On Thursday 11th September the DPA headed to the Wild Summit 25 in Bristol. The event was hosted by Wildlife and Countryside Link and brought together over 30 major nature organisations and more than 1000 people for a full day of talks, workshops and sessions to discuss the challenge of 5 short years to meet the Government’s 30×30 programme.
30×30 is a worldwide initiative for governments to designate 30% of Earth’s land and ocean area as protected areas by 2030. Explicit in this aspiration is the need for greater human connecting to nature and access to green spaces.
Currently just 6% of UK land is properly protected for nature, far short of the Government’s 30% by 2030 target. Conservationists warn that the UK risks missing its target by a ‘country mile’.
This sell-out conference brought together nature and climate campaigners, green businesses, charities and decision-makers in a first-of-a-kind event.
Charities challenge Government to speed up reform of finance, planning, water and farming systems to halt nature’s decline by 2030. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Mary Creagh announced measures to ensure emergency authorizations of banned pesticides fully take into the account the risks posed to nature.
One of the recurrent themes was how to leverage private finance to fund nature restoration and deliver local public goods. What came through clearly was, firstly, that without a combined private, public and third sector approach, including key industries like agriculture, then progress will continue to be slow and the full potential of our natural capital will not by unleashed. Secondly, that better regulation and controls are need to ensure that private money is spent locally (e.g. BNG on house building projects).
On a more sobering note, the time to achieve 30×30 is running out fast. We should also be cautious about invented deadlines, the work needs to happen regardless of 2030 and absolutely critical to it all is a proper national and local land use strategy, making the most of what we already have; council land, NHS land, forgotten sites and community assets. Importantly for National Landscapes is also a innovative set of agri-environment schemes that both supports sustainable farm and land businesses whilst delivering public goods.