Green vision
Key objectives of UK’s 25-year environment plan
As the Government outlines its environmental targets, its plan receives mixed reviews. The Government’s publication of “A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment” has been broadly welcomed by conservationists who have praised its ambition.
The plan, created and launched by the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirms that all European Union environment law will be retained after Brexit. The Government has also committed to consult on new planning rules to make it mandatory for development to benefit biodiversity, and proposes to create new habitat for wildlife. Concrete targets include more marine conservation zones being created by 2019 and all avoidable plastic waste being phased out by 2042.
But while there has been praise for Defra’s environmental vision, doubts have also been expressed about the plan’s lack of any statutory teeth.
“The lack of legal underpinning is a fundamental flaw,’ says Stephanie Hilborne, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts. “What is the point of gently urging the horticulture sector to phase out the use of peat when for decades it has been plundering the beautiful moors and mosses of the UK? What hope can we draw from a promise to return wildlife to our land when there could be a change of mood in a few months’ time?” There must, Hilborne says, be an Environment Act in the next Parliament.
Meanwhile, others are voicing more pragmatic concerns. At the University of East Anglia, environmental expert Prof Andrew Jordan suggests that Defra, currently embroiled in administering Brexit, will struggle to deliver on the Government’s intentions.