Warning that lines will ‘push nature to the brink’

HS2 WILL “push nature to the brink” and threatens to destroy or damage irreplaceable ecosystems and wildlife-rich habitats, environmentalists have warned.

Installing high-speed railway lines could lead to the loss or damage of up to 108 ancient woodlands in England and put protected creatures such as white-clawed crayfish, the willow tit and the dingy skipper butterfly under threat of local extinction, the Wildlife Trusts has said.

After Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave HS2 the go-ahead yesterday, the Woodland Trust charity said the scheme would “shoot a poisoned arrow through the heart of our ancient woods and their wildlife” and become a “permanent reminder of backward environmental thinking”.

Green MP Caroline Lucas said important nature reserves and habitats will be “swept aside by the HS2 leviathan”, which she called a betrayal of the Government’s own recent Environment Bill.

A study by the Wildlife Trusts published last month said the proposed full HS2 route could destroy or damage five internationally protected wildlife sites, 693 local wildlife sites and 33 sites of special scientific interest.

The report, based on data from 14 trusts as well as conservation and landowning organisations, is titled What’s the Damage? Why HS2 Will Cost Nature Too Much.

It concluded there were too many protected sites and species at risk of harm, failures to propose adequate “mitigation and compensation” for environmental impacts, and a failure to achieve “no net loss to biodiversity”.

The report said: “At a time of continued and devastating wildlife declines and climate emergency, this damage will push nature to the brink, cause local extinctions, destroy carbonstoring habitats, and irreversibly damage local biodiversity.”