Biodiversity

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Wednesday 28th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer for securing the debate. As this is the UN International Year of Biodiversity, it is right and proper that we should address this topic as many times as is necessary to drive it up the agenda. I declare an interest as a country dweller and a farmer. It is particularly necessary that we address this issue as the world has so spectacularly failed to achieve the target set up in 2002.

I declare an interest in biodiversity as the land I own contains four SSSIs, an SAC, a nature reserve and is part of a Ramsar site. I have certainly learnt a lot about rare plants and invasive species in dealing with the management of it. One of the great delights now is the annual visit of the ospreys, let alone a great cross-section of other migratory birds, including a category 1 species of Greenland white-fronted geese.

Obviously preparations are going on for the next UN Convention on Biological Diversity, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Selborne, which will take place in Japan. It was reassuring to see that the recent G8 Conference in Muskoka issued a communiqué underlining the present failure in meeting the known 2010 target and voicing the need for adopting an ambitious and achievable post-2010 framework. I reiterate “ambitious and achievable” and it would be helpful if the Minister gave the House some indication of the Government’s view of the criteria for such a framework.

Noble Lords are probably aware that in 2006 the EU issued a biodiversity communication and a detailed biodiversity action plan for the whole of the UK. Once again the action required for fulfilment of the plan in Scotland is devolved, but the actions taken in Scotland will help to fulfil the UK’s requirement. Here I am in a position of trying to determine whether the glass is half full or half empty. The picture in Scotland is possibly more encouraging than some mentioned here today, although there is nothing that should lead to complacency. My noble friend Lord Selborne pointed to ways in which we could enlist more members of society to achieve what needs to be done, but there might be some comfort to be drawn from the fact that, according to the 2008 biodiversity report for Scotland, just over 40 per cent of the 41 habitats assessed are stable or increasing in their biodiversity, and that about a third of the 230 species monitored were also stable or increasing. However, we cannot ignore the fact that about 15 per cent are declining. Also on the positive side is the fact that, at the end of 2009, 54 per cent of the biodiversity target was achieved. Much more needs to be achieved to bring remaining habitats to an acceptable standard.

One of the roles envisaged in the Nature Conservancy (Scotland) Act is the monitoring of progress towards Scotland’s 2010 biodiversity targets. By the end of 2009, just six were not being fulfilled. Prime among these seem to be progress in bringing protected sites into favourable condition; the necessity of meeting the target to contain the global mean temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade—this means talking about the whole question of climate change; and the contentious target of establishing the level of fish stocks to produce a maximum sustainable yield. As noble Lords have said, certain measures were put in place by the Marine and Coastal Access Act. I think that we would all be glad to hear from the Minister any indication of progress that might have been made either in designating our own sites or in getting the EU to accept designations and give them proper EU recognition.

I turn to the topic raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I was concerned to learn from a briefing given by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust which I attended yesterday that a survey carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology has shown that, in spite of there now being four times as much land in farm conservation schemes as five years ago, there has been no recovery in the numbers of an average of 19 species of farmland birds. The point was underlined by my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. It is an area that the trust is investigating. Strange things turn up. Apparently, oilseed rape is proving highly suitable ecologically for the overwintering of pigeons, but it does not help the species that are suffering from decline. If ever more money is going into environmental schemes and not producing results, as so many of those who have spoken have said, we must consider whether we are asking the right questions. I know that arable areas are seeing a decline in the number of larks, but we certainly see them on the moors. I do not know whether that means that we are heading in the right direction.

I have one question on what appears to be a blanket policy in the UK biodiversity action plan—we have already touched on it today. It states that if global warming proceeds any further, six species will have to move northward and others are likely to do so. On this I believe is built the policy which states that there is an,

“urgent need to reduce habitat fragmentation”,

which I presume fits in with the concept of wildlife corridors. There seems to be an element of irony in our pursuing this in too much of an unconsidered fashion at the same time as insisting that all farms and holdings have rigorous policies of individual biosecurity in case of the spread of disease. We are all too familiar with the scourge of avian influenza or one of the seven strains of bluetongue which currently threaten us.

I come to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. While wildlife corridors might help the movement of some species, are they not equally likely to aid the spread of pathogens and things that are inimical to biodiversity? We have already seen the ability of Dutch elm disease to work its way from one end of the country to the other even with what we might consider our fragmented habitat. Will it be up to someone in Defra to say where the line should be drawn? We have been left in no doubt by today’s debate as to the challenge that we face, but we must keep as much of a focus on the issue as we can.