Biodiversity

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, a character in an old radio programme had this catchphrase: “The answer lies in the soil”—although he said it in a strong West Country accent, which I could not possibly copy. The fact is that he was right. In his remarkable report, Professor Dasgupta emphasises the economic value of the soil as an ecosystem fundamental to life.

The problem is that, although we know some of the things that endanger soil, we know very little about how it works, although the farmers and gardeners among your Lordships will know a good deal about the fertility of their own soil. Despite the fact that we know a lot about terrestrial mammals and higher plants, such as how many have become extinct and how many are in danger of disappearing, we know very little about the conservation status of the billions of fungi, bacteria and protozoa in the soil.

Despite our ignorance of how this complex life-supporting system works, we know what the threats are: overly intensive farming without putting anything back; excessive inorganic fertilisers destroying the finely balanced soil chemistry; wind erosion; monoculture; and covering it with concrete or tarmac. Flooding carries soils away, yet we know that planting trees can help to prevent this. The flooding we have suffered in the UK and around the world over recent decades has been caused by climate change, but it is less well known that the microorganisms that make up the living element of soil are also threatened by climate change. Healthy soil is the world’s largest carbon sink, but soil could shift to become a net emitter of carbon as global warming increases respiration by soil organisms.

Professor Dasgupta emphasised that

“it is less costly to conserve Nature than it is to restore it”.

Can the Minister tell us whether there has been an assessment of the economic value of our soil and the threats to it, and whether there is a strategy to conserve it?