Exclusive: Natural England chair Tony Juniper says government must work quickly to reconcile farming and nature. England will not meet its\u00a0biodiversity targets\u00a0at current rates, the chair of Natural England has said, as he accused ministers of moving too slowly to regenerate nature.<\/p>\n
Tony Juniper, who has been in post at the government\u2019s nature quango since 2019, said ministers were not on track to meet species abundance targets, which have been criticised by wildlife charities as \u201cembarrassingly poor\u201d.<\/p>\n
The government has set a legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 and committed to increasing<\/a> the abundance of wildlife by 10% by 2042 compared with 2030 levels. Juniper said: \u201cWe\u2019re not moving with the speed that will be needed to meet the 2030 species<\/a> target. And we\u2019re going to have to work much harder to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n He said ministers needed to work quickly to be able to fix the conflicts<\/a> between farming and nature. \u201cThis is about reconciling, again, some really quite complicated conundrums, including how, for example, we can maintain a high level of domestic food production<\/a> at the same time as bringing wildlife back into the landscape,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd some of this is about policy. Some of it is about knowledge. Some of it is about culture. It\u2019s a transition that can be made. But it does need to go more quickly than presently is the case if we\u2019re going to meet those 2030 targets.\u201d<\/p>\n Juniper has come under fire<\/a> from nature campaigners in recent weeks for continuing with a\u00a0trial scheme to protect hen harriers. The most controversial part of the trial is\u00a0taking the eggs\u00a0or chicks of some hen harriers nesting on grouse moors into captivity, rearing the birds to fledging age and releasing them back into the wild in the uplands of northern England. This is despite continued persecution of the birds<\/a>, which have historically been killed by gamekeepers working for the grouse industry as they predate on game birds. Recent research by the\u00a0RSPB\u00a0has shown that persecution is still the main cause of death for hen harriers, with many killed shortly after fledging.<\/p>\n The nature chief said he would continue with the trial to see if it worked, and that if persecution persisted he could advise ministers to clamp down on grouse shooting, licensing shoots in a\u00a0similar way to the Scottish government.<\/p>\n Juniper said: \u201cThe evidence suggests there is a continuing level of illegal persecution. And actually, not only is there illegal persecution, there is some really quite disturbing level of cruelty involved with this, with some of the instances of birds being pulled apart while they\u2019re still alive, nests being destroyed deliberately.<\/p>\n \u201cThat really does need to change if we\u2019re going to see the hen harrier plan as a success. And if we don\u2019t see it as a success, then we\u2019ll need to do something else. And we\u2019re very interested in the licensing discussion that\u2019s going on in Scotland, and the extent to which that may inform the future here.\u201d<\/p>\n The release of beavers in England appears to be something Juniper is passionate about, with a\u00a0Devon trial that ended in 2020\u00a0finding the rodents have huge benefits for the environment. They went extinct in the country from being hunted 400 years ago and have since been illegally released in small numbers by frustrated nature activists.<\/p>\n Juniper suggested ministers were dragging their feet over allowing beavers to be let loose in the countryside, despite the evidence showing they were good for the environment.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cWe have reached the conclusion of\u00a0Natural England\u00a0that it would be right to license beaver reintroductions into England. And that we\u2019re confident that can be managed in a way which would minimise risks to infrastructure and food security and to property. So we\u2019re awaiting decisions from ministers on that, it will be their decision. We need to be given a clear signal as to the approach ministers would like to adopt, we believe the evidence is clear as to the benefits of beavers.\u201d<\/p>\n Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Coffey, the environment secretary, has\u00a0ruled out the release\u00a0of wolves and lynx. Juniper said: \u201cI do welcome<\/a> the raising of the profile of some of these discussions because what she did do was encouraged a discussion and led to people debating the pros and cons of these kinds of proposals. It may be quite a long time before we can look at wolf but certainly there\u2019s many people now thinking about lynx, including in Scotland.\u201d<\/p>\n Another fierce debate raging in nature circles is over the right to roam. While some argue that people in England should\u00a0enjoy similar access\u00a0to nature as those in Scotland, who have free rein to roam the countryside \u2013 with some caveats \u2013 others fear it could lead to the trampling of sensitive habitat.<\/p>\n Juniper suggested he did not agree with a complete right to roam. \u201cI think being outside in the natural environment<\/a> is a very important thing that is hugely beneficial for people,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I do believe that we need to be careful about other interests that we need to maintain at the same time as public health, including the protection<\/a> of sensitive nature, which might be disturbed by dogs or by people who have the right to roam and not necessarily with a responsibility to protect. There\u2019s a lot of complexity in that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Exclusive: Natural England chair Tony Juniper says government must work quickly to reconcile farming and nature. England will not meet its\u00a0biodiversity targets\u00a0at current rates, the chair of Natural England has said, as he accused ministers of moving too slowly to regenerate nature. Tony Juniper, who has been in post at the government\u2019s nature quango since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6789"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6795,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789\/revisions\/6795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}