Biodiversity Emergency

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman of the Woodland Trust and president or vice-president of a number of environmental charities.

As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, the biodiversity emergency is a real threat to our economy, our ability to meet climate change targets and our very survival globally. The Woodland Trust’s recent report, State of the UK’s Woods and Trees 2021, is a startling indictment of the perilous state of our native woodlands and their biodiversity. As the noble Lord said, despite increasing tree cover over the past 100 years, only 7% of our native woodlands are in good ecological condition and woodland wildlife species are in steep decline.

Defra’s 2020 biodiversity indicators report for England shows a chilling wider picture of decline: farmland and wetland birds are declining and the percentage of water bodies in good ecological condition is declining, to name but a few. The only things that are increasing are invasive non-native species and the rate of importation of plants and trees from abroad—both of which are bad—so it is official: there is a biodiversity emergency here in the UK.

If the UK is to show that strong international leadership that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about, it has to be exemplary here at home. It must start in the Environment Bill with those legally binding biodiversity targets. The soon-to-be-published English tree action plan must be bold and ambitious in tackling the challenges outlined in the State of the UK’s Woods and Trees report, including by creating incentives for effective woodland management. Investment in the UK and Ireland saw the UK and Ireland sourced and grown assurance scheme, the expansion of UK tree nurseries for safe trees and legislation, at long last, for statutory protection for ancient woodland. This is an emergency.