I read with incredulity the letter (30 April) from the nature minister, Mary Creagh, rebutting George Monbiot’s article (Labour’s great nature sellout is the worst attack on England’s ecosystems I’ve seen in my lifetime, 24 April). She says that “the planning and infrastructure bill is a win-win, for people and for nature recovery”.
A vast chorus of alarmed NGOs, learned societies, professional bodies, ecologists, economists, scientists and legal professionals say the opposite. These include: 33 nature organisations, spearheaded by Wildlife and Countryside Link (an organisation representing 89 environmental groups); the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM), which represents more than 8,000 ecologists and environmental managers; the current and every past living president of CIEEM, 40 renowned environmental economists and nature professionals, including Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta (author of The Economics of Biodiversity) and Prof Sir John Lawton (chair of the making space for nature review); a past deputy chair of Natural England and University of Oxford academics; and David Elvin KC.
Since Ms Creagh’s letter, the Office for Environmental Protection has confirmed its own opinion that the bill is a regression on existing environmental protection. She shifts responsibility for the bill’s future effects to Natural England, stating that it must “ensure there is a net benefit to nature”, without mentioning that it would be required to follow guidance imposed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
That the government does not appear to think it necessary to offer meaningful reassurance to these champions of the natural world is astonishing, but gaslighting the public by pretending that legitimate concerns are “misleading” is shameful.
Ben Kite
Consultant ecologist; Chair, CIEEM strategic policy panel
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