Protecting and Restoring Nature: COP15 and Beyond

Chris Grayling Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be speaking in the debate this afternoon. While I do not always share the views of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), I agree with much of what she said. She is absolutely right to highlight the imperative this year to deliver a good outcome at COP. I very much welcome the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), to his new position. Nobody is expecting him to be able to rewrite the world in one afternoon, but I hope he will be able to secure or stay in his position, and that he will listen to this afternoon’s debate and take a steer on a subject that brings together Members from all parts of the House.

This issue does not divide us—fundamentally, every one of us agrees that the loss of the natural world is a disaster in every respect that has to be reversed step by step. We have to take an approach that begins to rebuild nature. I happen to believe that we can do that and achieve other things as well—I do not think this is an either/or, as I will explain. This is such an imperative, and this year it is so important that the world acts and, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion rightly says, starts to deliver.

It is a matter of regret to me that the COP summit is not happening in China. In reality, we need the Chinese in particular to take a lead on this, because they are by far the world’s biggest consumers right now. Given the scale of China and the emerging demand for natural products and agricultural products in China—apart from the issues we all know about relating to the parts of the wildlife trade that we all abhor and detest—we need the Chinese to be at the heart of the necessary changes, so it is a shame that they are not hosting the summit. However, I very much hope they will still play an active part in it.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I am listening with interest to the comments that my right hon. Friend has made. It is unfortunate that COP15 was unable to take place in China. Does he not agree that to try to ensure that China recognises the global importance of its chairmanship of COP15, albeit in Canada, we need as many world leaders as possible to attend in Montreal, including whoever is the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? They should put the date in their calendar and make it a priority to attend in Montreal, to take part in those negotiations and to demonstrate that we need a Paris moment for nature. The UK’s leadership at COP26, delivering the Glasgow climate pact and also our leadership on net zero have been conditional on ensuring that leaders at the very top take part in negotiations. Does he agree that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should also be there in December?

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with that. I hope that he or she—whoever is elected—will do that. One of the questions I have been asking the candidates is, “Will you protect and keep up the agenda that this Government already have on the environment?” We are seen as leaders internationally. Yes, the strategies need to be actioned, but nevertheless we are doing good work in this area. We are targeting aid in the right places, and we are doing as much as any nation on Earth, but that does not mean there is not an awful lot more to do, and that is one of the things I will be talking about this afternoon. I absolutely agree with the point he is making.

Let me start by touching momentarily on what we are doing here, and then I will go on to talk about the international challenge. First, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion is absolutely right to talk about the decline in native species. She is parliamentary species champion for a sadly rare flower in Sussex. I am parliamentary species champion for the not yet very rare, but much too reduced in number, hedgehog. There used to be 35 million hedgehogs in the UK, and there are now probably 1.5 million. The numbers are recovering in urban areas, but not in rural areas. The decline has been appalling, and if we do not do something to reverse it, they will rapidly move from the vulnerable list to the very endangered list. For a creature that we all love and adore, that must not be allowed to happen.

It is about protecting and extending habitats, a smart approach to the management of our countryside and doing things differently. I happen to believe that we have to be pretty robust in trying to change the nature of the pesticides we use. It seems pretty clear that they have been a factor in the loss of biodiversity. We have to do that in a smart way—we cannot compromise our food production.

As we know, we have a crisis in Ukraine that is feeding through to food supplies around the world. Last Monday, I visited a regenerative farm in Gloucestershire, which I thought mapped out a pretty good path towards sustaining our agriculture, but in a much more nature-friendly way, and I am encouraged by those who have started as pioneers in regenerative agriculture, which involves a much closer relationship between farming and the natural world, leaving aside more space for nature, much more careful management of the land and taking advantage of natural approaches to manage pests, rather than simply covering the countryside in pesticides. It is encouraging to see that that movement, which started small, has now grown and the number of people in the farming world expressing an interest in it is growing. We have to protect the interests of our farmers, and we have to look after and support our farmers, but I am yet to meet a farmer who wants to trash the countryside. If we can help them farm in a more environmentally sustainable way, that has to be the right thing.

I very much support the work that the Campaign to Protect Rural England is doing to try to encourage more planting of hedgerows. For a creature like the hedgehog, hedgerows in the countryside are vital, as is a good field margin. It creates the kind of corridors that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) was talking about. It is no good having wildlife in a little pocket. We need more hedgerows, more corridors and more space for them, and farming does not have to be done in a way that kills everything around. A wider field margin can still be part of a successful field with a successful crop, where the creatures can live side by side with the crops. If we do not take a much more enlightened approach to the management of our countryside, we will not be able to reverse the decline of species that we have sadly seen. That is our task here.

I very much welcome the steps the Government have taken so far. The structures put in place for farming, with a much greater focus on environmental stewardship, are good. There are challenges in the farming world as they adapt to that, but we should not move away from an approach that says, “We will reward farmers who can look after our countryside and we will encourage the use of farmland in the best way to sustain the wildlife that is so important to our countryside.”

I want to focus today on deforestation internationally. To my mind, it is one of the biggest global challenges we face. The destruction already done to forests around the world has had a huge environmental impact. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion made reference to what is happening in the Amazon. It is a scandal and a disgrace. It is mostly illegal, and it is a matter of extreme regret to me that as we in this House continue to challenge the Brazilian Government over what is happening, warm words are sent back via the embassy here, but on the ground nothing seems to happen.

Many of us in this House have met people from the indigenous communities who have told us in no uncertain terms about the illegal logging and illegal mining happening in those areas. It has to stop. I have said it before and I will say it again: Brazil cannot be treated as a good member of the international community unless this stops, and we should not sign trade deals with the Brazilians unless this stops. All our diplomatic contacts with Brazil should be focused around saying, “If you want us to work with you normally, this has to stop.”

It is not as if there are no alternatives. I know from discussions with people in Brazil that there are 19 million hectares of degraded land in Brazil, and there are programmes to restore parts of it. That is good, but they are still chopping down the rainforest at the same time. Why not focus on the restoration of land in areas where deforestation has already taken place and where that land has become substantially degraded, rather than simply cutting down and cutting down? It needs tough enforcement action and political willpower, and it must happen, because as the hon. Lady said, the consequences globally of the loss of the Amazon rainforest are simply enormous.

It is a matter of enormous discredit to Brazil and the international community that this illegal action is being allowed to take place. Month after month we hear from Brazil that the situation is getting worse, not better. It really has to stop. I praise the Government for the work they are doing to try to protect the other great forest, in the Congo basin. The noble Lord Goldsmith has been at the forefront of supporting efforts to protect that rainforest. We must keep that important work up as the Administration evolve towards a new leadership, but the Brazilian issue has to be solved. We simply cannot go on like this.

The biggest subject that needs to be on the agenda for the discussion at COP about how we should start restoring biodiversity around the world should be the restoration of degraded land. The World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that the amount of degraded land around the world is equivalent to an area the size of South America, and we can see it. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am an active member of the International Conservation Caucus Foundation, along with the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner)—we are very much of the same mind on these issues. I went with the ICCF to Kenya in April to visit projects in the Maasai Mara. As I flew back to Nairobi, looking down from the plane, I could see what has gone wrong. Areas that were forest have been cleared and the land has been poorly farmed. It is now degraded and will gradually dissipate into desert.

That exists all around the world, whether it is that kind of land in Africa, derelict mangrove swamps or areas of arid land in other continents. If we are to solve the issue of biodiversity loss, and at the same time provide livelihoods for the people living in those areas who have chosen to chop things down because they see it as their only option, we will have to start restoring that degraded land. That is the biggest thing that I want to see come out of the COP summit: a global programme to start to restore the land that we have lost, with some of it returning to habitat, some of it used in a proper way for farming—not subsistence farming where people scrape a living, but properly managed agriculture that can create genuine livelihoods—and some degree of sustainable logging and forestry, because that can be done in a nature-friendly way. The key, however, is to bring that land back into proper use.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I absolutely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. Does he not also think that we have to do something about the market for very rare, valuable tropical hardwoods? That market acts as a huge economic incentive for people in forest areas, because it is their only way of surviving economically. We have to do something about that as well, because we are indeed the market for those products.

[Chris Grayling]

I do not often agree with the right hon. Gentleman, but I absolutely agree with him on that point. None of us in this country should be buying tropical hardwoods for furniture or other purposes.

At the same time—this is perhaps where I differ slightly from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion—for communities in developing countries where we want to see the restoration of the natural habitats that are so crucial to some of the world’s most iconic endangered species, our starting point should be the people themselves. We have to ensure that there are proper livelihoods, so that people can earn a living and at the same time benefit from the restoration of nature. That means helping them to establish proper, viable farming on part of that land, on a much larger scale and more efficiently, it means ecotourism to bring wealth into those areas, and it means sustainable logging and the sustainable management of forests. All those things are necessary. This is, to some extent, about GDP growth, because that is how we give those people the sense that, by properly managing that land, they benefit from it and also benefit from the restoration of nature.

[Caroline Lucas]

Just to be clear on the record, I absolutely agree that people in developing countries who would otherwise be deprived of their livelihoods if current unsustainable practices are not stopped should be supported into more sustainable practices. We have an absolute responsibility to do that, but the idea that we should go out there and treat increasing GDP as an overall abstract aim is wrong. If GDP happens to go up, then fine, but surely our aim should be to allow those people to thrive by giving them sustainable livelihoods, not chasing some kind of GDP figure, which is what I worry about both here and there.

[Chris Grayling]

But if we do not help them to grow their GDP—and do that in a sustainable, nature-friendly way that enables them to derive real benefits from the proper stewardship of that land, the restoration of natural habitats and the restoration of degraded land for other purposes—in the end, we will not create the kind of local ownership that will break the cycle of illegal logging, poaching, the illegal wildlife trade and the rest.

My message to the Minister is this. This COP is enormously important. It is a vital moment for the world. In my view, it is as important a moment for the world as COP26 was last year. The hon. Lady is right: climate and nature are two sides of the same coin. We have played a really important leadership role at COP in securing agreements, which might not do everything we wanted but took us a step forwards. We need to do the same this year. We need to send a senior delegation, we need to push for a proper agreement, and we need to be leaders ourselves in what we do in this country, but we cannot let the global community miss this opportunity. So my message to him, as he takes up this role and as we prepare for a reshaped Administration—I hope he stays where he is—is this. Will he please do everything he can to ensure that the United Kingdom plays the cornerstone role in the COP discussions this autumn, which will be so important to ensuring that we manage to reverse a global decline in nature that should be a matter of shame to the whole of mankind?

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

Yes, I do. There was cross-party support in the House of Commons for the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and the creation of marine conservation zones. We basically have a planning framework; we have had one on land for a long time, but we did not have one for the sea at all. We are now confronted with a choice about what we permit. The ability to understand the consequences of what is happening beneath the waves is important. We now have the means to do something about it, but we cannot just say “We’ve got the designation —job done,” and move on to something else. That is not sufficient at all.

Yesterday, my wife and I were discussing what I might talk about in this speech. Apart from telling me, “You must mention the water voles,”—I have now duly done so, and I hope that she has noticed—she said, “Tell them about our oak trees.” For the past 30 years or so, we have been planting oak trees from seed, along with ash and silver birch trees. “Nature reserve” would be a very grand title for the eight acres of former farmland in Essex that my mother set aside, where nature has been left to do its work. The tallest oak tree is probably about 20 or 25 feet now. Over the years, the trees that we have planted—the trees that nature has brought—have brought with them cuckoos, owls, adders, foxes, muntjac deer, the odd badger and white campion, as well as loads of brambles that I attempt to do battle with whenever I can. Every time I walk on that piece of land, I feel the same sense of anticipation about what has changed, what has grown and what is different.

Why do we feel like this? Because nature is part of our very soul. It is about who we are and where we come from. Think of how we encounter it—looking out of the window of a train as it rushes through the countryside, seeing the first crocus of spring, encountering the wonders and glories of the Yorkshire dales, seeing a view of Ditchling Beacon or a view of Scafell Pike from Great Moss, or hearing the buzz of a bee at the height of summer. We do not hear that buzz as much as we used to, or see as many moths. I remember when moths were really common in the summer. When did I last see one? There was an extraordinary experiment in which people were asked to put a bit of sticky plastic on their number plate, drive around and count how many insects were caught. That showed that there has been a catastrophic decline.

[Chris Grayling]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

Ah! The right hon. Gentleman has returned.

[Chris Grayling]

I apologise for popping out briefly for a family call. Last summer, I went to the far north of Scotland. The further north we got, the more insects hit the windscreen. As more arable farming happens in the south of the country than in the north, that seems pretty clear evidence of the link between the disappearance of insects and pesticides. That is one reason why I was so attracted by the regenerative farming model.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree completely. There are one or two insects in the north of Scotland—midges in particular—that can cause a certain amount of distress, but just think of the glory of the Scottish countryside and the mountains. Who does not feel a sense of awe and wonder as they contemplate the astonishing biodiversity and landscape that our small islands reveal unto us?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

This is why my argument is around a real focus on the restoration of degraded land. Semi-desert subsistence farmland will never deliver anything for anyone except an impoverished lifestyle and poor biodiversity, but the restoration of land is a tangible that can be addressed in the COP because it can be measured and tracked.

[Barry Gardiner]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He is right that we need to look at land restoration as one of the key indicators. It is particularly the case in sub-Saharan African countries, which are facing an increasing challenge of desertification from climate change, which they are having to fight against, rather than just looking at the land that is already semi-desert and trying to see how to restore that. It is a huge problem. The NBSAPs must be living documents, which is why they need to be ratcheted up, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said, every five years between major COPs.

Let me turn to finance. I pay tribute to Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, who spoke at the beginning of COP26. For my money, she was the most powerful speaker at the whole event. She pointed out to the politicians assembled for the launch of COP26 that the promise we had given was for $100 billion a year to be put into the global planet fund to help the global south to cope with climate change and to take effective mitigation efforts. We have not delivered that, and we are nowhere near delivering it. She pointed out that it was not because we could not afford it, because we had just spent $9 trillion—trillions, not billions—bailing ourselves out over the covid pandemic. The funds are available and they must be made available.

The extent of quantitative easing that the global north has allowed itself since the 2008 global financial crisis has been more than $36 trillion. What is COP15 asking for? It is asking for the same as was promised at COP26: $100 billion a year, rising to $700 billion a year. That is essential. If we are to enable those developing countries in the global south to do exactly what the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell was talking about with regard to the restoration of degraded land, and if we are to deal with these problems, we have to be serious. As the human species, we do not have the right not to be.