Birds: Conservation

(asked on 14th December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to take steps to set species recovery targets for (a) the Manx Shearwater and (b) other birds of conservation concern.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 22nd December 2021

As a core part of our commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we found it, the Environment Act now requires a new legally binding target to be set to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. This will drive actions to deliver wide-ranging improvements to biodiversity, including for UK birds. The Act also includes provisions to set other, long-term legally binding environmental targets, including for biodiversity.

We are taking a strategic look at how we can support species recovery to help achieve our targets, and will set out our approach to meet our Environment Act targets in our update of the Environmental Improvement Plan in 2023. The UK's seabirds, including the Manx Shearwater, are an important part of our natural heritage, and their protection is a high priority for this Government. We are working with Natural England to develop a comprehensive English Seabird Conservation Strategy. This strategy will aim to assess the vulnerability of each seabird species in light of the pressures they are facing and propose actions to address them.

Reticulating Splines