UK ‘is failing to protect wildlife habitats’, new EU report shows

The Observer

Endangered habitats

Government has pledged to improve environment record, but European report shows no progress defending designated habitats

Toby Helm political editor

Sun 25 Aug 2019 08.00 BSTLast modified on Sun 25 Aug 2019 08.02 BST

The UK is failing to meet its international obligations to protect its most important wildlife sites and vulnerable species, and now lags behind most other EU countries on key criteria, according to figures posted online by the European Environment Agency.

With the environment high on the agenda at the G7 summit in Biarritz this weekend, the data will be an embarrassment to ministers who have repeatedly pledged to protect the environment – despite imposing savage cuts on England’s statutory nature conservation agency, Natural England.

Under the EU’s habitats and birds directive, member states commit to improve the physical protection of individual specimens and the conservation of core breeding and resting sites for rare and threatened species. The EU also sets rules regarding animal welfare and works with the international community to fight illegal wildlife trade.

Member states have to report every six years on progress. But the draft figures for the UK for 2013-2018 show it faring worse than many other member states and making no progress on key measures.

During the period, the draft data show 82% of the UK’s designated habitats to be in “bad” or “poor” condition, unchanged from the last reporting period of 2007-12. The percentage in a “bad” state was 71%, compared with 36% in Germany and 32% in France.

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More than one in 10 of England's wildlife sites 'lost since 2009'

Wildlife Trusts says monitoring of ancient woodlands, hedgerows and churchyards shows 717 have been lost or damaged between 2009 and 2013

Monday 22 December 2014 08.58 GMT

More than one in 10 of England’s Local Wildlife Sites have been lost or damaged in the last five years, conservationists say.

Monitoring of 6,590 of the country’s “quiet, unnoticed wild places in which nature thrives” such as ancient woodlands, hedgerows and churchyards revealed that 717 of them had been lost or damaged between 2009 and 2013.

The Wildlife Trusts warn that the figures are just the tip of the iceberg, with many more of England’s 42,865 Local Wildlife Sites potentially under threat, and the latest losses come in the wake of decades of destruction of natural habitats.

Local Wildlife Sites are not protected by law, but national planning rules require local authorities to identify sites for their wildlife value and provide for their protection under local policy.

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Important wildlife sites secured thanks to a two million pound grant

February 2014: A grant of £2.7 million has been awarded to The Great Heath Living Landscape project, one of the largest conservation projects in the UK.

The Great Heath is a historical name for the vast heath that used to stretch from Purbeck to the New Forest has been described by Natural England as one of the most important areas for wildlife in the country.

Running across across Poole, Bournemouth, Christchurch and East Dorset the project aims to link two outstanding areas of natural heritage – the New Forest National Park and the Wild Purbeck Nature Improvement Area and connecting dozens of wildlife sites across the area.

It is anticipated that the grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) will enable the purchase of nationally and internationally important habitats at Holes Bay and Lytchett Bay in Poole Harbour and heathlands at Parley Common, Ferndown Common, Dunyeats Hill and Upton Heath.


http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/Living-Landscape-project-grant.html

Key wildlife sites hit in flooding

Nearly 50 of Britain's special wildlife sites were hit in the "devastating" recent flooding, according to a new assessment.

Initial surveys have revealed how storms and surges breached embankments and wrecked pumping machinery.

Otters and seal pups were among the animals caught by the inundations and there are long-term fears for the loss of coastal habitats.

Alastair Driver, head of biodiversity of the Environment Agency, told the BBC that the scale of the damage was "potentially very serious".

"This is worse than anything we've ever seen before. This impact of this tidal surge was the highest ever recorded in many parts and the impact to these wildlife sites is in many cases devastating."

Read on and watch video

Lucky to be alive - tokoeka kiwi chick - Button

RIGHT: Zoologist, Corry-Ann Geuze Langford with Button, the lucky Haast tokoeka kiwi chick. Photo by Ian Gill.

Friday, 2 October 2009, 5:26 pm
Press Release: Department of Conservation

Cute as a button and lucky to be alive a Haast Tokoeka kiwi chick has cheated certain death thanks to an intricate operation at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch.

Trapped and unable to turn its beak inside the egg “Button” was badly positioned and unable to get its beak into the vital air cell at the other end of the egg needed to hatch.

It was the equivalent of a breach-birth and without intervention the outcome was certain death.

Zoologist, Corry-Ann Geuze Langford, took on the nerve-wracking job of opening a gap in the shell just big enough to cut through layers of delicate membranes riddled with vital blood vessels so that Button’s beak could reach the air.

After several hours of intense work Button was breathing, no blood vessels had been severed and there were hugs all round the kiwi hatching facility.

“It was such a relief after such a stressful process to see the chick was breathing,” Corry-Ann said.

Still in the shell, Button spent another two days absorbing the egg yoke before Corry-Ann removed the remaining shell one-tiny-piece-at-a-time using tweezers and a whole lot of patience.

Button is one of 11 kiwi eggs and two chicks that the Department of Conservation has rescued from the Haast Tokoeka Kiwi Sanctuary so far this breeding season using BNZ Operation Nest Egg.

Corry-Ann said Button was a very lucky kiwi chick having been removed from the wild where 90 per cent of kiwi chicks are killed by stoats and then surviving an impossible hatch that would have killed it without intervention.

“It’s definitely a chick that can thank the BNZ save the Kiwi and the New Zealand Conservation Trust who set up the kiwi facility for us here at Willowbank,” she said.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0910/S00048.htm

Calls to review protected sites

Areas officially designated as England's greatest wildlife or geological sites may no longer be worthy of the title, the Government's spending watchdog has warned.

The influential Public Accounts Committee found that a Government agency was unable to demonstrate that all Sites of Special Scientific Interests (SSSIs) still demonstrated features of special importance.

Many of the 4,000 SSSI sites in England were first designated more than 60 years ago. Over half of these sites, by area, were said to be internationally important for their wildlife.
SSSIs are afforded legal protection - through restrictions on activities and development - which has helped conserve habitats and wildlife in England that would otherwise be at risk of extinction.

But Edward Leigh, Tory MP and PAC chairman, said there was scope for Natural England, an agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), to identify new sites and declassify existing ones.

In a new committee report titled Defra: Natural England's Role In Improving SSSIs, he warned: "The changing nature of biodiversity means sites may lose the special feature or features for which they were first designated, or may acquire new features worthy of conservation.

"New locations may provide a better opportunity for meeting specific conservation objectives. To make sure that public investment in SSSIs is directed to those sites and locations which offer the best value for money in conservation and cost terms, Natural England should establish a systematic approach to reviewing the designation of existing sites and to identifying and designating new sites."

The cross-party committee of MPs suggested that the current approach of designating individual locations may not be the most appropriate, as biodiversity responded to increasing climate and environmental pressures. Instead, "natural corridors" could be used to allow species to move between habitats.

The Government expects to meet its target to bring 95% of SSSI land area into a "favourable" or "recovering" condition by December 2010. However, it could be many years before some sites reach a 'favourable' condition and the committee urged Natural England to do more to monitor their progress.

Mr Leigh said: "It hardly inspires confidence that Natural England's performance in managing sites is based on out of date information and incomplete records. There are inconsistencies between sites in the information recorded. And, at June last year, the condition of a quarter of all sites had not been checked for a full six years."

http://environment.uk.msn.com/news/headlines/article.aspx?cp-documentid=148397299