in England. It also lays out requirements aiming for the reversal of the population decrease of species like hedgehogs, red squirrels, and water voles by 2030, necessary to meet international goals from December’s United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15).

In addition, the Plan would fix regulations on the disposal of glass, metal, paper, plastic, and food for those five years.

The Plan is to use incentives for 65% to 80% of rural landlords to ensure 10% to 15% of their land uses sustainable practices by 2030. It is also supposed to fund their construction of hedgerows-30,000 miles annually by 2037, then 45,000 by 2050.

The Environmental Improvement Plan is expected to set regulations on “confusing dual flush buttons” and leaking toilets.

The government considers any plant-occupied land “green space”; this can be private property, like gardens, or public property, including parks, forests, swamps, obsolete railroad lines, and sports fields.

In July 2020, the UK’s national cartographic agency, the Ordnance Survey, reported about 28% of people on Great Britain lived farther than a 15-minute walk from a public park, while another 28% were five minutes or less’ walk.

A 2020 Office for National Statistics study found Black English people were almost four times more likely than White English people to lack access to a green space.

Natural England, the governmental nature advisory board, determined the same year, “[P]eople who live in neighbourhoods with greater amounts of green infrastructure tend to be happier, healthier and live longer lives than those who live in less green places.”

A January report by the UK’s environmental monitor, the Office for Environmental Protection, warned the government was “far short” of its obligations, and the country was experiencing “a deeply concerning decline in biodiversity”, while environmentalists urged a “quantum shift” in nature policy.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that the populations of 149 “priority species” in 2018 were, on average, 18% of those in 1970-in other words, an 82% decline.

The BBC pointed to the pine marten as a success story in restoring wildlife in the UK. This small woodland mammal lived around the nation before it was driven into decline by humans, who logged its habitat and hunted it.

However, pine martens fared better in Scotland; during the past decade, conservationists relocated a few specimens to central Wales and Gloucestershire, England’s Wye Valley and Forest of Dean boosting the species’ numbers there.

The Vincent Wildlife Trust’s Lizzie Croose declared, “The pine marten is a good example of how a species can recover if people stop killing them, you provide more habitat and you direct conservation efforts.” The Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust’s Jamie Kingscott said a holistic approach to nature restoration was necessary: “We need to think on a landscape scale…We’re running out of time and we have to start to think bigger.”

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak stated his belief in the close connection between the health of the environment and the health of the nation’s economy and people.

He continued, “This plan provides the blueprint for how we deliver our commitment to leave our environment in a better state than we found it, making sure we drive forward progress with renewed ambition and achieve our target of not just halting, but reversing the decline of nature.”

Therese Coffey, as Environment Secretary, introduced the Plan and echoed Sunak’s comments: “Nature is vital for our survival, crucial to our food security, clean air, and clean water as well as health and wellbeing benefits.”

“We have already started the journey and we have seen improvements…We are transforming financial support for farmers and landowners to prioritise improving the environment, we are stepping up on tree planting, we have cleaner air, we have put a spotlight on water quality and rivers and are forcing industry to clean up its act.”

However, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said on the BBC Radio 4 show Today, “At the moment nearly three million people live more than 10 minutes from green space and any new access would be needed to be protected in perpetuity.”

She expressed concern over the Plan’s potential detriment to farmers: “If it means access on farmers’ land, obviously that would need to be squared with farmers and finance might be needed for that as well.”

Greenpeace UK’s Dr. Doug Parr reprimanded, “If this is a road map, it’s a road map to the cliff edge…Here’s yet more paperwork containing threadbare patchwork of policies that fail to tackle many of the real threats to our natural world. This won’t do. Ministers want to crack down on dual flush toilets while letting water firms pump tonnes of raw sewage into our rivers and seas.”

“Until we see immediate action (from) this Parliament to ban industrial fishing in all our marine protected areas, reduce industrial meat and dairy farming and ramp up protections across a bigger network of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, we’re in real danger of UK nature going into freefall.”

Friends of the Earth’s Paul de Zylva said, “On closer inspection it seems that many (of the measures) are just rehashed commitments the government is already late on delivering – and it’s unclear how others, such as ensuring everyone can live within a 15 minute walk of green space, will actually be met…There’s also a big emphasis on improving air quality which is completely at odds with the government’s £27bn road building agenda, raising serious questions over whether councils are being set up to fail.”

The Wildlife Trusts CEO Craig Bennett declared “the whole of government” must work “to halt the chronic loss of nature and tackle this existential threat to our prosperity, our ability to produce food, and to have enough clean water.”

Wildlife and Countryside Link director Richard Benwell said the Plan is “a biodiversity to-do list for every minister in government.”

World Wide Fund for Nature head Alec Taylor said, “Access to green space is without doubt vital – but when that space is polluted or devoid of nature, it doesn’t mean much.”

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