The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has submitted advice to the Defra Secretary of State on reviewing and updating Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan.
Steve Reed, Secretary of State Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has announced a review of the EIP with the intention of developing ‘ambitious new plans to save nature’. He has formally requested advice from the OEP to help inform this review.
Speed up action in the marine environment
The advice in the letter sent to the Secretary of State covers a wide range of areas that require action in the view of the OEP. One such area was the marine environment, where the OEP asked the government to speed up its action in this area and specifically said:
- Government is unlikely even to meet its limited commitment this year to ban all damaging activities in Marine Protected Areas.
- The latest data from OSPAR confirm the UK will more than likely not have met marine good environmental status, a legal requirement.
- This lack of progress highlights the need to more rapidly deliver current steps to achieve targets and commitments.
- Remaining Marine Protected Area byelaws need to be urgently put in place.
- Government needs to implement a new UK Marine Strategy that focuses action on those descriptors not at good environmental status to maximise progress and minimise the delay in achieving that overall objective.
Government largely off track to meet its environmental ambitions
Dame Glenys Stacey, Chair of the OEP said: “In our most recent report on progress against the EIP, we found Government was largely off track to meet its environmental ambitions. We called on Government to speed up, to scale up, and to make sure its actions stacked up.
“We welcome this review as an opportunity to ensure that the EIP is truly this Government’s central strategic plan to achieve its environmental ambitions and commitments, and for it to be transparent about how it is to be done.
“Government has been clear about its ambitions for house building and clean energy. As it develops its plans for such large scale initiatives, and as it reviews the EIP, it must take the opportunity to align them to nature, rather than work against it, to enhance nature rather than further deplete it.”
The OEP identifies five priority actions that will deliver benefits across EIP goal areas, the new Government’s environmental priority areas and contribute to meeting a number of targets:
- Get nature friendly farming right
- Maximise contribution from protected wildlife sites
- Speed up action in marine environments
- Set out clear mechanisms for reconciling competing demands for use of land and seas
- Develop a circular economy framework
The letter to the Secretary of State and full statement by the OEP can be read here.