Prime Minister
Theresa May and Environment Secretary Michael Gove have outlined the
government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.
The strategy details
how the government will achieve its long-term aims of restoring and
safeguarding wildlife habitats, improving air and water quality, and curbing
plastic waste.
Landscape Institute
President Merrick Denton-Thompson, who was invited to attend the launch of the
plan, said he was ‘thrilled to note the alignment of LI policy with the
government’s agenda’.
"[The Prime
Minister] laid the foundation for a cultural shift in society," he said,
"in terms of both our individual behaviour, and in behaviour across the
public, private and voluntary sectors.
"I cannot tell
you how pleased we should be that so many of the points in our submission to
Defra are in the final Plan."
Also in attendance
were ministers, delegates from the Forestry Commission and Country Land and
Business Association, and Chair of the Natural Capital Committee Dieter Helm.
Among the
commitments in the 25 Year Environment Plan are:
- to establish in 2018 of a
cross-government global resource initiative to work with businesses, NGOs,
producer countries and intermediary countries to identify actions across
supply chains that will improve the sustainability of products and reduce
deforestation
- to consult on plans to set up
an independent ‘environmental watchdog’ that will hold the government to
account for upholding environmental standards
- to restore as well as
safeguard nature – something the BBC’s Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin called ‘genuinely radical’
- to invest of £10 million in
the development of external environments in schools, bringing children
closer to nature
- to create and improve green
infrastructure, encouraging investment through a national framework of
green infrastructure standards
- to embed an ‘environmental
net gain’ principle for development, including housing and infrastructure
- to improve soil health – a case Merrick strongly made
in person to
the Environment Secretary last September – and invest £10 million in
peatland restoration
- to identify opportunities for
environmental enhancement in England’s 159 National Character Areas
Only some aspects of
the Plan will apply to the UK as a whole. The Plan clarifies that in matters of
devolved environmental policy, the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and
Northern Ireland Executive will be responsible for implementing policies and
programmes. The UK Government, however, ‘will work with the devolved
administrations as we leave the EU to uphold environmental standards and go
further to protect our shared natural heritage … [and] continue to work … on
areas where common frameworks will need to be retained in the future’.
Merrick
Denton-Thompson continued: "This plan signs the government up,
corporately, to direct action, driving the transformation of the environment
through a mixture of regulation and incentives. In her speech, the Prime
Minister made special mention of landscape.
"I believe that
landscape professionals – our members – really are the people with the skills
and knowledge to take the lead on delivering the ambitions the government has
set out."
