The Environment Agency has published their responses to both the Nature Recovery Green Paper & Environment Act-Environmental Targets consultations.

Nature Recovery Green Paper 

Some of the key issues in the Green paper for the Environment Agency for the water and marine environment include the following, amongst others:

Protecting wildlife sites – on land and at sea (Chapter 3) 

We welcome consideration of whether we have effective designations and systems of management and protection to deliver nature recovery and address the drivers of nature’s decline. There is much to support in the government’s proposals to streamline designations, processes and regulations. However, there is also a risk that any over-simplification could downgrade the present protections, which have to date proven to be robust, and so reduce the ability to protect the environment. The precise design and implementation of the proposals is therefore key to their success or failure for the environment. 

Successful nature recovery will be dependent on positive actions across a significant proportion of the landscape (including the water environment), not just nationally prioritised protected areas. We want to ensure actions deliver environmental outcomes in the right place and at the right scale and support the restoration of dynamic processes, to create resilience in nature and deliver value for public money. Spatial prioritisation, the provision and interpretation of evidence, monitoring and evaluation and partnership working will all need to be properly resourced. This will be critical to provide the ‘appropriate authority’ (the Secretary of State) with sound evidence for decision making. 

Evolution of policy language for the natural environment 

We believe future legislation presents an ideal opportunity for policy language to become more inclusive and expanded to encompass explicit reference to the aquatic environment (freshwater, wetlands, estuarine and coastal waters) in addition to the existing terms terrestrial/land and marine. Rivers, wetlands, estuaries and the species they support are an integral part of nature and of delivering nature recovery. The historic use of the terms ‘terrestrial’ and ‘land’ to describe both land and water environments does not reflect the deployment of nature-based solutions for improving water quality, flood protection and other benefits by management of rivers and wetlands, nor is it consistent with proposed water and biodiversity targets within the Environment Act. 

Modernising the terminology around terrestrial and marine environments would also be helpful from a species perspective. 

The full Environment Agency response can be read here.

Environment Act 2021: Environmental Targets 

The EA’s response states that “Along with the 25 Year Environment Plan (Environmental Improvement Plan), existing targets and other measures in the Environment Act, the proposed targets provide a good platform from which to make progress towards the government’s long-term environmental goals.”

The full Environment Agency response to the consultation can be read here. 

Defra have announced that the deadline for responses on the Environment Act 2021: environmental targets consultation has been extended to 27 June 2022. More information can be found here.