Biodiversity: Aichi Targets

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

As far as we can see, the postponement has not damaged the agenda, in the same way that our being given a few extra months to deliver the climate clock at the end of next year has given us more time to build up more coalitions to drive greater ambition and to push a much more radical agenda than I think we would have been able to had we been required to deliver to the old agenda. I very much hope that the same dynamic holds true for China’s hosting of the biodiversity COP half way through next year. The UK is working closely with China to ensure that the strongest possible framework is agreed. We are also keen that a bridge should be built between the biodiversity and climate COPs, as we regard a success for one as having a direct impact on the other and vice versa.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]]

My Lords, target 13 is on the genetic diversity of farmed and domesticated animals. Strategies should be implemented for safeguarding their genetic diversity. However, published figures show a decline of some native animal breeds—pig breeds decreased from 170 in 2000 to 152 in 2018 and horse breeds from 178 in 2000 to 117 in 2018. What are the Government doing to ensure that a proper strategy is developed to meet target 13?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

There is no doubt that monoculture is the greatest friend of pandemics and disease and that biological diversity is the greatest buffer and hedge against instability and the kind of dangers that we have seen materialise in recent months. Although the details remain to be worked out at the finest level, we are shifting from the common agricultural policy, where payment is based pretty much on the amount of land turned into farmable land, to a new system of environmental land management that rewards farmers on the basis of their delivery of a public good. That includes environmental stewardship, management of land to slow the flow of water and diversity of species. I very much hope that this move to ELM, which is a world first, will deliver the kind of results for which the noble Baroness asks.