A Colombian delegation is coming to London to mark the anniversary of a ground-breaking popular consultation that has stopped what would be the world’s largest gold mine in its tracks – while raising up sustainable alternatives – in the midst of the country’s elections.

Mining is presented by companies and the majority of the world’s governments as a driver of development, despite being one of the most destructive and deadly industries on Earth. So it is no surprise that communities are frequently labelled ‘anti-development’ and ‘anti-progress’ when they stand up to reject mining projects. 

The small town of Piedras in July of 2013 became the first community in Colombia to hold a popular consultation – public referendum – on the fate of a mining project in its municipal territory. Four years later – on 26th March 2017 – what would have become the world’s largest gold mine was banned by the people of Cajamarca in a popular consultation that gave citizens the chance to decide the project’s future.

Alternatives to mining

The ability of a community of small-farmers to autonomously organise and claim direct ownership of a legally-binding democratic mechanism has served as an inspiration for dozens of communities facing similar threats.

Since Cajamarca’s landmark victory there has been a “boom” in popular consultations across the nation. 54 municipalities are currently organising similar consultations against extractive projects. Nine others have already held their own consultations, with each and every one delivering a resounding ‘no’ to planned mining, gas and oil extraction. 

Activist Mariana Gomez Soto is one of three envoys of Cajamarca’s pioneering efforts who have travelled to the UK to share Cajamarca’s story. She says the boom in popular consultations has big implications for Colombia at large: “People are not just asking for an end to mining”, Mariana said.

“They are calling for a new paradigm and a new development model that includes alternatives that are rooted in and serve the well-being of the planet and the people.” 

Mariana is joined in the UK by ethnobotanist Ricardo de la Pava and Director of Sustainability at Crepes and Waffles, Felipe Macia. Since the consultation, they have been working with the small-scale farmers of Cajamarca to support alternatives to mining that are rooted in rejuvenated local democracy and the ‘true treasures’ of Cajamarca.

Practical work

Before, during, and since the Cajamarca’s popular consultation, grassroots collectives based in the region, such as COSAJUCA, have demonstrated – with trucks vibrantly decorated in fruit and vegetables and thousands of free servings of sancocho in the central square – the true wealth and abundance of Cajamarca. These demonstrations and acts are grounded in a centuries-old agrarian culture that is firmly rooted in Cajamarca.

Mariana, Ricardo and Felipe represent an emerging alliance of peasant farmers, grassroots activists, NGOs and businesses committed to sustainability and social justice.

Recent collaborations with national restaurant chain, Crepes and Waffles, and Bogota’s Museum of Modern Art (MAMBO) have helped give visibility to the resilience and commitment of Cajamarca’s peasant farmers and activists at a national level. And Crepes and Waffles has committed to purchasing arracacha- a type of Andean parsnip – directly from growers in Cajamarca, shortening the supply chain while actively promoting Cajamarca’s autonomy through celebrating arracacha-based dishes. 

Ricardo, an ethnobotanist who has been working with growers in the region, explains the importance of this collaboration: “The first thing has been to build relationships with the producers associations directly.

“We started with the arracacha growers association. This was very practical work, identifying what kinds of arracacha could be transported easily, for example, in what quantities, and making sure this works for and represents significant trade for the association. We have been buying almost half a tonne, 500kg per week, since November 2017.”

Abandoned and impoverished

The recent exhibition in Bogota’s museum of modern art entitled ‘Vital Gold’ subverts the notion of the metal as representing ultimate value, while re-centering what represents ‘true treasures’ of different territories and communities throughout Colombia. For the people of Cajamarca, arracacha represents this ‘vital gold’.

It is this ‘gold’- socially rooted, culturally rich and ecologically healthy – that Crepes & Waffles wants to support as part of a wider vision.

“We intend to pave the way for businesses to act as change agents in order to create an economy where success is defined by the wellbeing of people and ecosystems. Converting Colombia’s unique natural richness into mining pits represents an irreversible loss for the global effort to prevent climate change and an eventual ecological collapse”, Felipe Macia said.

While the popular consultations have become a beacon of hope and inspiration for communities throughout Colombia, they have also been targeted by conservative politicians and the business press. 

Cajamarca was falsely depicted as a ‘ghost town’ in an article published in February of this year. The piece accused the popular consultation for driving out economic activity and investment, leaving the community abandoned and impoverished. The same narrative has been repeated by government and corporate officials alike.

Popular consultations

“Anyone who knows Cajamarca and where it’s located – on an important trading road – would understand that Cajamarca is not a ghost town. This is just part of the story that anywhere that rejects mining is condemned to be poor”, say Mariana.

This story plays a leading role in putting the lives of environmental defenders at risk- demonising their efforts to take agency over the future of their territory. As the municipality of Cajamarca, and other communities across Colombia are showing, nothing could be further from the truth, and popular consultations have gained a prominent place in the Colombian public’s consciousness.

With legislative elections having just taken place on March 11th, and presidential elections on May 27th fast approaching, the popular consultations have featured high in the national political agenda with regards to the environment and local democratic control.

“In January five of our presidential candidates came together for a debate on topics relating to the environment. Of the five questions they were asked, the first was about popular consultations and mining. This is a success of the social movements- they’ve elevated the discussion to this level and the politicians are having to take a position. Nonetheless there are some right-wing candidates who have said that they will limit the popular consultations. They want more mining and to open the country to fracking.”

Mariana, Ricardo and Felipe are coming to London to celebrate the anniversary of Cajamarca’s victory as well as to meet with UK government officials and advocate for popular consultations as a democratic mechanism, and for their role in the peace process.

Reach out internationally

“The message of Cajamarca in this context is that the peace process needs to create sustainable possibilities for the communities and areas most affected by the conflict,” Mariana said.

However, London represents much more than a political capital – it is also the global centre of finance for extractive industries. Capital interests and political agendas originating in the UK and throughout the Global North help drive socio-environmental conflicts around the world.

For that very reason, activists and NGOs, like ourselves based in London have an important role to play in addressing those interests, taking direction from frontline communities.

Regional, national and international solidarity are of critical importance to the success of these struggles, Mariana added. “Communities need to be connected nationally and internationally to share their strategies and responses to mining, because if not they can be left isolated, without information or the ability to respond early.

“It was very important for us to reach out internationally to learn from others who had stopped mines.”

This Author

Benjamin Hitchcock Auciello works on The Gaia Foundation’s Beyond Extractivism Programme, accompanying communities from the Global South and North facing extractive projects.  Mariana, Ricardo and Felipe’s visit has been organised by The Gaia Foundation, Comite Ambiental en Defensa de la Vida, Colombia Solidarity Campaign, London Mining Network, Yes to Life, No to Mining, War on Want, ABColombia, COSAJUCA and Colombia Caravana of Lawyers. 

For centuries the hare has been synonymous with the month of March: the expression, ‘mad as a March hare’ is  derived from the energetic and feisty behaviour they display at this time of year during breeding season.

But the real madness for hares is that this much-loved, iconic species is actually under very serious threat. Threats such as shooting, coursing and hunting.  

Brown hare numbers have declined by 80 percent during the last century, according to The Hare Preservation Trust, and they have all but disappeared from some areas of the UK.

Declining numbers

Despite hares having priority status under the UK Biodiversity Plan, they are one of the only game species in England and Wales not protected by a closed hunting season – so individuals can be shot throughout the year, including during their breeding times when they can be pregnant or nursing young leverets.

As well as pressure from organised shooting, the other reasons hares are staring down the barrel of declining numbers is because they’re losing habitat – they’re at risk from poaching, and because illegal hare coursing and hare hunting is still going on across the British countryside.

Shockingly, more than ten years after the hunting ban made it illegal to chase and kill hares; they are still being persecuted in the name of ‘fun’.

Hare hunting – talked about a lot less than fox hunting – involves the same cruel chase and brutal kill and is considered by some as good ‘sport’.

Hare hunting

There are still more than 100 hare hunts listed in Baily’s Hunting Directory. Out of the 300 or so active hunts in England and Wales, league investigators have been looking at the activities of several of them this hunting season.

Prior to the Hunting Act 2004, hare hunts targeted brown hares with packs of harriers, beagles or bassets, usually followed by the hunt on foot but with some operating on horseback. So what are these hunts doing now a hunting ban is in place?

Well, they might tell you that they’re ‘trail’ hunting.

Most hunts switched to trail hunting after the ban. An activity not in existence prior to the act coming in, hunts claiming to be ‘trail’ hunting say they lay a pre-laid trail for their hounds to follow through the countryside.

Our investigators didn’t see any trails being laid when out monitoring hare hunts this season. Hare hunts will also tell you that they’re rabbit hunting, and yet our investigators didn’t see any rabbits being chased this season.

Nowhere to hide

Hares are reluctant to leave their territory, so hare hunting normally takes place across a limited area of only a few square miles. Unlike foxes and mink they spend their lives above ground and don’t seek refuge underground, instead relying on camouflage and vegetation to hide from predators.

What chance against a pack of dogs, urged on by a huntsman and hunt followers pointing and waving when the terrified individual breaks cover.

If the hare doesn‘t manage to escape the hounds it eventually tires and when caught will be torn to pieces. They’ve evolved to run high speeds for short periods and usually can’t match the stamina of hounds that will chase and chase. 

In October 2015, the League Against Cruel Sports investigators believe they filmed the Eton College Beagles chasing a hare in North Yorkshire. Footage was handed to police – but sadly went no further.

This season, investigators have prepared case files for the police against two hare hunts, where they have witnessed and recorded evidence of hares being hunted illegally.

We hope this time the evidence results in a successful prosecution. We need to stop those who continue to flout the law and who are putting hare numbers under even more pressure in the cruellest of ways.

Hare coursing

Hare coursing is a different ‘sport’ to hare hunting. It involves two fast dogs being set loose to chase a hare. Traditionally taking place on a small scale, large-scale events were also in existence before the ban, such as the famous Waterloo Cup.

Despite hare coursing being banned, along with hare hunting, by the Hunting Act 2004, reports of hare coursing in the Fens, East Anglia and other regions around the country are becoming more frequent in the media.

We urgently need to strengthen the Hunting Act, tightening the loopholes being exploited by those still determined to persecute hares and other wildlife and bringing in tougher sentences for people convicted of illegal hunting.

We’re calling on the 90 per cent of people who oppose hare hunting and hare coursing to sign our petition in support of strengthening the ban and ensuring better protection for the vulnerable Brown hare.

Although hare shooting can take place all year round, thankfully, hare hunting season is drawing to a close. But there’s no time for us to rest on our laurels, this graceful animal is extremely vulnerable and any return to the cruel sports of hare hunting and hare coursing could see them wiped out in many parts of Britain for good. Now that really would be madness.

This Author

Chris Luffingham is Director of campaigns for the League Against Cruel Sports. The League Against Cruel Sports petition, Stop the killing of animals by hunts in the UK can be signed here.

Seaweeds can provide refuge for calcifying organisms at risk from increasingly acidic oceans, according to new research published in the journal Functional Ecology.

CO2 in the atmosphere dissolves directly into seawater, lowering the pH and making it acidic. 

Kelp and other seaweeds are ecosystem engineers that shape their physical and chemical surroundings. They soak up CO2 during the day through photosynthesis and thereby temporarily increase the pH level of seawater.

Kelp blades 

Physiological ecologists from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania studied the most common and widespread kelp in the southern hemisphere, Ecklonia radiate, focusing on the chemical microenvironment that develops at the surface of their blades, called the diffusive boundary layer (DBL).

Using kelp blades from the Tinderbox Marine Reserve, a wave-sheltered area in the south of Tasmania, the team conducted laboratory experiments to measure the characteristics of the DBL under different light and water flow conditions.

They showed that, in slow flow, kelp create a microlayer above their blades with much higher pH levels than in the surrounding seawater.

Dr Fanny Noisette from the University of Tasmania said: “With the increasing risk of ocean acidification, small calcifying organisms such as bryozoans, tube-forming worms, small molluscs or crustaceans living on the blades might be able to better cope with this phenomenon.”

Bryozoans and tube-forming worms are filter-feeding organisms, contributing to the control of planktonic populations. Moreover, they can form colonies on a variety of different surfaces, from rocks to sandy sediments to the hulls of ships providing hard habitats and shelter for juveniles of other species.

Seaweed communities

These and other calcifying organisms are especially vulnerable to ocean acidification as it prevents them from forming and/or repairing their shells or skeletons. Kelp blades may be able to provide a temporal relief from these corrosive and harmful conditions.

Noisette added: “Some invertebrates are very small in their early life stages and could also find shelter in these microenvironments shaped by kelps. Larvae, for example, are usually not able to regulate their internal pH and are more sensitive to decrease in seawater pH.  

“By settling on the blades in their early stages of development, they might be able to temporary alleviate stress or train for the harsher conditions that await them in the open ocean.”

Associate Professor Catriona Hurd, also with the university, said the study adds to growing evidence that seaweed communities could mitigate the negative effects of ocean acidification and help coastal ecosystems adapt to global changes.

She said: “Seaweeds not only influence the pH at the microscale as described in this study, they may also help larger animals including clams, oysters and crabs to overcome the effects of ocean acidification. It is now well known that the pH below seaweed canopy is generally different from the surrounding water.”

This Author

Catherine Harte is the contributing editor of The Ecologist.  This story is based on a news release from the University of Tasmania. The full report can be read online.

Permaculture Magazine is launching a permaculture prize worth £20,000 with the aim of highlighting the worldwide success of the permaculture movement.

The prize will consist of one main award of £10,000 and four runners up of £2,500 and is open to any permaculture project in the world. The closing date for entries is 30 June 2018. The prize has been donated by benefactors and will be awarded by a prestigious panel of international judges.

Maddy and Tim Harland, founders of Permaculture Magazine and Permanent Publications. said: “In a time of global crisis, the world needs well designed, regenerative and inspiring examples of permaculture. We have established this prize to celebrate and support pioneering, best practice projects and tell their stories to shine a light in the darkness.” 

The judging panel will be looking for permaculture projects in any of the following areas: regenerating damaged land, enhancing habitat and biodiversity, helping people to gain practical and community skills, adding value to produce and developing local economies, building community, creating social glue and greater economic resilience, modelling new ways of cooperating and new cultural paradigms.

Permaculture Magazine wants to specifically award money to permaculture projects that reach ordinary people and demonstrate best practice permaculture both in terms of ecological and socially innovative design. Any project can apply if it has been functioning for at least three years and has established its place within its community.

This Author

Tony Rollinson writes for Permaculture Magazine. Online applications are now open and it’s free to enter. For more information visit:   https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/permaculture-prize 2018 

This year we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first international degrowth conference in Paris. This event introduced the originally French activist slogan décroissance into the English-speaking world and international academia as degrowth.

I want to take stock of the last decade in terms of conferences, publications, training and more recently policy making. I focus only on the academic achievements in English, leaving aside both activism and intellectual debates in other languages – these are huge, especially in French, Spanish, Italian and German.

This is not because I think it is more important, but simply because it is the process in which I have been personally involved. 

International conferences 

The academic collective Research & Degrowth (R&D) aims at the facilitation of networking and the flow of ideas between various actors working on degrowth, especially in academia.

For this reason – as well as in order to increase the visibility of the degrowth ideas and proposals in the public space – R&D has organized the 1st (Paris 2008) and 2nd (Barcelona 2010) conferences, and called with a Support Group for the 3rd (Venice and Montreal 2012), 4th (Leipzig 2014) and 5th (Budapest) ones.

Apart from demonstrating the latest research in the field, the conferences aim at promoting cooperative research and work in the formulation and development of research and political proposals. In keeping with this spirit, in 2018 there will be three international conferences:  

1) 6th International Degrowth Conference: ‘Dialogues in turbulent times’ in Malmö (Sweden) on 21-25 August;

2) The First North-South Conference on Degrowth: ‘Decolonizing the social imaginary’ in Mexico City (Mexico) on 4-6 September;

3) Degrowth in the EU Parliament: Post-growth conference to challenge the economic thinking of EU institutions with influent EU policy-makers in the European parliament of Brussels (Belgium) on 18-19 September.

Many other conferences and workshops have taken place. For instance, the conferences of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE) – Istanbul 2011, Lille 2013, Leeds 2015 and Budapest 2017 – have been important to advance the debate and the society has endorsed the degrowth conferences since Paris 2008. 

Academic publications

In 2008 there were only a couple of published papers in English on degrowth (Latouche, 2004 and Fournier, 2008). I have lost count, but today there are probably over 200 published papers – for a review see Weiss and Cattaneo, 2017; and Kallis et al, 2018).

The Media Library at degrowth.info aims to collect them all. An article has also been just published in the new prestigious journal Nature Sustainability (O’Neill et al, 2018).

I think the eight special issues have played an important role in proving the legitimacy of the research questions raised by degrowth as an academic concept (Schneider et al. 2010; Cattaneo et al 2012; Saed 2012; Kallis et al. 2012; Sekulova et al 2013; Whitehead, 2013; Kosoy, 2013; Asara et al, 2015).

We might be assisting in the emergence of a new scientific paradigm, in the sense of “universally recognised scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of researchers” (Kuhn, 1962: x).

After this first wave of generalist special issues I expect a second wave: on specific themes (Technology and Degrowth by Kerschner et al 2015; Forthcoming: Tourism and Degrowth in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Environmental Justice and Degrowth in Ecological Economics, and a tentative one on Feminisms and Degrowth) or that introduce degrowth to a new discipline (e.g. Anthropology: Degrowth, Culture and Power by Gezon and Paulson, 2017; Geography: forthcoming Geographies of degrowth in Environment and Planning E).

The book Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era (Routledge, 2014) has been translated into ten languages. Others have been published (e.g. Bonaiuti, 2011; Kallis, 2017, 2018; Borowy and Schmelzer, 2017; Nelson and Schneider, 2018). More are coming, and we plan to launch soon a book series, most likely with a university publisher.   

Training

The youth participating in the degrowth conferences presented a need for training opportunities. The summer school in Barcelona on degrowth and environmental justice has arrived to its seventh edition.

A more activism oriented one is regularly organised at climate camps in Germany. Degrowth is taught in many university courses, and in Barcelona we are about to launch a master degree in political ecology, degrowth and environmental justice, starting in October 2018.

Our Degrowth Reading Group in Barcelona has been running for 8 years, and many more exist around the world. 

Policy making

I have argued elsewhere that degrowth is entering into the parliaments. Some political parties have started to adopt degrowth oriented or degrowth compatible proposals in their political programs.

In the House of Commons in London there is an ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group (AAPG) on limits to growth‘. Recently, a seminar was hosted at the European Commission titled “Well being beyond GDP growth?”.

The emerging field of ecological macroeconomics is shedding some light on policy related challenges (Victor, 2008; Rezai and Stagl, 2016; Jackson, 2017; Hardt and O’Neill, 2017). 

Blank canvas

The future is a blank canvas. We need to think of aims, strategies and priorities. Let me mention two, one looking inward into the degrowth community, and the other reaching outward.

Inward, there is the survey for mapping degrowth groups worldwide. The resulting map will represent an attempt to bring together groups and individuals for political and practical actions on degrowth that builds upon the biennial conferences.

The map might evolve into a (loose) network that fosters the creation of synergies among individuals and organizations that situates degrowth as the common horizon. The degrowth blog already offers a space for these conversations.

A networking meeting will be held at Christiania (Copenhagen), one day before the Malmo conference.

Looking outward

Outward, one aspect is to strengthen the relationships with close research and activist communities like the ones of feminism, environmental justice, political ecology, ecological economics, post-extractivism, anti-racism, commons, decoloniality, post-development and economic and environmental history.

An interesting precedent is the project Degrowth in movement(s) that explores the relationships with over 30 different perspectives.  There is also the FaDA: Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance.

For the future, in Budapest Ashish Kothari (min 52.25) proposed a ‘Global Confluences of Alternatives’, along the lines of the Indian experience, Vikalp Sangam (Hindi for ‘Confluence of Alternatives’).

The start could be a joint visioning process. Fortunately, there are already great ongoing projects, like TransforMap to get motivated and learn from.

The ‘how’ and ‘why’

The ‘how’ needs to be thought through  – e.g. it could be a joint conference – but the ‘why’ is clear.

The alliances among these networks, and networks of networks, are fundamental to weave the alternatives and foster a deeply radical socio-ecological transformation.

We could imagine it as a rhizome of resistance and regeneration.  

This Author

Federico Demaria is an ecological economist at the Environmental Science and Technology Institute, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is the co-editor of Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era (Routledge, 2015), a book translated into ten languages, and of the forthcoming Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary. He is a founding member of Research & Degrowth. Currently, he coordinates the research project EnvJustice, funded by the European Research Council.

More than a hundred 100 civil society organisations and activists have spoken out against a crackdown by the Polish government to protest at COP24.

Following a bill passed in the Polish parliament that will deny environmental campaigners the right to protest, activists are calling for the act to be repealed and say it sets a dangerous precedent.

Noelene Nabulivou, Diva For Equality and Pacific Partnerships on Gender, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development said: “We are concerned that the climate negotiations will be a farce if they are conducted in an atmosphere of fear, threat and intimidation.

Fear and intimidation

“People of the Pacific are already facing loss and damage to ourselves and our environment. Meanwhile we are working to change social, economic and environmental models that are damaging people and the planet. 

“So the last thing we want to see at this time is a roll back on state commitments to civic freedom and climate change action.”

The bill will give power to the Polish government to subject human rights defenders to state-led surveillance including access to and storing of personal information. 

Alma Sinumlag, Cordillera Women’s Education Action Research Center (CWEARC), said: “I have participated and protested at COP before and never felt threatened.

“I am deeply concerned that environmental defenders, especially indigenous women, urban poor and rural women human rights defenders from every region of the world who plan to participate in COP24 this year in Poland will face great risks.”

According to the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, the year 2017 was the deadliest year for environmental campaigners. At least 197 human rights defenders were killed for protecting their land and resources. 

A spokesperson said: “If patriarchal, authoritarian governments make this trend a norm, then 2018 could be an even worse year for human rights defenders and their communities.”

Human rights violation

Sascha Gabizon, from the  Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF ) in the Netherlands, said: “The bill infringes on the European Convention of Human Rights and sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the basic human rights and fundamental freedoms outlined therein, particularly the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, association and of speech.”

Activists say the new law not only threatens civic space in Poland but could limit the success of the climate summit. They say activists play an important role in the global climate debate by providing relevant information to policymakers and the media and they can only carry out their work where they can effectively exercise their right to freedom of assembly.

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development

Worsening worldwide land degradation is undermining the well-being of 3.2 billion people and is the main cause of species loss, according to a new report out today.

The landmark 3-year assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) says land degradation cost the equivalent of 10 percent of the world’s annual gross product in 2010 through the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Its authors say it has also been a major contributor to  mass human migration and increased conflict.

Rapid expansion and unsustainable management of croplands and grazing lands is the most extensive global direct driver of land degradation, according to the report.

Urgent priority

It causes significant loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services – food security, water purification, the provision of energy and other contributions of nature essential to people. The authors say this has now reached ‘critical’ levels in many parts of the world.

Professor Robert Scholes, co-chair of the assessment, said: “With negative impacts on the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, the degradation of the Earth’s land surface through human activities is pushing the planet towards a sixth mass species extinction.

“Avoiding, reducing and reversing this problem, and restoring degraded land, is an urgent priority to protect the biodiversity and ecosystem services vital to all life on Earth and to ensure human well-being.”

Dr Luca Montanarella, co-chair of the assessment, said: “Wetlands have been particularly hard hit. We have seen losses of 87 percent in wetland areas since the start of the modern era – with 54 percent lost since 1900.”

High-consumption lifestyles

According to the authors, land degradation manifests in many ways: land abandonment, declining populations of wild species, loss of soil and soil health, rangelands and fresh water, as well as deforestation.

Underlying drivers of land degradation, says the report, are the high-consumption lifestyles in the most developed economies, combined with rising consumption in developing and emerging economies. 

High and rising per capita consumption, amplified by continued population growth in many parts of the world, can drive unsustainable levels of agricultural expansion, natural resource and mineral extraction, and urbanisation, typically leading to greater levels of land degradation.

By 2014, more than 1.5 billion hectares of natural ecosystems had been converted to croplands. Less than 25 percent of the Earth’s land surface has escaped substantial impacts of human activity and by 2050, the IPBES experts estimate this will have fallen to less than 10 percent.

Crop and grazing lands now cover more than one third of the Earth’s land surface, with recent clearance of native habitats, including forests, grasslands and wetlands, being concentrated in some of the most species-rich ecosystems on the planet.

Three-pronged attack

The report says increasing demand for food and biofuels will likely lead to continued increase in nutrient and chemical inputs and a shift towards industrialised livestock production systems, with pesticide and fertiliser use expected to double by 2050.

Avoidance of further agricultural expansion into native habitats can be achieved through yield increases on the existing farmlands, shifts towards less land degrading diets, such as those with more plant-based foods and less animal protein from unsustainable sources, and reductions in food loss and waste.

Sir Robert Watson, Chair of IPBES, said: “Through this report, the global community of experts has delivered a frank and urgent warning, with clear options to address dire environmental damage.

“Land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge: the increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural environment.

“We cannot afford to tackle any one of these three threats in isolation – they each deserve the highest policy priority and must be addressed together.”

Contributor to climate change

The IPBES report finds that land degradation is a major contributor to climate change, with deforestation alone contributing about 10% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. 

Another major driver of the changing climate has been the release of carbon previously stored in the soil, with land degradation between 2000 and 2009 responsible for annual global emissions of up to 4.4 billion tonnes of CO2.

The report says given the importance of soil’s carbon absorption and storage functions, the avoidance, reduction and reversal of land degradation could provide more than a third of the most cost-effective greenhouse gas mitigation activities needed by 2030 to keep global warming under the 2°C threshold.  It could also  increase food and water security, and contribute to the avoidance of conflict and migration.

Prof. Scholes added:  “In just over three decades from now, an estimated 4 billion people will live in drylands. By then it is likely that land degradation, together with the closely related problems of climate change, will have forced 50-700 million people to migrate. 

“Decreasing land productivity also makes societies more vulnerable to social instability – particularly in dryland areas, where years with extremely low rainfall have been associated with an increase of up to 45% in violent conflict.”

Making better choices

Dr. Montanarella said: “By 2050, the combination of land degradation and climate change is predicted to reduce global crop yields by an average of 10 percent, and by up to 50 percent in some regions. 

In the future, most degradation will occur in Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia – the areas with the most land still remaining that is suitable for agriculture.”

The report also underlines the challenges that land degradation poses, and the importance of restoration, for key international development objectives, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. 

Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of IPBES, said: “The greatest value of the assessment is the evidence that it provides to decision makers in government, business, academia and even at the level of local communities.

 “With better information, backed by the consensus of the world’s leading experts, we can all make better choices for more effective action.”

Land restoration

The report notes that successful examples of land restoration are found in every ecosystem, and that many well-tested practices and techniques, both traditional and modern, can avoid or reverse degradation.

In croplands, for instance, some of these include reducing soil loss and improving soil health, the use of salt tolerant crops, conservation agriculture and integrated crop, livestock and forestry systems.

In rangelands with traditional grazing, maintenance of appropriate fire regimes, and the reinstatement or development of local livestock management practices and institutions have proven effective.

Successful responses in wetlands have included control over pollution sources, managing the wetlands as part of the landscape, and reflooding wetlands damaged by draining.

In urban areas, urban spatial planning, replanting with native species, the development of ‘green infrastructure’ such as parks and riverways, remediation of contaminated and sealed soils (e.g. under asphalt), wastewater treatment and river channel restoration are identified as key options for action.

Options for action

Opportunities to accelerate action identified in the report include: improving monitoring, verification systems and baseline data; coordinating policy between different ministries; eliminating  incentives that promote land degradation; and integrating the agricultural, forestry, energy, water, infrastructure and service agendas.

Making the point that existing multilateral environmental agreements provide a good platform for action , the authors observe, however, that greater commitment and more effective cooperation is needed at the national and local levels to achieve the goals of zero net land degradation, no loss of biodiversity and improved human well-being.

Among the areas identified by the report as opportunities for further research include: the consequences of land degradation on freshwater and coastal ecosystems; physical and mental health and spiritual well-being;  the potential for land degradation to exacerbate climate change ; the linkages between land degradation and restoration and social, economic and political processes in far-off places; and interactions among land degradation, poverty, climate change, and the risk of conflict and of involuntary migration.

The report also found that higher employment and other benefits of land restoration often exceed the costs involved. On average, the benefits of restoration are 10 times higher than the costs (estimated across nine different biomes), and, for regions like Asia and Africa, the cost of inaction in the face of land degradation is at least three times higher than the cost of action.

Economically prudent

Dr. Montanarella concluded: “Fully deploying the toolbox of proven ways to stop and reverse land degradation is not only vital to ensure food security, reduce climate change and protect biodiversity, it’s also economically prudent and increasingly urgent.”

Echoing this message, Sir Robert Watson, added: “Of the many valuable messages in the report, this ranks among the most important: implementing the right actions to combat land degradation can transform the lives of millions of people across the planet, but this will become more difficult and more costly the longer we take to act.”

This Author

Catherine Harte is a contributing editor to The Ecologist. This story is based on a release from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Eight out of ten people support farm subsidies to improve animal welfare, according to a new report by the RSPCA.

The charity proposes that the new farm support system, due to come into effect from next year, should be targeted at farmers who want to improve welfare.

There is currently little or no financial support available for farms to lift their levels of animal welfare higher  than the minimum legal standards which the RSPCA believes are just not good enough.

Rewarding farmers

According to the RSPCA, farm animals can legally be kept in barren, overcrowded and restricted spaces which can prevent or severely restrict their ability to carry out natural behaviours such as foraging, rooting or being active.

Laying hens can be kept in cramped cages, meat chickens without any natural light, a fully-slatted floor without any bedding is deemed acceptable for pigs and dairy cattle can be housed year round.

The new support system should reward farmers with public money only if they go beyond current standard industry practice on animal welfare say the animal welfare charity.

If the Government took up these proposals the RSPCA believes the UK would move towards world-leading welfare standards that deliver a genuinely competitive farming industry post-Brexit.

Public support

David Bowles, head of public affairs at the RSPCA, said: “This scheme would give farmers the financial leg-up they need towards much higher welfare production.

“Our proposals provide the practical details which governments are seeking to make their vision work. We have set out a highly workable two-tier proposal for farmers to be paid to invest in higher animal welfare standards while ensuring they are not undercut in any new trade deals.

“These proposals are based on the reality of available budgets and offer pragmatic, viable solutions to enforcement and comply with World Trade rules.

He added: “People in the UK care about how their food is produced and our recent survey shows a vast majority of the public (82%) want to see subsidies used to improve animal welfare.

“Targeted incentives for farmers who need help improving animal welfare would be good for producers, good for consumers and good for animals.”

Two tiered system

In February 2018, the government committed to safeguarding the welfare of livestock post Brexit and proposed pilot schemes for farmers to deliver higher welfare outcomes and substantially reduce endemic disease. 

The RSPCA says its recommendations would help achieve the higher standards of farm animal welfare that the government wants as the UK leaves the EU.

Using a two tiered system, it proposes an initial ‘transitional payment’ tier whereby payments would be awarded to producers to build modern housing and improve  animal health and welfare, as a first step towards meeting the higher ‘tier two’criteria.

It recommends tier two payments  be awarded to producers that are members of a higher welfare farm assurance scheme, such as RSPCA Assured. 

This would deliver higher standards of welfare covering the whole life of the animal and would be measured through welfare outcome assessments.

Fresh thinking

The RSPCA’s proposals are informed by current EU farm subsidy amounts given to improve animal welfare, and have been developed to meet World Trade Organisation rules.

The organisation believes both environmental and animal welfare benefits could be funded from the existing financial ‘envelope’.

Mr Bowles concluded: “Leaving the EU and nationalising the farming support system presents governments with a once-in-a-generation chance to radically transform the Common Agricultural Policy into a British policy for higher animal welfare and sustainable land management. But it needs fresh thinking.

“If we get it right now, the UK’s food quality could become the world’s gold standard – and that can only happen with an approach that continuously drives animal welfare.”

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from the RSPCA.

The same week as developers were launching yet another political attack on the great crested newt, Sir Oliver Letwin registered a new company, The Red Tape Initiative (RTI), at Companies House. The new think tank would reopen the debate about the great crested newt, housing developments, the European birds and habitats directives and their implementation.

But what was the RTI? The private company was registered by Letwin with Lord (Jonathan) Marland, who made a fortune in the insurance company acquisitions game, and a chap called Nick Tyrone. The firm was registered to a shared workspace in Victoria, London. It was described by Politico as “the other UK Brexit department”. 

Read part one of three of this investigation here, and part two here.

Letwin, according to those close to him, got the message that Theresa May would not require his services in negotiating and implementing Brexit. He would not be able to set up an ad hoc House of Commons committee in the way he may have expected. He would not have his own team of civil servants, nor recourse to taxpayers’ money. So he set up shop elsewhere. 

Donations from industry

But the new organisation has access to the front bench, and therefore influence on the Brexit process. Michael Gove, the environment secretary, attended its launch.

Greg Clark, now the business secretary, wrote to the initiative offering support from civil servants at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. “The aim is to get things prepared, perhaps in time for the commencement of the Brexit negotiations, and the introduction of the Great Reform Bill,” Letwin said.

Tyrone – the man running the RTI – is neither a Conservative nor a Brexiteer, but an Orange Book Liberal, interestingly. He would now be at the intersection between the house building industry and the government, part of the lobbying matrix. Tyrone was not ideologically predisposed to hate EU regulations.

Indeed, he had written previously: “The EU was a convenient scapegoat for a very long time when it came to regulations business and some individuals didn’t like. What happens if we find out that most of it is domestically made? What bogeyman gets the blame then?” 

The RTI has a good amount of cash. The think tank began with £162,000 in donations from industry. Marland – a former trade envoy to David Cameron – gave £50,000 seed money. Geoffrey Guy, chairman at GW Pharmaceuticals, donated £50,000. The Ana Leaf Foundation, a health charity based in Jersey, put in £50,000. The Public Interest Foundation, a policy not-for-profit, was responsible for the final £12,000. 

The front end

The new think tank explained that it was a “wholly non-partisan project…to forge a consensus on the regulatory changes that could benefit both businesses and their employees in a post-Brexit Britain”. 

Its advisory board includes leading Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians, and it is working with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), British Chamber of Commerce, Institute of Directors and Federation of Small Businesses are working with the RTI.

The website goes on to state that “representatives of environmental and other NGOs” have also been invited, so that they can “help us identify changes that could quickly be made in specific areas of EU regulation, with immediate benefits for jobs and businesses in the UK and with no adverse effects on our ecology or our society.” 

The funders were keen that the new think tank would identify European regulation that could be quickly and easily swept away, freeing business from such shackles to bring growth and prosperity back to this green and pleasant land. 

Letwin told the press: “We’re going to start in June on the housing one, with an industry-sector panel with input from various groups including the Trades Union Congress, CBI and the Home Builders Federation. We’ll be talking to people at the front end.”

“Seizing the opportunity of Brexit”

Just two months after Article 50 was triggered, the chairman of the HBF was invited to meet the Red Tape Initiative – in a meeting chaired by Oliver Letwin and held in Portcullis house – to discuss housing regulation – and was invited back a month later to discuss infrastructure.

As we’ve seen, ‘EU red tape’ and particularly the birds and habitats directives were already in their sights. 

The HBF had recently published a report, Reversing the decline of small housebuilders, which included a section, Seizing the opportunity of Brexit, which stated “we would like to work closely with government over the next 18 months to identify the areas of EU regulation that could be reformed, reduced or removed”.

The chairman of the HBF was evidently very impressed by the conversations which took place, telling his members: “The final work stream around regulatory quick wins is looking at what regulation emanating from the EU could potentially be expunged, replaced or improved post-Brexit….

“HBF attended the first meeting of a new cross-party ‘Red Tape Initiative’ chaired by former Cabinet minister, Sir Oliver Letwin MP, established to look at regulatory quick wins. The group, which is supported by legal specialists and is attempting to maintain a political consensus, explored areas such as the Habitats and Birds Directives, state aid, the Official Journal of the European Union, and the Mortgage Credit Directive.”

Environmental charities

Kate Jennings, head of conservation policy at the RSPB, also attended some of the RTI meetings. Jennings told openDemocracy that there were no statutory bodies in the room, including Natural England. This was a “missing perspective”, she said.

Jennings acknowledged: “When I arrived I was expecting an aggressive focus on deregulation. But that is not what I found. Where suggestions were made that felt inappropriate, then it was usually another industry representative in the room who curbed it. It did not feel like there was an ideology driving this. I was pleasantly surprised.” 

But she concluded: “That is not to say that a more ideologically extreme version of the same thing may be happening under the radar elsewhere.”

What emerged from the meetings, according to two independent sources, was a confirmation that the interests of business and the environmental charities were in many ways aligned, and in terms of the actual directives this meant defending the status quo. Jennings said: “The business representatives in the room said that they wanted certainty and consistency. We have an interest in the laws being protected, they have an interest in the laws not being changed.” 

The first meetings of the RTI took place just as the government published the findings of its Cutting Red Tape review, Cutting Red Tape, Review of House Building. The findings were very different. 

Less certain future

“House builders and trade bodies in the sector told us that there were significant burdens linked to regulation…these add to the overall build cost of housing units and delay the commencement of development.”

It concluded: “The sector reports that that regulation relating to some protected species can lead to costs and delays to housing developers. Any delays in protected species mitigation can have a knock-on effect, creating further delays for the house builder.”

The government report included some startling claims. “One house builder reported the cost of dealing with great crested newts in 2013 at an average of £2,261.55 per newt relocated. This took into account consultancy fees, land purchase for the relocated newts and contracting costs for the physical relocation. 

Another large builder reported a sum of £500,000 spent on one site where just five newts were found.” Patrick McLoughlin, a former transport minister, “railed at the directive after a newt colony held up the building of a railway station in Derbyshire”, the Financial Times reported. “Despite attempts to catch and relocate the creatures, more kept on turning up.” 

The newspaper added that the government report would have real world ramifications for our great crested newt. “Britain’s great crested newts are facing a less certain future post-Brexit as ministers prepare to axe rights afforded to them by European legislation in a bid to speed up development projects,” the newspaper claimed. 

“Government figures have told the Financial Times that the EU habitats directive is among measures set to be repealed, citing the ‘excessive’ protection given to the amphibian as a reason to change the law.” It added: “The great crested newt is endangered in some parts of Europe, but remains fairly common in England.”

Carry on lobbying

The HBF has, at the same time, been lobbying Natural England directly, according to responses to Freedom of Information requests submitted by environment charity Friends of the Earth. James Stevens, the director of cities at the HBF wrote to Natural England in April last year asking for a meeting to discuss a High Court ruling reducing the number of houses at a proposed development in Ashdown Forest, on the basis it would damage the habitats of endangered species.

The HBF got its meeting the following month. However, staff at the government agency appear to have been extremely cautious. “[Natural England] met with HBF this morning, in an expressly listening mode. Our legal team were there for the discussions. In short HBF were seeking to ensure that we understood their concerns and wanted to make representations to us about ensuring join‐up between public bodies in the resolution of the issues raised through this case”, an internal memo noted. 

The great crested newt and the Brexit red herring

We are now awaiting the findings of the Red Tape Initiative. Letwin and his colleagues scoured the length and breadth of the UK looking for home builders and other British businesses who could identify any European regulation that could be easily removed, that would help their bottom line.

They asked for specific examples and evidence of where the environmental regulations had increased costs. But, according to sources close to the process, they failed to find anything of significance.

It now seems certain that the RTI will not be recommending any change to the birds and habitats directives and will instead call for them to be included – and indeed strengthened – as they pass into UK law through the Withdrawal Bill.

Indeed, senior staff have intimated that the think tank will lobby government to get the June 2016 memorandum of understanding signed. Brexit has caused a massive waste of time, and that delay should now come to an end.

Tyrone, from the RTI, told openDemocracy: “We have ended up with something we hope will make conservation of the great crested newt better post-Brexit. We are still playing with our recommendation – we want the relevant green groups to feel 100 percent happy with the wording – but they will be about moving things along conservation-wise.

Hit the dust

“Once our recommendations are finalised, we will be taking them to DEFRA in the hopes of bringing the environmental groups and the builders back to the same page, to the place they were before the vote to leave the EU occurred.”

He added: “The experience of speaking to hundreds of business people about Brexit has been revealing. I would have thought there would have been more appetite for large scale deregulation than what we’re finding so far. 

“Truth is, most businesses want a lot of continuity after Brexit. This does range sector to sector, but there hasn’t been a slash and burn mentality from the business community regarding EU regulation at all. They are much more worried about their European supply chains being disrupted.”

A source who has worked closely with the RTI on their programme of work was even less subtle. “They think there is going to be this great undoing of mass amounts of regulation that can hit the dust. They are a little bit desperate to get any hard story, anything tangible that will give evidence.

“This is just my experience, but pretty much everyone we came across is in the range from ‘Brexit is awful’ to ‘we wish it was not happening, but we have to accept it’. I’ve never spoken to anyone who says that Brexit is wonderful and the EU is getting in our way.” 

Realistic and honest

Sir Oliver told openDemocracy: “It has been remarkable the degree of agreement between the conservationists and developers about the way forward on environmental issues. 

“In amongst the fretting about the Habitats Directives being “swept away” – and let us remind ourselves, the Defra secretary has stated categorically that environmental protections will be enhanced not reduced post-Brexit – there seems to be consensus on how we can make things clearer and more straightforward for developers while making conservation of key species a clear priority.”

It also directly contradicts the findings of the government’s own Cutting Red Tape report and whoever has been briefing the Financial Times. The Conservative party is still riven in the middle between the idealists in the Brexit camp still dreaming of a deregulatory utopia in which British industrial vigour is restored, and the realists in the Brexit-if-we-must camp who accept that housing developments cannot be allowed to wipe out part of Britain’s wildlife, and that environmental regulations are already pragmatic compromises between conservationists and business interests.

Finally, it directly contradicts the narrative that Britain is some exceptional island, full of genius entrepreneurs, which is only being held back by faceless European bureaucrats. A story which is bold and vivid, easy to conceptualise and easy to be swept up in. But, according to the RTI research at least, completely at odds with reality.

So we can trust those who are leading Brexit to remain pragmatic, realistic and honest. To be diplomatic and understand the history and detail in relation to complex issues such as the conflict in interests protecting our natural environment, including our newts, and desiring industry and development to meet our needs, such as housing. 

Impact assessment

This, most recently, from Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary: “It is only by taking back control of our laws that UK firms and entrepreneurs will have the freedom to innovate, without the risk of having to comply with some directive devised by Brussels, at the urgings of some lobby group, with the aim of holding back a UK competitor…

“We can simplify planning, and speed up public procurement, and perhaps we would then be faster in building the homes young people need; and we might decide that it was indeed absolutely necessary for every environmental impact assessment to monitor two life cycles of the snail and build special swimming pools for newts – not all of which they use – but it would at least be our decision.”

It’s not the home builders but the hedge fund managers who want deregulation

An attendee of one of the RTI meetings, who asked not to be named, added: “It’s not actually the home builders – it is the hedge fund managers. “What they want is the wild west. So much EU regulation has come in since 2008 and what they want to do is go back to how it was. There is a group of people who see Brexit as an opportunity to massively deregulate and cause chaos. What will be interesting is what the hedge fund managers get out of Brexit.” 

What does all this mean for the great crested newt, which is now coming out of hibernation? It means British environmental and social policy remains simultaneously confused and morbidly frozen. Rhetoric has more power than reason. 

The environmental crises of climate change and the collapse of biodiversity are currently being completely ignored. The warring factions in the Tory party carry on warring, the cultural war of Brexit rolls on and the British press continues to be absolutely fascinated. The great crested newt is awaking to a cold world. Snow in March. Uncertainty and inconsistency in government environmental policy. Our nocturnal newt is once again left in the dark.

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague. Read part one of three of this investigation here, and part two here.

The same week as developers were launching yet another political attack on the great crested newt, Sir Oliver Letwin registered a new company, The Red Tape Initiative (RTI), at Companies House. The new think tank would reopen the debate about the great crested newt, housing developments, the European birds and habitats directives and their implementation.

But what was the RTI? The private company was registered by Letwin with Lord (Jonathan) Marland, who made a fortune in the insurance company acquisitions game, and a chap called Nick Tyrone. The firm was registered to a shared workspace in Victoria, London. It was described by Politico as “the other UK Brexit department”. 

Read part one of three of this investigation here, and part two here.

Letwin, according to those close to him, got the message that Theresa May would not require his services in negotiating and implementing Brexit. He would not be able to set up an ad hoc House of Commons committee in the way he may have expected. He would not have his own team of civil servants, nor recourse to taxpayers’ money. So he set up shop elsewhere. 

Donations from industry

But the new organisation has access to the front bench, and therefore influence on the Brexit process. Michael Gove, the environment secretary, attended its launch.

Greg Clark, now the business secretary, wrote to the initiative offering support from civil servants at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. “The aim is to get things prepared, perhaps in time for the commencement of the Brexit negotiations, and the introduction of the Great Reform Bill,” Letwin said.

Tyrone – the man running the RTI – is neither a Conservative nor a Brexiteer, but an Orange Book Liberal, interestingly. He would now be at the intersection between the house building industry and the government, part of the lobbying matrix. Tyrone was not ideologically predisposed to hate EU regulations.

Indeed, he had written previously: “The EU was a convenient scapegoat for a very long time when it came to regulations business and some individuals didn’t like. What happens if we find out that most of it is domestically made? What bogeyman gets the blame then?” 

The RTI has a good amount of cash. The think tank began with £162,000 in donations from industry. Marland – a former trade envoy to David Cameron – gave £50,000 seed money. Geoffrey Guy, chairman at GW Pharmaceuticals, donated £50,000. The Ana Leaf Foundation, a health charity based in Jersey, put in £50,000. The Public Interest Foundation, a policy not-for-profit, was responsible for the final £12,000. 

The front end

The new think tank explained that it was a “wholly non-partisan project…to forge a consensus on the regulatory changes that could benefit both businesses and their employees in a post-Brexit Britain”. 

Its advisory board includes leading Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians, and it is working with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), British Chamber of Commerce, Institute of Directors and Federation of Small Businesses are working with the RTI.

The website goes on to state that “representatives of environmental and other NGOs” have also been invited, so that they can “help us identify changes that could quickly be made in specific areas of EU regulation, with immediate benefits for jobs and businesses in the UK and with no adverse effects on our ecology or our society.” 

The funders were keen that the new think tank would identify European regulation that could be quickly and easily swept away, freeing business from such shackles to bring growth and prosperity back to this green and pleasant land. 

Letwin told the press: “We’re going to start in June on the housing one, with an industry-sector panel with input from various groups including the Trades Union Congress, CBI and the Home Builders Federation. We’ll be talking to people at the front end.”

“Seizing the opportunity of Brexit”

Just two months after Article 50 was triggered, the chairman of the HBF was invited to meet the Red Tape Initiative – in a meeting chaired by Oliver Letwin and held in Portcullis house – to discuss housing regulation – and was invited back a month later to discuss infrastructure.

As we’ve seen, ‘EU red tape’ and particularly the birds and habitats directives were already in their sights. 

The HBF had recently published a report, Reversing the decline of small housebuilders, which included a section, Seizing the opportunity of Brexit, which stated “we would like to work closely with government over the next 18 months to identify the areas of EU regulation that could be reformed, reduced or removed”.

The chairman of the HBF was evidently very impressed by the conversations which took place, telling his members: “The final work stream around regulatory quick wins is looking at what regulation emanating from the EU could potentially be expunged, replaced or improved post-Brexit….

“HBF attended the first meeting of a new cross-party ‘Red Tape Initiative’ chaired by former Cabinet minister, Sir Oliver Letwin MP, established to look at regulatory quick wins. The group, which is supported by legal specialists and is attempting to maintain a political consensus, explored areas such as the Habitats and Birds Directives, state aid, the Official Journal of the European Union, and the Mortgage Credit Directive.”

Environmental charities

Kate Jennings, head of conservation policy at the RSPB, also attended some of the RTI meetings. Jennings told openDemocracy that there were no statutory bodies in the room, including Natural England. This was a “missing perspective”, she said.

Jennings acknowledged: “When I arrived I was expecting an aggressive focus on deregulation. But that is not what I found. Where suggestions were made that felt inappropriate, then it was usually another industry representative in the room who curbed it. It did not feel like there was an ideology driving this. I was pleasantly surprised.” 

But she concluded: “That is not to say that a more ideologically extreme version of the same thing may be happening under the radar elsewhere.”

What emerged from the meetings, according to two independent sources, was a confirmation that the interests of business and the environmental charities were in many ways aligned, and in terms of the actual directives this meant defending the status quo. Jennings said: “The business representatives in the room said that they wanted certainty and consistency. We have an interest in the laws being protected, they have an interest in the laws not being changed.” 

The first meetings of the RTI took place just as the government published the findings of its Cutting Red Tape review, Cutting Red Tape, Review of House Building. The findings were very different. 

Less certain future

“House builders and trade bodies in the sector told us that there were significant burdens linked to regulation…these add to the overall build cost of housing units and delay the commencement of development.”

It concluded: “The sector reports that that regulation relating to some protected species can lead to costs and delays to housing developers. Any delays in protected species mitigation can have a knock-on effect, creating further delays for the house builder.”

The government report included some startling claims. “One house builder reported the cost of dealing with great crested newts in 2013 at an average of £2,261.55 per newt relocated. This took into account consultancy fees, land purchase for the relocated newts and contracting costs for the physical relocation. 

Another large builder reported a sum of £500,000 spent on one site where just five newts were found.” Patrick McLoughlin, a former transport minister, “railed at the directive after a newt colony held up the building of a railway station in Derbyshire”, the Financial Times reported. “Despite attempts to catch and relocate the creatures, more kept on turning up.” 

The newspaper added that the government report would have real world ramifications for our great crested newt. “Britain’s great crested newts are facing a less certain future post-Brexit as ministers prepare to axe rights afforded to them by European legislation in a bid to speed up development projects,” the newspaper claimed. 

“Government figures have told the Financial Times that the EU habitats directive is among measures set to be repealed, citing the ‘excessive’ protection given to the amphibian as a reason to change the law.” It added: “The great crested newt is endangered in some parts of Europe, but remains fairly common in England.”

Carry on lobbying

The HBF has, at the same time, been lobbying Natural England directly, according to responses to Freedom of Information requests submitted by environment charity Friends of the Earth. James Stevens, the director of cities at the HBF wrote to Natural England in April last year asking for a meeting to discuss a High Court ruling reducing the number of houses at a proposed development in Ashdown Forest, on the basis it would damage the habitats of endangered species.

The HBF got its meeting the following month. However, staff at the government agency appear to have been extremely cautious. “[Natural England] met with HBF this morning, in an expressly listening mode. Our legal team were there for the discussions. In short HBF were seeking to ensure that we understood their concerns and wanted to make representations to us about ensuring join‐up between public bodies in the resolution of the issues raised through this case”, an internal memo noted. 

The great crested newt and the Brexit red herring

We are now awaiting the findings of the Red Tape Initiative. Letwin and his colleagues scoured the length and breadth of the UK looking for home builders and other British businesses who could identify any European regulation that could be easily removed, that would help their bottom line.

They asked for specific examples and evidence of where the environmental regulations had increased costs. But, according to sources close to the process, they failed to find anything of significance.

It now seems certain that the RTI will not be recommending any change to the birds and habitats directives and will instead call for them to be included – and indeed strengthened – as they pass into UK law through the Withdrawal Bill.

Indeed, senior staff have intimated that the think tank will lobby government to get the June 2016 memorandum of understanding signed. Brexit has caused a massive waste of time, and that delay should now come to an end.

Tyrone, from the RTI, told openDemocracy: “We have ended up with something we hope will make conservation of the great crested newt better post-Brexit. We are still playing with our recommendation – we want the relevant green groups to feel 100 percent happy with the wording – but they will be about moving things along conservation-wise.

Hit the dust

“Once our recommendations are finalised, we will be taking them to DEFRA in the hopes of bringing the environmental groups and the builders back to the same page, to the place they were before the vote to leave the EU occurred.”

He added: “The experience of speaking to hundreds of business people about Brexit has been revealing. I would have thought there would have been more appetite for large scale deregulation than what we’re finding so far. 

“Truth is, most businesses want a lot of continuity after Brexit. This does range sector to sector, but there hasn’t been a slash and burn mentality from the business community regarding EU regulation at all. They are much more worried about their European supply chains being disrupted.”

A source who has worked closely with the RTI on their programme of work was even less subtle. “They think there is going to be this great undoing of mass amounts of regulation that can hit the dust. They are a little bit desperate to get any hard story, anything tangible that will give evidence.

“This is just my experience, but pretty much everyone we came across is in the range from ‘Brexit is awful’ to ‘we wish it was not happening, but we have to accept it’. I’ve never spoken to anyone who says that Brexit is wonderful and the EU is getting in our way.” 

Realistic and honest

Sir Oliver told openDemocracy: “It has been remarkable the degree of agreement between the conservationists and developers about the way forward on environmental issues. 

“In amongst the fretting about the Habitats Directives being “swept away” – and let us remind ourselves, the Defra secretary has stated categorically that environmental protections will be enhanced not reduced post-Brexit – there seems to be consensus on how we can make things clearer and more straightforward for developers while making conservation of key species a clear priority.”

It also directly contradicts the findings of the government’s own Cutting Red Tape report and whoever has been briefing the Financial Times. The Conservative party is still riven in the middle between the idealists in the Brexit camp still dreaming of a deregulatory utopia in which British industrial vigour is restored, and the realists in the Brexit-if-we-must camp who accept that housing developments cannot be allowed to wipe out part of Britain’s wildlife, and that environmental regulations are already pragmatic compromises between conservationists and business interests.

Finally, it directly contradicts the narrative that Britain is some exceptional island, full of genius entrepreneurs, which is only being held back by faceless European bureaucrats. A story which is bold and vivid, easy to conceptualise and easy to be swept up in. But, according to the RTI research at least, completely at odds with reality.

So we can trust those who are leading Brexit to remain pragmatic, realistic and honest. To be diplomatic and understand the history and detail in relation to complex issues such as the conflict in interests protecting our natural environment, including our newts, and desiring industry and development to meet our needs, such as housing. 

Impact assessment

This, most recently, from Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary: “It is only by taking back control of our laws that UK firms and entrepreneurs will have the freedom to innovate, without the risk of having to comply with some directive devised by Brussels, at the urgings of some lobby group, with the aim of holding back a UK competitor…

“We can simplify planning, and speed up public procurement, and perhaps we would then be faster in building the homes young people need; and we might decide that it was indeed absolutely necessary for every environmental impact assessment to monitor two life cycles of the snail and build special swimming pools for newts – not all of which they use – but it would at least be our decision.”

It’s not the home builders but the hedge fund managers who want deregulation

An attendee of one of the RTI meetings, who asked not to be named, added: “It’s not actually the home builders – it is the hedge fund managers. “What they want is the wild west. So much EU regulation has come in since 2008 and what they want to do is go back to how it was. There is a group of people who see Brexit as an opportunity to massively deregulate and cause chaos. What will be interesting is what the hedge fund managers get out of Brexit.” 

What does all this mean for the great crested newt, which is now coming out of hibernation? It means British environmental and social policy remains simultaneously confused and morbidly frozen. Rhetoric has more power than reason. 

The environmental crises of climate change and the collapse of biodiversity are currently being completely ignored. The warring factions in the Tory party carry on warring, the cultural war of Brexit rolls on and the British press continues to be absolutely fascinated. The great crested newt is awaking to a cold world. Snow in March. Uncertainty and inconsistency in government environmental policy. Our nocturnal newt is once again left in the dark.

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague. Read part one of three of this investigation here, and part two here.