Global Biodiversity

Debate between Caroline Spelman and David Simpson

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered global biodiversity.

A number of colleagues have applied to speak in this debate, but unfortunately they cannot all be here today to take part. In particular, Zac Goldsmith—I think we can refer to him by name at this stage—is unable to be with us today. However, since he originally applied to speak in the debate, I thought it would be nice to record that. I am also grateful to colleagues who have signed early-day motion 624 on global biodiversity to support this debate today. If other colleagues have not yet had the opportunity to sign that early-day motion, I would be grateful if they did so.

The catalyst for this debate was new research, conducted by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, that shows that the global wildlife population fell by more than half between 1970 and 2012. According to the report, global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles have declined by 58% since 1970. Within that figure, the fish population declined by 36% and mammals by 38%, but the biggest decline, at 81%, was in the amphibians population, which shows how vulnerable they are to the challenges that we face, not least climate change, which further threatens their habitat.

The facts suggest that we face a global biodiversity crisis: without urgent action, by 2020, these vertebrate populations will have declined by 67% since 1970. The international community has agreed that by 2020 declines in biodiversity should have been halted. Frankly, these things do not compute—the international community is way off target when it comes to meeting its commitments.

When I was Environment Secretary, I had the great privilege of representing the UK at the United Nations conference on biodiversity loss in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010. It took place just after the climate change talks in Copenhagen had failed, after which people were very pessimistic—they did not think that a UN agreement would be achieved in this area. However, to everyone’s surprise, we did it. The agreement achieved in Nagoya states that we should take effective and urgent action to halt the loss of habitats and species in order to ensure that by 2020 our natural environment would be resilient and continue to provide the essential environmental services that we otherwise take for granted. To that end, a series of targets was agreed to, known as the Aichi targets.

The reality is that most of our planet’s biodiversity is not in developed nations such as ours, where we have already destroyed many natural habitats, but in the most remote and least developed areas of our planet. So the big challenge is how to protect these vulnerable areas and their endangered species, while trying to regenerate our own natural capital and lost species.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing this very important debate. She has mentioned the agreement. In the recent Paris discussions on climate control, not all countries signed up and not all of them turned up. What more can be done to influence those countries that are causing some of the major difficulties that we have?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

We have clearly made some progress in the climate change talks, and climate change is one of the things that definitely threatens, or aggravates the loss of species. There has been a significant breakthrough between some of the big players over climate change. For a long period, large countries such as America and China just would not engage, so we have made some progress on that issue, but, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, we need the rest to be as good as the best. I am sure that the Minister heard what the hon. Gentleman would like the UK Government to be doing to encourage that to happen.

In fact, 90% of the biodiversity on UK territory is situated in our overseas territories, precisely because they are less heavily developed. The Government made the groundbreaking decision to create the largest marine reserve in the world around the Pitcairn Islands and are on their way to doing the same for Ascension Island, South Georgia, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha, in a blue belt strategy around the world’s oceans. If all those are achieved, the area offering some form of protection will be greater than the size of India. That would make a significant contribution to Aichi target 11, which is on marine protected areas.

That points to the clear value of helping less developed parts of the world to protect vital species. Frankly, the cure to some disease that is currently a scourge of human society could be deep in the Amazon jungle. We have every interest in helping the poorest.