Yesterday the Prime Minister made her first speech on the Environment to announce the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan. Although the media attention has mainly focused on the issue of plastics, the plan is much more wide-ranging and includes policies under six chapters covering:
- Using and managing land sustainably
- Recovering nature and enhancing the beauty of landscapes
- Connecting people with the environment to improve health and wellbeing
- Increasing resource efficiency and reducing pollution and waste
- Securing clean, healthy, productive and biologically diverse seas and oceans
- Protecting and improving our global environment
So, what should we make of this plan? After all we have heard similar words from Governments in the past that have turned out to be hollow.
I think the good news is that the Government recognises how much the environment means to people, not least young people. Furthermore, the ambitions espoused in the plan are ones that even the most ardent environmentalist would support, and certainly the plan contains many of the approaches that The Wildlife Trusts have been calling for many years.
However, the plan is light in commitment to the measures that will be necessary to achieve these ambitions – the lack of a legal underpinning is a fundamental flaw. We believe that there must be an ambitious Environment Act in the next Queen’s speech that will signal the government’s commitment to act. If the words about environmental leadership are to be meaningful, the government needs to ensure that there is a requirement across all ministries and departments such as housing and health to deliver the ambitions set out in the plan.
I shall be contacting our MPs on this basis in the next few weeks. The plan has created a new momentum, which we must not allow to become dissipated. There is an opportunity to push for real change that could have a very positive and lasting impact for both wildlife and people.
You can read the plan in 'Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment'