Is government hedging its bets with legislation?
AFEW weeks ago I wrote about the loss of legal protection for our hedgerows following the outlawing of European Union regulations.
For nearly 30 years, complying with those hedgerow-friendly rules had been one of the conditions for farmers receiving financial support.
Following a formal consultation and a campaign launched by the RSPB, the government has now announced it will re-introduce protective legislation. Crucially, for nesting birds, the new law will include a ban on cutting or flailing hedgerows from March to August.
There were over 8,000 responses to the government’s consultation, of which more than a quarter were related to the RSPB’s campaign.
This shows the importance and influence of major conservation charities when situations such as this arise. It is an example of how and why they should involve themselves in politics: party politics, no; non-partisan public interest, yes.
Most respondents recognised that hedgerows are an essential feature in the rural landscape and are essential for the success of the many species that rely upon or use them.
Nesting birds include linnets, yellowhammers, dunnocks and bullfinches.
In winter, fieldfares, redwings, blackbirds and others feast on their abundance of berries.
In addition, they support hedgehogs and other small mammals, many insects – including valuable pollinators – and a host of wildflowers and fungi.
There is a ‘but’ though. Whilst this is an unusually swift response to the campaign, it is a job only half done.
A consistent weakness in the government’s approach to protecting the environment in general, and wildlife in particular, is that their achievements fall far short of their aspirations and ambitions.
In this case, they have said that the new laws will be laid before parliament “when parliamentary time allows”.
The answer to when this might be fits the ‘how long is a piece of string’ category.
An election year is typically busy for parliament, as the outgoing administration tidies up the loose ends of its legislative programme.
It is too late for this year’s nesting season, which is already underway.
The RSPB’s chief executive Beccy Speight says: “Government must recognise the urgent need to provide clarity to farmers and land managers. We need action, not just promises.”
Maybe we will have a repeat of 1997 when, as I mentioned last time, the last piece of legislation passed – on the last day of parliament before the general election – was to protect hedgerows.
WE are approaching the time of the year when we return to our gardens, planting spring and summer flowers, cutting the grass and tending to veg plots.
As we do so, we will inevitably come across those ecological warriors, earthworms.
The natural world is very complex, a matrix of species, places and processes that gives us life, keep us alive and, at the same time, amazes and entertains us.
Most organisms, though, are small, obscure and live almost unnoticed while performing vital functions.
Earthworms, of which there are several thousands of species worldwide, are just such a group.
They improve the soil, helping to aerate it and increasing its fertility. By feeding on dead plant material they release nutrients, and their excretions and burrows loosen the soil, enabling moisture to move through it more easily.
This is all good news for your petunias and potatoes, and the worms are also tasty snacks for the likes of hedgehogs and blackbirds.
At the grand scale, research has shown that earthworms significantly increase crop yields, especially of wheat, rice and corn.
According to the journal ‘Science’, in what is claimed to be the first worldwide study into the benefits of earthworms, scientists have estimated their activities increase food production by 140 million tons per year. For wheat alone that equates to one slice of bread in every loaf.
They say that if earthworms were a country they would be the world’s fourth-largest producer of grain.
Common or garden they may be, but vigilance is needed to ensure their continued presence.
Predatory flatworms from New Zealand and Australia have been arriving in the country since the 1960s.
These flatworms, inadvertently transported with plants, are now thriving in the wild.
They can wipe out populations of earthworms, resulting in farmers and gardeners losing their soil-improving services.
The flatworms are a few centimetres long with a ribbon-like appearance. They lurk in damp places such as under pots or in leaf litter.
It should be noted that the humble earthworm did not escape the attention of the great Charles
Darwin. Whilst shaking the scientific world with his theory of evolution, he studied earthworms for 40 years.
In fact his last major work was a treatise on them, which sold more copies when first published than did ‘The Origin of Species’.
It’s easy to be dazzled by nature’s spectacles, but often the mundane and disregarded species do the really important work.
A weakness in the government’s approach to protecting the environment is their achievements fall far short of their aspirations