Global Biodiversity

Caroline Spelman Excerpts

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.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that the UK Government often sign up to agreements that are worthy in principle, but the overseas territories that then become subject to those agreements do not always receive reciprocal finances to implement them? I know that in places such as Anguilla particularly and the Cayman Islands, that is placing an undue financial burden on their Governments.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

My hon. Friend and I were members of the Environmental Audit Committee together. He has recently rejoined the Committee and I know that he looked closely at the predicament of overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands which would not naturally be in receipt of funds to help them to address this kind of issue. It is clear that we all have an interest in their being able to do so. I am sure that his comment was heard by the Minister.

The approach of helping the world’s poorest countries to reduce and halt the loss of species was at the heart of our agreement in Nagoya. It inspired 193 countries to agree unanimously to own and solve this problem together. So everybody was present and did sign that Nagoya agreement. However, there were lengthy discussions about access to, and the benefits arising from, the world’s most biodiverse populations. That was the heart of the matter. The world’s richest nations wanted to be able to access some of the most biodiverse parts of the world, perhaps to find a cure for cancer, but in return the developing nations wanted to share in those benefits and for us to help to resource them in protecting those areas. That was the nature of what we agreed to, which was a genuine example of a negotiated deal.

Historically, the UK has provided international leadership on this approach and there are many examples of how we have done so. The most recent is the opening of the new David Attenborough building in Cambridge, which will become the new global focal point for research and practice to transform our understanding about the conservation of biodiversity.

Even before I became Environment Secretary, the UK was providing resources to prevent deforestation under the so-called REDD-plus scheme, which stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. If one is going to try to reduce deforestation in very poor countries, it is important to find a way to support those people who have not known any way of sustaining themselves other than by cutting down trees. If they are paid to maintain and look after the trees and to sustain the forest, deforestation will be reduced.

It is worth noting that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will spend more than £300 million of official development assistance by 2019-20, including funding to help to tackle the serious criminal industry of the illegal wildlife trade, which definitely threatens endangered species, and to deliver projects to conserve biodiversity and to reduce poverty worldwide, including in the UK’s eligible overseas territories and in developing countries, which will help developing countries to phase out ozone-depleting substances. When it comes to global biodiversity, no man is an island.

I have seen for myself how paying farmers in places such as the Amazon not to cut down their trees but to manage their forests can help us all, for the Amazon is the world’s largest carbon sink. However, the next challenge in Latin America is to prevent the adjoining native savannah, the forest of the Cerrado in Brazil, from being ploughed up to grow soya. Over half of that area has been converted to agriculture since 1950. At present, the Cerrado shelters 5% of total global biodiversity and one in 10 of every Brazilian species. Almost half of its 10,000 plant species are found nowhere else on our planet and wild animals that are threatened by the loss of the habitat include the jaguar, the maned wolf and the giant anteater. I saw there an extraordinary plant, the like of which I had never seen, called the shauvarinho, which captures water droplets on tiny fan-like leaves that have adapted to survive drought. It is not, therefore, just the plough that destroys species on that savannah; the area is also very vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

As I have highlighted, we now have the tool accurately to measure the rate at which we lose species and the cost to the economy of that loss: the national ecosystem assessment. For example, bees, should they die out and should we have to replace what they do, would cost the country £400 million a year. These days, we can put an economic value on the loss of vital species.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady was talking about projects in Latin America. She might be aware of the Yasuni national park in Ecuador. The Government there tried to raise money internationally, so that there would be no oil drilling in what is one of the most biodiverse places on earth—an absolutely pristine area. They could not get the international sign-up, however. Does she agree that that is something we all value, on a global level? Ecuador obviously needs to feed its people and boost economic growth, so in the end it was forced to go down the drilling route.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

That speaks absolutely to the heart of the current debate on how we use international development assistance. The truth of the matter is that the issue is an increasingly difficult one, as people experience hard times themselves. I am disappointed to hear it vocalised that charity begins at home and that we should not be helping people abroad. I certainly do not share that view, but it is incumbent on us all as politicians to explain why helping people in very poor countries benefits everyone in the end. We must all work harder at getting that message across.

To come back to the bees, the fact that if they took their pollinating brushes home we would face a very big bill for substituting what they do underlines the importance of the debate about the demise of pollinators and explains why it is such an active one. The principles we agreed to in Nagoya bind us to reverse the trend of species loss, and that will take time and resources. The wealthy nations that signed up to the Nagoya agreement are the ones upon which it is incumbent to bring resources to the table to help poorer nations, if we are to arrest that decline.

The sequence of meetings known as the conference of the parties, or COP, has seen some progress in agreeing, in principle, to double biodiversity financial flows. I say in principle, because at COP 13, the next in the series—due to take place in Cancun in December—there will no doubt be more discussion about the amount of resources we need and who precisely will bring them. At that meeting, countries will discuss the practical delivery of the targets agreed following Nagoya. The excellent analytical work that is being undertaken by non-governmental organisations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, to measure the level of ambition of, and the practical progress being made by, the signatories to the original agreement will be published to coincide with the meeting. It is the Ministers who go to Cancun who will have to face up to the reality of whether they walk the talk, so I hope that the UK Government will continue to provide the international leadership they are known for in this area by sending a Minister to the meeting.

Our efforts to halt the loss of species in our own country are going to come under close scrutiny. The reality is that most of the world’s most precious biodiversity is not on UK territory. The very fact that the British Isles has been developed has forced nature into retreat, but that does not mean we should not continue to strive to protect the species that are endangered here and to restore the lost natural capital. For example, a key action is to implement an intelligent and forward-looking biodiversity offsetting strategy for major infrastructure works. There are many infrastructure plans in the making, so there will have to be an awful lot of offsetting.

One of those plans is on my doorstep. High Speed 2 will go straight through my constituency and there is the opportunity to restore the polluted River Tame and enhance the Blyth river valley so that the urban populations of the west midlands conurbation can enjoy the green space and appreciate what nature has to offer. We know how important that is for overall wellbeing. I hope that the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will consider carefully proposals being put forward by Birmingham City University to regenerate the lost natural capital in the area.

The UK has made good progress on marine protection. It is committed, under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, to deliver an ecologically coherent network of well-managed marine protected areas within UK waters. However, critical gaps in the network remain, including protection for mobile species, such as seabirds. The third and final tranche of the English marine conservation zone designation is due to come forward next year and it is those critical gaps that I hope the Government will now be able to fill.

I have some key requests for the Government. I welcome the statement of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in response to the “Living Planet Report 2016”. It is encouraging that she has emphasised her commitment to protecting and restoring our natural environment for future generations. She has also called on us all to play our part. Indeed, every individual can play a role in arresting the loss of species. I certainly advocate that anyone who has not done so take part in the RSPB’s bird count once a year. The count will enable us to have some sense, against a baseline, of whether the common species we all grew up with are thriving or declining. That is particularly important when it comes to the demise of farmland birds, and everyone can do their bit.

The Secretary of State has highlighted two key areas in which the UK has been successful, one being the blue belt protection for our overseas territories and the other helping to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State will attend the next IWT conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, next month, providing the kind of leadership for which the UK is known. However, as I have already mentioned, it is critical that we send high-level ministerial representation to December’s conference of the parties in Cancun. I cannot stress enough how important it is that a Minister is there—193 countries are present at the meetings. We often underestimate the capacity that the UK has, because of its heritage and the leadership it has provided on the issue, to be involved as a facilitator, in particular between countries that are dragging their feet a bit, and to get their agreement. I really hope that a Minister will be able to attend.

We must be visible and vocal as a leader on the world’s stage, and establishing a clear presence in December will be an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to continuing as an environmental leader. That will underline that the UK still wants to be at the forefront of the fight against biodiversity decline.

It is evident that tackling biodiversity loss will require a multisector approach, and in that we are helped by the fact that since the Nagoya agreement we have the framework of sustainable development goals—SDGs—which provides a context for our actions and our approach. The SDGs have the power to create a safer, fairer world, but we must now implement them ourselves, with careful cross-Government co-ordination and a clear focus on the challenges outlined in the report.

Goals 14 and 15 are directly connected to the convention on biological diversity and the Aichi targets, and they address reducing biodiversity loss on land and in the marine environment. Many of the targets are due for completion in 2020—in less than four years’ time. However, at the current rate of progress, those will be the first of the sustainable development goals the UK will fail to meet. As we know, the deadline for most of the SDGs is 2030. So there is real pressure, and an urgency to get on and implement what we can to achieve the targets.

It is important that DEFRA and the Department for International Development work closely together on implementation. I found, as Environment Secretary, that DFID was extremely helpful to the cause; indeed it gave me the money to be able to provide assistance in very poor countries where species were endangered. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that DEFRA continues to work closely with DFID in that area.

[Dr Offord]

rose—

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I was about to finish, but I will give way.

[Dr Offord]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree that it is welcome that the Natural Capital Committee reports directly to the Chancellor? That ensures that policy is accompanied by finances and reinforces and reiterates to us that nature does not come for free.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

My hon. Friend is completely right. I should have said that it is not only about DEFRA and DFID working together; the Treasury holds the purse strings. He is right that the Natural Capital Committee—its chair, Professor Dieter Helm, provides outstanding leadership—reporting directly to the Chancellor is the best way of reminding the Treasury that nature comes at a price and that we need to reflect that in the decisions we make and the resources it gets.

I hope that we will shortly see a clear plan from the Government on the sustainable development goals. DEFRA’s forthcoming 25-year plan for the environment is also a key opportunity. I hope that Ministers will use it to set out how they will work to reduce the UK’s international carbon footprint, as well as to protect nature at home. Ministers will need to carefully weave together the domestic and international dimensions. We must emphasise intergenerational accountability and include mechanisms to assess the impact of policy on nature and the natural capital we wish to leave for our children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I am delighted that you have been able to join us for the latter stages of the debate, Mr Bailey. I am sure you will have picked up in that short time how important this issue is for the future of our countries and for future generations. I thought it was put incredibly neatly by the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally), who said of our generation, “Let us not create a global extinction event as our legacy.” I cannot underline that more. The debate has been an important contribution to making sure that, as far as possible, we leave a really good legacy for the next generation. I thank all hon. Members who took part.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered global biodiversity.