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Celebrities, charities and the public want radical new commitments for nature from politicians at the 2024 general election

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  • Major ‘Nature 2030’ campaign launches today with landmark 5-point plan for nature
  • The 5 key asks of political parties include: doubling the wildlife-friendly farming budget, making polluters pay for nature restoration, a large-scale green jobs creation scheme, increased protection and funding for wildlife sites and a new law guaranteeing environmental rights,
  • New research shows the public is unimpressed with the Government’s performance on the environment. Only 1 in 10 (8-13%) think the Government is performing well on key environmental issues, with Brits wanting greater environmental ambition from politicians
  • The vast majority of the British public, of all political persuasions, support ambitious new measures to help nature recover by 2030  

Celebrities including Steve Backshall, Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin, alongside a coalition of 80 charities led by Wildlife and Countryside Link, are urging all political parties to ramp up their ambition on environmental issues in the forthcoming general election. 

The charities, including the National Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and Woodland Trust, are today launching the Nature 2030 campaign. The campaign outlines a 5-point plan of landmark measures needed to restore nature by 2030. The coalition is calling on all political parties to get behind these proposals in their general election manifestos to deliver on public appetite for greater environmental ambition and to meet binding targets for nature by 2030 and climate by 2050.

New research has found very low public satisfaction with Government spending and performance on the environment, with high demand for more ambitious environmental commitments from politicians. [2] Key findings include:

  • Only around 1 in 10 Brits think that the Government is performing well in key environmental areas.Even Conservative voters are underwhelmed by the Government’s performance, with a maximum of 21% thinking the Government is doing well on any key nature issue
  • More than half of Brits (53%) say Government is not doing or spending enough on environmental issues, with Labour and Lib Dem voters feeling particularly strongly that there is a lack of ambition. 73% and 78% of previous Labour and Lib dem voters respectively, say not enough is being done or spent on the environment
  • All five of the headline policies nature experts are proposing are well supported by the public, with support of 68% to 83% for each measure (with only between 4-10% of the public opposing any of the measures). [4] Making big business behave more environmentally responsibly is the measure the public back most strongly, with 83% supporting requiring businesses to pay to clean up the pollution they create (including 57% strongly supporting) and just 5% opposing
  • Support Is very high across voters of all political stripes, but is highest among Lib Dem voters with support of 78-91% for the measures, compared to 71-86% for Labour voters and 63-83% of Conservative voters


Richard Benwell, CEO of Wildlife and Countryside Link said: “Next year, the environment will be a major election battleground. Like rivals in an Attenborough film, politicians will be vying to be seen to be greener. But vague promises to be nice to nature simply won’t suffice. Our research shows that people are deeply unhappy with the lack of progress for nature, and that the majority of us want to see the investment and regulation needed to restore our natural world.

“The Nature 2030 campaign, backed by 80 charities, challenges all party leaders to commit to five radical reforms needed to halt the decline of wildlife by 2030 – greener farming, green jobs, polluter levies for big business, more wildlife sites, and environmental rights for all. We’re inviting everyone to sign our open letter to party leaders, so that when the politicians next lock horns, it will be clear to everyone who is really willing to take action for nature.”

Naturalist and explorer Steve Backshall, said:  “Everywhere I’ve travelled nature is on a knife edge. From the river at the bottom of my garden, to the bottom of the ocean, to the furthest reaches of the Amazon, I don’t know how much longer we have to save threatened wildlife and restore nature.

“Two years ago, I was pleased to welcome the Government’s legal target to stop wildlife losses here in England, but since then I’ve seen nothing like the scale of action needed to make it happen, just more political point-scoring. That’s why I’m backing the Nature 2030 campaign, and its five demands to turn things around. Nature isn’t a ‘nice thing to have’, it’s a necessity, and it’s time that all political parties stepped forward to deliver better for nature.”

Hilary McGrady, Director-General of the National Trust, said: “With a general election on the horizon, and widespread support for greater environmental action, we need to see all political parties step up their ambition to respond to the nature crisis. The UK remains one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and the evidence is clear that, without major change, there’s simply no prospect of halting the decline of nature by 2030.

 “Poll after poll shows that the public want a better future for our rivers and wildlife, for the changing climate, and for our next generation. And the recent People’s Plan for Nature, published by the first UK-wide citizens’ assembly on the topic, made clear that nature must be at the heart of all decision-making – not treated as an add-on. Political parties have a simple choice ahead of them, commit to action to support nature or face complicity in its collapse.”

The Nature 2030 campaign asks are being launched today (18 July) at a parliamentary event with leading politicians including speakers The Rt Hon Sir Ed Davey, Natural Environment Minister Trudy Harrison, and Caroline Lucas. The 5 landmark commitments nature experts are seeking from political parties are:

  1. A pay rise for nature and farmers: Doubling the nature-friendly farming budget to £6bn pay for ambitious farm improvements and large-scale nature restoration.
  2. Making polluters pay: Putting a Nature Recovery Obligation in law, requiring polluting big businesses to deliver environmental improvement plans, and funding to counter the damage they cause to nature
  3. More space for nature by 2030:  A 30×30 rapid delivery programme restoring protected sites and landscapes and creating a Public Nature Estate to fulfil the promise to protect 30% of the land and sea for nature, and deliver more nature in all communities.
  4. Delivering the green jobs we need: A National Nature Service, delivering wide scale habitat restoration and creating thousands of green jobs
  5. A Right to a Healthy Environment: establishing a human right to clean air and water and access to nature, building nature into decision making, enabling people to hold decision makers to account and driving changes that will recover nature and improve public health.

In 2022, the UK signed an international deal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. In England, that promise is underpinned by a legal duty in the Environment Act 2021 to stop the decline of species abundance, and a commitment to protect 30% of the land and sea for nature.

This leaves just seven years to turn environmental promises into reality. However, as the Office for Environmental Protection concluded, ‘the current pace and scale of action will not deliver the changes necessary to significantly improve the environment’. For nature, this means loss of irreplaceable habitats and 15% of our wildlife species at risk of extinction. For people and businesses, it means continued decline of air, water and nature will harm health and prosperity. For the climate, there is no hope of meeting net zero without restoring nature. The current Government has been quick with words but slower with delivery and the Nature 2030 coalition is urging commitments that will make a rapid change on the ground.

The coalition of charities is today also urging members of the public to add their name to an open letter being sent to all the main political parties to call for more radical nature commitments. Members of the public can add their name here.

 

Regulation to prevent continued PFAS pollution in the UK environment

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**You can read the entirety of the information on this campaign here.**

 

There is now clear and unequivocal evidence that demonstrates global contamination of the environment, wildlife and human populations by per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, PFAS.

  • Widespread PFAS-use has created an irreversible toxic legacy of global contamination.
  • PFAS are accumulating in our bodies and those of our children.
  • PFAS exposure poses an immediate threat to human health.
  • PFAS pollution is fuelling the biodiversity crisis.
  • PFAS pollution is a threat to UK drinking water.
  • PFAS in products create a barrier to the circular economy and a waste problem yet to be solved.
  • PFAS-free solutions already exist, yet PFAS continue to be added unnecessarily to many consumer products.
  • With the planetary boundary for chemical pollution already largely exceeded, there is no time to wait!

 

The undersigned organisations therefore call on the UK Government to:

1. Restrict the production and use of ALL PFAS as one group by 2025, with the following recommendations and exemptions:

a. Take immediate action to phase-out PFAS where suitable alternatives are already in regular use across the UK market (e.g. in food packaging).

b. Take immediate action to prevent products containing high levels of PFAS being marketed as ‘compostable’.

c. Grant time-limited exemptions (with caveats, see points 2a-c below) where the continued use of PFAS is proven to be essential for the health, safety or functioning of society, AND where no suitable alternative currently exists.

2. Where an exemption for continued use is granted the following conditions must apply:

a. Stringent risk-management requirements must be in place to ensure zero-emission to the environment at all stages of the life-cycle.

b. Regular reassessment should be carried out to ensure the conditions of the exemption remain valid.

c. Exemptions should be time-limited, ensuring a full phase-out by 2035.

3. Ensure sufficient funding and support is available to drive research and innovation towards safe and sustainable PFAS alternatives.

4. Submit a proposal to the Stockholm Convention for global elimination of ALL PFAS.

 

Chemical pollution has passed the safe limit for humanity, and with scientists urging immediate action to reduce the production and release of novel entities it is vital that we do not delay measures to address the growing and persistent problem of PFAS.

 

Widespread PFAS-use has created an irreversible toxic legacy of global contamination

Despite no natural sources and only ~60 years since their first commercial use, the extreme persistence, mobility and widespread use of PFAS has resulted in global contamination of water, air, soils, wildlife and human populations. PFAS and their precursors are now found in drinking water across Europe[i] and the US[ii], are ubiquitous in UK freshwater[iii], and are accumulating in the marine environment[iv]. PFAS contaminate soils and crops and bioaccumulate along food chains1, with some showing half lives in the environment of over 1000 years[v]. They contaminate air and dust and through long-range atmospheric transport reach even the most remote regions of the globe, from high altitudes to both poles[vi], [vii], [viii]. With current analytical methodologies restricted to a minority of PFAS, and fewer still being actively monitored, our current understanding of environmental contamination represents only the tip of the iceberg[ix]. Continuing to condone this widespread degradation of natural resources risks devastating consequences for future generations.

 

PFAS pollution is fuelling the biodiversity crisis

Anthropogenic chemical pollution is acknowledged as one of the main, yet underestimated, drivers of the biodiversity crisis[xxiv]. Due to the extreme environmental persistence of PFAS (some PFAS have half-lives of over 1000 years), and their continued and widespread use across modern society, PFAS represent a major and increasing burden on wildlife. This both directly impacts population survival and reduces resilience to other stressors such as climate change and habitat loss.

PFAS are highly mobile in the environment with research showing the ability of some to both bioaccumulate and biomagnify. As such, PFAS are now detected in numerous species across the UK, from freshwater fish and terrestrial birds, to top predators such as otters, seabirds and marine mammals[xxv], [xxvi], [xxvii]. Recent research also points to the impact PFAS can have on key species such as pollinators, risking knock-on implications across UK agriculture and food production. For example:

  • In marine mammals, PFAS exposure has been linked to impacts on immune, blood, liver and kidney function in bottlenose dolphins, immune function in sea otters and has even been linked to neurological impacts in polar bears[xxviii].
  • In marine birds, higher levels of PFAS are correlated with disruption of the thyroid hormone and poorer body conditions[xxix].
  • In fish, PFAS have been shown to disrupt reproduction, thyroid activity, metabolism and development[xxx].
  • Exposure of bee colonies to PFOS has been shown to increase mortality and affect colony activity, with PFOS bioaccumulating in bee tissues[xxxi].

The threat of persistent chemicals is not new. Legacy contaminants such as PCBs continue to threaten UK wildlife decades after restrictions were first introduced[xxxii]. It is therefore vital that we act with urgency to stem all unnecessary sources of these persistent pollutants if we are to learn from past mistakes, protect wildlife and safeguard the resilience of our natural environment for future generations.

 

To add your support, along with Froglife and the below organisations, please send your organisational logo to info@fidra.org.uk

 

Healthy Environment Petition: Scotland

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Sign the petition for a human right to a healthy environment in Scotland

Everyone in Scotland deserves to live in a healthy environment. That is why the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland has launched a petition for an enforceable human right to a healthy environment to become part of Scots law.

The Scottish Government will consult on a new Human Rights Bill in the coming year. The right to a healthy environment must remain a top priority and be included as robustly as possible. We are proud to have signed up to the petition as an organisation.

The petition will stay open throughout 2022 and will be used to show the Scottish Government the strength of support. 

How You Can Help:

Please take a moment to sign the petition.

Once you have signed it, please feel free to share it among your networks.